We learn from History that we do not learn from History!
From time immemorial man has too often been judged, remembered, and manipulated by some mistake or bad decision made, dating back to Adam who is most remembered for his yielding to temptation in the Garden of Eden.
Yet it is hard to imagine anyone going from cradle to grave through life’s pilgrimage without making some bad decisions or sometimes simply associating with others who have made or continue to make mistakes. These are small examples of “the sticks we give people to beat us with,” as old people use to put it.
We’re led to believe that this is an intrinsic part of the nature of man which has its rightful place in mastering the “competitive edge” in the game of life. Observe to what extent some people will go to find something in someone’s past which would discredit them when aspiring to or reaching historic goals or breaking records of pet “heroes.” Such devious behavior is so commonplace that it is considered “the norm” in today’s totally out-of-control competitive society.
We are subliminally taught to compete from infancy–with other siblings or relatives, with neighbors, friends, classmates, and in every conceivable arena, especially in the categories of race and gender. Such divisive tactics continue to weaken us as individuals, as a race, a nation, and as a world society–only because we allow it!
Perhaps Willie Lynch, a British slave owner in the West Indies who came to America to teach the slave owners how to keep their slaves under control, put it most succinctly. In a 1712 speech along the banks of the James River (named for Britain’s King James), Lynch disclosed his master plan. “The method is so simple that any member of your family or overseer can use it, “ he exclaimed. Outline a number of differences between them, magnify them, then add fear, distrust, and envy, and Lynch guaranteed if correctly installed, would control the slaves for at least 300 years (if not for thousands).
This formula continues to work so successfully that the perpetrators failed to notice that it has been extended to enslave not only Blacks but other men and nations as well–including the perpetrators themselves who have become slaves to their own tricks, selfishness, and greed. Subsequently, no one today escapes the effects of fear, distrust, envy, and greed, which currently run rampant throughout the world.
But there is a remedial formula, which is just as simple–at least in theory. Reverse, the same process. Find some common ground on which we can place more emphasis on what unites us than on what divides us. Pledge our loyalty to a different Master – God; the Master of love and unity instead of man, the Master of hate and division. If love is God and hate is of man, love must be stronger than hate as no creation can supersede its creator. How long will we continue to allow the weakest and most destructive force to control our lives and our destiny?
Knowledge alone of this fact or any other is insufficient, however, unless accompanied by volition and action! There must first be a playing field for finding common ground. There must be voluntary participation in a series of basic training gatherings and interactions in order to remotely envision the power of unity through diversity and not uniformity, and there must be dedicated, persevering action in sowing seeds of love that one may not be around to witness the spiritual springtime of their fruition.
Native Americans and African Americans in particular have been destined to special role in the promulgation of world peace, we are told in the Baha’i Holy Writings–therefore:
“When a thought of war comes, oppose it with a stronger thought of peace,” A thought of hate must be destroyed by the more powerful thought of love, for In the world of existence there is indeed no force greater than the magnet of love.”
