My naive idea is that God created man with the unique gift of language, a means that should and can replace bashing each other over the head as a means of intra-species communication. On both sides, its time to use that weapon. Now for my crazy idea! To do that effectively I think there are two pre-requisites. First, there is a new moral direction demanded of us, not just to consider our own interests but to actually understand and appreciate the needs of the "other side" and moreover, to want FOR THEM what we want FOR OURSELVES. It is a huge moral leap. It is the ultimate moral leap. Like all good leaps it can also be taken in small discretely do-able steps. The second moral leap is the dangerous idea of engaging in a process of truth and reconciliation, to acknowledge wrongs done on both sides in the past and seek ways to reconcile for the future. (A process like this was pretty successful in South Africa) One the one hand it involves people diverging from "their story" and facing up to some very hard facts on all sides in relation to the past. It also means, abandoning the persistent fantasy that "other side" will miraculously disappear or move out of the neighborhood and imagine a future together. Anything that changes both the way we see the past and how we create the future is, by definition, dangerous.
That is where I start. How about you? Got any naive, crazy or dangerous ideas of your own?
Yes. Let's once and for all get rid of all these absurd distinctions of race, religion, gender, class, culture, nationality. Recognize that we are one humanity, one heartbeat, one life, one breath. That's my naive, crazy and dangerous idea.
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