We must eliminate the nationalistic virus that alienates the children of Adam and turns them into monsters against each other. This does not mean that we should eliminate national borders or abolish the social contracts among groups of people. We must consider the entire world as one community and work accordingly. This is not only morally right, but is the only way we can survive on this little planet. We can no longer be reckless in treating this planet, this precious earth, and can no longer be myopically selfish in our dealings with other nations. Otherwise, we will inhale and poison ourselves with each other's pollution, we will suffer calamities caused by global warming, we will spend a great portion of our national production, we will overpopulate the land, we will shed the blood of many innocent people, and we will lose our individual freedoms for security because of the economic and political problems in other parts of the world. The world has become smaller and troubles are shared more than ever before. We must act now as a world and revive the spirit of the United Nations with a new vision. We can no long afford jingoism, macho attitudes, another world war, always looking for an "evil" outside us, retaliating against violence and terror with our own version of violence and terror. We should not let terrorists or warmongers define our vision, our destiny, since they will only bring more disasters for humanity. We should not allow evil whisperers to dupe us into inflicting another holocaust against another race; we should have learned our lesson. We should not tolerate authoritarian regimes, corrupt leaders, kings, and emirs in our countries; we must be braver than the corrupt bullies. We should be vigilant against the myopic and greedy interest groups that have grown like cancerous tumors in our democracies, infecting legislation, judiciary, executive branches and the mass media.
Hopefully, this century will be the century of unity under the banner of "God Alone," so that the children of Adam will greet each other with peace by saying, "your system/religion is for you and my system/religion is for me." So that, all humanity, including Atheists and polytheists, share this planet in peace and justice.
"The Lord your God is One God. You shall worship the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength." (Old Testament, Deuteronomy 6:4; New Testament, Mark 12:29-30)
"God bears witness that there is no god but He, as do the angels, and those with knowledge, He is standing with justice. There is no god but Him, the Noble, the Wise." (Quran 3:18)
"Say, 'O followers of the scripture, let us come to a logical agreement between us and you: that we do not worship except God, that we never set up any idols besides Him, and never set up each other as gods beside God.' If they reject such an agreement, then say, 'Bear witness that we are Submitters.'" (Quran 3:64)
You may also want to read the complementary article,
To the East, Muslims, and the Middle East.
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EDIP YUKSEL, J.D. is a progressive American-Turkish-Kurdish author/philosopher/lawyer/activist (too many hyphens and slashes, I know). His recent English books "Quran: a Reformist Translation", "Manifesto for Islamic Reform", and "NINETEEN: God's (
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