To See Ourselves In Others: Part One by Beth Bartlett

I have felt both a responsibility and a reluctance to write about the escalating conflict in the Middle East.  The situation is so complex and such an unspeakable tragedy – acts of such terror and violence on the part of Hamas toward civilian populations met with even greater violence and repressive measures on the part of Israel toward the people of Gaza. It is a perplexity of the human condition that a people with such a deep history of being displaced and oppressed rather than refusing to oppress in turn, instead engage in the displacement and oppression of others that then erupts into more violence. Both are traumatized peoples acting out of deep pain and woundedness. Thousands have died, more are wounded and displaced, all will carry more trauma into generations to come. The very earth bears the scars of war. In the face of such unspeakable suffering, any kind of analysis feels distancing at a time when what we most need is to let the suffering move us to our depths.

Distancing, a failure to feel in our bodies our connection to all that exists, is precisely what allows us to commit such acts of brutality. It is the literal distancing made possible through the development of missiles and aerial bombardment that enables the perpetrator of such destruction not to come face-to-face with the resultant slaughter and suffering.[i] It is the distancing of what ecofeminist Susan Griffin calls the Western “habit of mind,”[ii] the mind-body value dualism alienating us from nature and our very beings, that enables such destruction without feeling, for this habit of mind has necessarily led to the creation of the category of “the Other” that “has acted as a receptacle for the experience of nature the European mind would wish to deny.”[iii]  It is the distancing of seeing those suffering  as “other” — something less than, not worthy of our consideration or compassion – that enables one to inflict such pain. 

In their joint Palestinian-Jewish statement on the current situation in Gaza and Israel, the editors of Tikkun acknowledge how easy it is to slip into this “othering,” and seek its antidote:

When we fall back into our separate and distinct identities, we risk becoming part of the problem, not the solution. Both peoples suffer from ongoing trauma. We are all on high alert. The fear is palpable. And it is easy for us to objectify the ‘other.’ 

Tikkun

We seek a third path that neither perpetuates a xenophobic response nor sustains an unjust status quo. This moment calls us to slow down, sit with the pain and complexity, and grapple with our discomfort. It is a moment for digging deep, seeing across differences, and remembering our deep yearning for peace and justice. It is only through compassion and empathy that we will find a different way.[iv]

How not to perpetuate a xenophobic response, the “othering” that builds a wall to compassion?  Robin Wall Kimmerer suggests that it begins with crossing the species divide — “our estrangement from the rest of Creation” — and turns to salamanders to teach us.  For, she says, salamanders are “so very much ‘the other,’ cold, slimy creatures verging on repulsive to the warm-blooded Homo sapiens. . . . They bring us face to face with our innate xenophobia, sometimes directed at other species and sometimes directed at our own . . ..“  But helping salamanders to safely cross the road that cuts them off from the pond where they need to be, she says, “offers an antidote to the poison of xenophobia.  Each time we rescue slippery, spotted beings we attest to their right to be. . ..[v]“ 

I don’t know whether xenophobia, fear of the stranger, is innate or learned.  I do know that it runs deep in the human species, as she said, sometimes directed at other species and sometimes at our own.  Overcoming it requires going beyond the divides imposed by the Western habit of mind to recognizing our connection to all that exists. Compassion begins here.

Compassion — from the Latin com, meaning “with,” and pati, meaning “to suffer.”  In order to act with compassion one must be willing to suffer with.  We run from suffering, shield ourselves from it.  But thealogian Rita Nakashima Brock urges us to feel the pain for the world. She argues that it is precisely the repression of pain that results in oppression.  Empathy with the suffering in the world is a precondition to the solidarity necessary for its healing. As she writes, it is “our capacity to suffer with the world [that] leads us to a sense of community with all of creation.”[vi]

All of creation suffer in war.  During years of occupation, with Israeli interruption of electrical power to the sewage treatment plant in Gaza, the sea and all that dwell within it have suffered as well. Except for years in which Israel allowed more reliable electricity, the Mediterranean off the coast of Gaza had become so polluted as to be unswimmable, cutting off the one respite people in Gaza had. As Fahid Rabah, an engineer at the sewage treatment plant, said, “We have more than 2 million people here in Gaza – and very crowded . . .. the only place that they can go breathe is the sea.”[vii] Now that Israel has completely cut off electricity from the people of Gaza, one must wonder what will become of the waters. The polluted water doesn’t just stay in Gaza.  It also travels to Israel, affecting the desalination plant that supplies a fifth of Israel’s drinking water, as well as its beaches. The waters of connection run everywhere.  What affects one affects us all. Distance is an illusion, and a dangerous one. It is only in our ability to see ourselves in others (not “Others”) — in the waters, in the salamanders, in those we would label “enemy” – and thus in our willingness to suffer with, that we can find the sources of compassion that heal our lives.

Sources:

Brock, Rita Nakashima. 1989. “On Mirrors, Mists, and Murmurs.” In Plaskow, Judith and Carol Christ, eds., Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. 235-243.

Gaza beaches safe for swimming after many years of warnings – Al-Monitor: Independent, trusted coverage of the Middle East

Griffin, Susan. 1992. A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War. New York: Doubleday.

Griffin, Susan. 1995. The Eros of Everyday Life: Essays on Ecology, Gender and Society. New York: Doubleday.

Kimmerer, Robin Wall. 2013. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed Press.

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[i] For a thorough exploration of the changes in the nature of warfare with the invention of airplanes, missiles, and rockets, see Susan Griffin’s brilliant A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War.

[ii] Susan Griffin explores this “Western habit of mind” in her The Eros of Everyday Life.

[iii] Eros, 42.

[iv] For the full statement, see Solidarity with Palestinians and Jews (google.com).

[v] Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 358.

[vi] Brock, “On Mirrors,” 240.

[vii] A look at two sides of life in the Gaza Strip right now : NPR