Others are not hell – Saadun Suayeh

In conversations with my Libyan and Maltese friends alike, the word ‘foreigners’ often crops up, in rather negative or even derogatory senses.

Foreigners are blamed for all sorts of things such as crimes, hitherto ‘unknown’ in our idealised countries, degradation of the environment; changes in value systems; stealing jobs from the ‘more worthy nationals’, easily forgetting that the so-called more worthy nationals consider these jobs unworthy of their qualifications; and a host of other false accusations.

The list grows longer when those ‘foreigners’ happen to be immigrants, both ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’. Such attitudes prevail in most societies and, when taken to their extreme, can lead to disastrous consequences, the most notorious of which were the rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe in the 20th century.

This mistrust of ‘aliens’ could be traced in human history to our ancestors living in caves, trying to defend themselves against intruders perceived as an existential threat.

This ancestral mistrust of ‘intruders’ took many forms as humanity developed. Those who were different from ‘us’ in religion, language, skin colour, class, politics or held a different world view whatsoever from ‘ours’ were looked upon with mistrust, suspicion or even hatred.

Throughout history, many bloody battles were fought in the name of religion, for example, either to convert the ‘infidels’ or to stop the spread of values and beliefs considered ‘dangerous’ to ‘our own’. While several thinkers in the west denounced the concept of ‘Jihad’ in Islam, revived in a distorted manner by extremists who adhere to hatred ideologies such as those adopted by ISIS, which demonise the ‘other’, they conveniently forget that the Crusades were also a form of Christian Jihad against the ‘Muslim infidels’.

In the history of Judaism, the ‘Gentiles’ were looked down upon as ‘inferior’ to the ‘chosen people’ but Jews themselves also suffered tragically from all forms of hatred and persecution, particularly in Christian Europe, culminating in the horrors of the holocaust.

We should strive to build bridges of mutual trust, no matter how different we are- Saadun Suayeh

In fact, Muslims and Jews alike were the victims of the brutal Inquisition after the fall of Muslim Spain, which created an admirable model for tolerance and coexistence. Several Jewish scholars excelled in translation, philosophy and poetry, modelling Hebrew grammar on classical Arabic grammar, contributing to an admirable tolerant civilisation. Unfortunately, modern-day Israel does not seem to be reviving that wonderful experience in history.

The 20th century witnessed brutal wars fuelled by the rise of Nazism and Fascism and the notions of racial superiority, which led to the demise of millions. Regardless of the object of hatred, which could be ‘Muslims’, ‘Jews’, ‘Christians’, ‘Blacks’, ‘immigrants’, ‘minorities’ and many other categories, the common denominator is a failure to recognise the ‘other’, a desire to vilify, demean and even to ‘annihilate’ the very idea of ‘being different’.

The 20th century often-misquoted line in Sartre’s play No Exit, said by one of the condemned three characters who complains in utter despair that “hell is other people”, was clarified by Sartre in later essays and interviews, explaining that it is implicitly conditional: others are hell if relationships with them are bad or toxic.

In the larger perspective of Sartre’s existential philosophy, he claims that we tend in our struggle for freedom to “objectify” others or allow them to “objectify us”. This vicious circle, however, can only be broken by mutual understanding and compassion.

Unlike the trapped characters of Sartre, finding no exit from their existential predicament, we should strive, for the sake of our own survival, as the bitter lessons of COVID and natural disasters have taught us, to build bridges of mutual trust, no matter how different we are.

This sense of oneness with God, the universe and each other, cultivated in its greatest manifestation by mystics and enlightened spiritual leaders, is what humanity needs today. Perhaps we finally discover that Heaven is each other.

Saadun Suayeh is Libya’s ambassador to Malta.