Lessons in diversity, pluralism, and difference

ORDINARY TEACHER'S NOTES. 23 DEC 2014. TUE. N2.
Lessons in diversity, pluralism, and difference.

THE PROBLEM in the world is that we have reduced everything to a binary.

Either you are Christian, or you are not.

Either you are Moslem, or you are not.

Either you are a Catholic, or you are not.

Either you are a Protestant, or you are not. 

Either you are a Sunni, or you are not.

Either you are a Shiite, or you are not.

Either you are IS, or you are not. 

Either you are a Daesh, or you are not. 

The binaries are endless, and we look at the world in this light, and we punish people in this light, and we exclude people in this light, and we take others as are our friends in this light, and we claim others as our brothers in this light. 

This is Manicheanism once more. 

And we are led in to this trap, seduced by it, even enchanted. Some are even tantalized, and with Tantalus lording it over our mind and heart and soul and spirit, we define our world in the way we want, a world excluding others, othering them, making them our foes. Friend or foe, this is how we have become. 

It is a discourse of tyranny.

It is a discourse of dictatorship, like the dictatorship in da Filipins administered faithfully by Enrile and his pit bulls: Either you are for the New Society, or you are not.

And now, today, still in the da Filipins: Either you believe in nationalism couched by the national language of hegemonic Manila and its suburbs, or you do not. 

Gardemet, we are not progressing at all. 

And we even make our women and young girls slaves, like the IS!

HON/