From A Single Being
There is a verse in the Quran that says,
“He has made you all out of a single being.” (Quran 7:189)
I’ve been thinking about this verse quite a bit recently.
We can theoretically acknowledge that there are over 8 billion humans on the planet at this time. 8 billion humans with the same human DNA, with the same smiles and tears, with the same kind of birthdays, weddings, and funerals, with the same color of blood, and with the same ups and downs in life.
But in our everyday lives, that’s a pretty big number to get your head around.
And in the policies of nations, states, corporations, and organizations, the lines between who is a full human with full rights and who is a lesser human with less rights often gets crossed and blurred and burned.
We are all made from a single being, but we’re not sure if other people are as human as the rest of us. We’re not sure if they should have the same rights as the rest of us. We’re not sure if they have earned the right to have their humanity acknowledged like the rest of us.
We give ourselves full rights, of course, because we can do no wrong. We’re special like that. But other people have to prove their worthiness over and over again. They have to prove their humanity to us over and over again. And even when they do, the rights that we allow them to have won’t ever be as full as our own.
Jefferson’s Idea of Equality
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In one of the later paragraphs in that same Declaration of Independence, he refers to the Indigenous people of America as:
“…the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages…”
Look at what’s happening here. Jefferson and his colleagues, feeling that they have been treated unjustly and unfairly by the King of England, have declared their independence and are ready to fight for it.
But the Indigenous people who have been living on that same land for thousands of years, Jefferson see as merciless savages inhabiting his frontiers. It does not occur to him that Indigenous people are also feeling that they have been treated unjustly and unfairly by the new colonial settlers. They want to be free of the settlers just as much as the settlers want to be free of the King of England.
Jefferson does not acknowledge the humanity of the humans who were there before him. The chest-thumping declaration that all men are created equal does not apply to Indigenous men. And women aren’t even mentioned. It also does not occur to this wealthy and educated statesman that Indigenous people, being human, might also have unalienable rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And it definitely does not occur to him that they have the right to all these things just as much as he does. None of this is self-evident to him. The only thing that is self-evident to him is his own superiority.
Jefferson sees his own humanity and those of his colleagues as higher, special, preferred, endowed by his creator. And such a humanity that he possesses does not extend to the Indigenous people. And since Jefferson is also a slave owner, he also does not care to extend the same humanity to the enslaved people of Africa under his control.
We Are Just Like Jefferson
We uphold the value of all human beings, humanity, and humane treatment in speech and writing, but we also dehumanize other human beings in our actual practices. We create a just rule of law for ourselves, but we also create policies and systems of inhumane treatment and cruelty for others.
Jefferson was a wealthy man and he was a well-educated man. But none of that prevented him from committing his own cruel acts of dehumanization. His wealth did not make him generous of heart. His education did not give him broadness of vision.
What does this mean for us?
Pursuing wealth and education will not guarantee that we will become good human beings.
Grooming our children to pursue wealth and education will not guarantee that they will become good human beings.
Morality Still Matters
There is a moral training that has to take place for all of us. Morality still matters. Right and wrong are still a thing.
We need to have the moral vision to see all other humans as fully human, just like us.
We need to have the moral willingness to uphold and defend the human rights of all other humans, not just the humans in our favorite and preferred groups.
And we need a moral vigilance to watch over ourselves to make sure we do not slip and fall into all the small and great cruelties that are recorded throughout our history and in today’s and tomorrow’s news.
Taking Equality Seriously
We have all been made from a single being. This is a fundamental truth. It means something. It means something real. It must be implemented, enacted, deployed throughout all our endeavors, personally and communally, in the rules of law and across the habits of culture.
Only then can we hope to cool down a world on fire. Only then can we hope to reduce the suffering of so many people. Only then can we hope to restore millions upon millions of dehumanized people back to their full human rights.
The question is: do we have the moral courage right here and right now to affirm and embody the truth that we have all been made from a single being?
Or are we really going to drag our feet and take another hundred years or another thousand years or another million years to acknowledge this most fundamental of truths?
The next time you see a headline in the news, ask yourself: “Who is having their full human rights recognized and who is having theirs taken away?”
And then ask yourself, “What can I do? I want to help. I have got to find a way to help. What can I do?”
This is prophetic work.
—Rahim