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COMMON HUMANITY We are all born as human beings. This is our primary and natural identity. Over our lives we acquire other identities as well. Most of us have religious, national and ethnic identities which are important to us. But all these other identities are the result of a social process influenced by many random and contingent factors. They are not inherent to our very existence the way our human identity is. We all share a common humanity based on our identity as human beings. Our primary identity is as human beings and our other identities are secondary. When we go to war with our fellow humans who are of different nations, religions etc. we are saying that we will kill our fellow humans because the secondary identity is more important than the primary identity. Our excessive devotion to our acquired secondary identities such as for instance, Iraqi or American, Christian or Moslem, is used to justify killing others who share the same primary identity, our fellow human beings. In this way we all face an identity crisis. We all truly share a human identity yet we constantly allow our other identities to become more important than our human identity. In essence we allow our national and religious loyalties to overwhelm our humanity so that we are willing to kill our fellows on behalf of our nations and religions. Likewise we imagine that security means security for our nation or religion rather than our fellow humans and we are repeatedly willing to sacrifice them for our security. The Human Union Movement is campaigning to bring an end to this crisis of humanity by reminding us that our one true identity is our human identity and security can only come from building human security, not from putting our own nation or religion ahead of humanity. Some people say we cannot live without some form of local identity. This is correct. The fact is we all have multiple identities. A San Franciscan for example may have a San Francisco, a Californian, an American, a Christian and a human identity. Such an imaginary San Franciscan has little trouble reconciling his different identities. He can be a San Francisco supporter when San Francisco plays Los Angeles but united with Los Angeles when it comes to demanding the Federal Government rebates more money to California. No matter how competitive he is with people from other cities and states he has no trouble realising he should not go to war with them or close San Francisco's borders to them. We all have multiple identities and we all have no trouble realising we should not go to war with others who do not share all these identities. What the Human Union Movement is saying is that amongst our multiple identities is our human identity. It is the one we often forget but it is the most primary and natural of all our identities. We should not allow our other identities to overwhelm our human identity and, quite literally, lead us to deny our humanity when we kill our fellow humans over differences of religious, national and other forms of identity. It is time to reclaim our human identity and build a political system that respects ratehr than denies our common humanity. |
| The Human Union Movement Putting human identity before national or religious identity And bringing an end to the civil war of humanity |
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| Bringing an end to the civil war of humanity ... Putting human identity before national or religious identity |