Can We Be Human in Tyranny of a War Culture? By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD

The Horrors and Pains Inflicted on the People of Gaza

We, the people of conscience, are living in a time when moral and intellectual vigilance is being ruthlessly purged from our very humanity—our very existence: “How can we be human in the tyranny of the US-Israel war culture?” There is no sustainable idealism in human life except as a painted fantasy, for there is both much evil and much good in the world we inhabit. If we claim to be moral beings, we must prove ourselves as such in all our endeavors. The truth is that we have serious problems defining ourselves as moral beings when ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, alongside bombings and the killing of innocent people, are daily occurrences, turning abnormal doses of inhumanity into the new normal of socio-economic and political consumption. These contradictions are covered up by massive political, economic, and inhuman manipulations by a few elite classes that govern global affairs.

Often, realist thinkers have wondered if human beings are born as bloodthirsty creatures. Michael Wesch (The Art of Being Human: A Textbook for Cultural Anthropology, 2018) attempts to define this and quotes David Foster Wallace:

RELIGIONS AND WISDOM OF THE WORLD
“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, and you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.”

Do cultures and civilizations grow out of the moral mire of bombardment, cruelty, killing, conquest, occupation, and destruction of humanity? If the US and Israel think themselves the most powerful nations on Earth, they are on the wrong path, having already killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with around 17,000 women and children still buried under rubble, all while an unhealthy atmosphere prevails in the strip. History shows that people and nations claiming to be the most powerful and transgressors manipulating the Earth and humanity are often destroyed by the Laws of God—natural causes. We are witnessing biblical warnings such as storms, flooding, earthquakes, and wildfires happening across the globe, just as the Bible warns its faithful. Many empires and egoistic leaders met their end through these natural forces.

Life is a trial, and bombing and killing fellow human beings is not a justifiable act of reason or truth but of madness and crimes against humanity. Has America and Israel reached that stage of thought and endeavor? Is it a gain in the present and a loss in the future? Do they not believe in the holistic conception of life as a sacred trust, with ultimate accountability to God?

Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: I will create a vicegerent on earth. They said: “Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief and shed blood; whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy Holy Name?” God said: “I know what ye not know.” (The Qur’an: Chapter 2, Verse 30)

Warmongers Waiting for ‘The Judgment’

The US Biden administration deceived and misled the world with talks of a ceasefire plan since May 2024, and a ‘two-state solution’—all simply to buy time for Israel to put an end to life in Gaza and the freedom of Palestine. Its Arab leader stooges in the Arabian Gulf region, running around pretending to be peace mediators, are nothing more than authoritarian complicit rulers, failures in all walks of life. We see US and Israeli leaders, with unbridled ambitions and power, unleashing violent assumptions of hatred, secret intrigues, and animosities that overwhelm the daily thought processes of a society—a nation, no matter how “normal” it claims to be, cannot function as a normal entity when it mocks the originality of Palestinians and calls for “death to Arabs.”

Israeli leaders had planned long before the Gaza onslaught to populate the region with settlers and rob it of its natural resources. Felicity Arbhutant (Video: “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves, Video Interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research: 10/23/24), explains: An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence recommended the forcible and permanent transfer of Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, specifically to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations, as well as consultations with the US.

A slanted vision flares up the dark face of political reality, with US-Israeli leaders pushing war as a means of peace. Their war economy is like scum floating on a torrent. Evil thrives when conscientious men do nothing. Human glory lies in the conception of good and righteousness—not in the hands of economic warriors, robotic machines, weapons of destruction, or agents of political terrorism. We are moral beings enriched with inner consciousness and a vision for peace, human unity, and a sustainable future.

It is a Hobbesian formula: “War of all against all.” German philosopher Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace, 1795) was more proactive and realistic when he noted: “Intellectuals must be seated in chosen assemblies and systems of public governance to prevent individualistic insanity against the people.”

Life and Earth are a Trust to be Protected

God created the Heavens and the Earth as a Trust to fulfill human aspirations and to allow human generations to flourish since time immemorial. It was never meant to be bombed and destroyed by sheer ignorance and wickedness. Are we neglectful of our origin and the reality that surrounds us? Life is a trust and connected to accountability. It is God Who gave you life, will cause you to die, and will give you life again. Truly, man is a most ungrateful creature. (The Qur’an: 22:66)

Our professed ignorance and arrogance toward Divine Knowledge have pushed us toward evil and futility in a global cataclysm—the treacherous conflict at the epicenter of man-made destruction, driven by lingering suspicion toward others within this magnificent Universe. The Earth and the Universe are meant to support human beings and meet all their needs across time and space. Are we living in a disconnected world of our own making?

How can we limit man-made terror, egomaniac tyranny, and devastation against fellow human beings? Jesus is quoted in the Bible: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you…” (John 15:18-25). How do we, the people of conscience, make these ugly and disingenuous politicians learn from history and change the course of events toward peace and harmony for all of us? The quality of our intellectual consciousness has been lost in the world of time and space. All international institutions are broken and deliberately kept dysfunctional.

Truth is one and unchanging, as it was centuries earlier. The emerging wars and destruction of Earth and human habitats are blatant violations of the trust between humanity and the Creator, calling for an awakening of human conscience and soul. “Truly man is to his Lord ungrateful, and he bears witness to this by his deeds.” (The Qur’an: 6:100)

All informed global communities are passionate about peace, not war. When nations and leaders subscribing to political absolutism start acting as though they are God and challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God, history shows that they become objects of unthinkable natural calamities—earthquakes, wildfires, floods, deaths, and destruction. The Message of the Qur’an (64:40, 67:40) clarifies the truth of universal brotherhood and wisdom for all times:

It is God Who has made for you the Earth as a resting place and the sky as a canopy; and has given you shape and made your shapes beautiful, and has provided for your sustenance of things pure and good; such is God, your Lord. So Glory be to God, the Lord of the Worlds. He it is Who created you from dust, then from a sperm-drop, then from a leech-like clot, then He brings you out as a child. Then lets you grow and reach your full strength, and lets you become old—though some of you die before—and lets you reach an appointed term, so that you may learn wisdom.

We, the people, must synthesize the awakening of human consciousness for an immediate ceasefire, peace, and a sustainable future. Our reasoning cannot be tampered with impunity, as those responsible must be held accountable for crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Caitlin Johnstone (“We never really had a chance to build a healthy world,” Information Clearing House: 09/11/22) clarifies what went wrong:

And we wonder why everyone’s so dysfunctional and self-destructive… So we’re all innocent, in the end. Again, we must, of course, push to bring consciousness to the parts of humanity that have taken a wrong turn—to the war criminals, plutocrats, and managers of the empire, and all other abusers and the abusive systems which elevate them. But underneath that fierce burst of light, there can also be a deep compassion and understanding born of a lucid seeing of how we got here in the first place.

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and is the author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany, 12/2019.