Thursday, December 30, 2010

Human Identity

Result: Failed

Imagining and visualizing a harmonious and peaceful world is an extravagant and utopian dream. However, dreaming about it is not bad after all the sufferings humans and the mother earth had experienced. This is really an arduous task that requires sincere passion and interest in taking care of ourselves, of others and of the environment we live in. How can we truly be truthful to accept that we are the enemies we are encountering? It is us that makes the world go round, letting it fall to despair, chaos and enmity. It is us that must be blame why war, famine, and environmental disaster exist.
     We tend to look ourselves as superior from others. Framing the reality based on our perceptive preferences. Shaping the world based on what we think and view it should be. Defining others on how they should act, feel and believe. Putting a crown to our culture which suggests supremacy, sophistication and leadership, thus disregarding cultural polarity, differences and variety of civilizations emerged from different or subsequent temporal periods and spatial elements. Is this the nature of human identity? Does human identity equates to (or necessarily means) race, color of the skin, structure of the face or eyes, nationality, ethnicity, religion and so on and forth?
     Human identity should not be taken as complex poles of different characterizations or manifesting unique attributes, whether the identity of human A is different from human B. What is the point of relegating human identity into subliminal conscience that each human has its own identity? Human identity is something universal that even if we peel off our skins we have the same color and structures of muscles. Even if we go abroad, we would assume that people there have eyes, face or similar anatomy like us. Contemplate and comprehend that nationality, ethnicity, culture, language and religion are insignificant in determining human identity. The nature being is that we accept who we are, where we came from, and respect and recognize other’s existence for it is you and I share the wonders and burdens of the world.
     Moreover, equality, in all of its aspects (gender, sexual orientation, racial background, religious affinity, and etc.), is the result and outcome of the nature of a cosmopolitan interpretation of human identity. If we perceived ourselves something superior from others, we are only facing our greatest enemy, and that is ‘our reflection’. Conceived perceptions shaped by our upbringing and framed by the society we live in are the contrived elements planned to determine who we are. Unless, we go on soul searching, travelling beyond the limits of the world, experiencing the anathema of being cursed because of who we are, and encountering plethora of human societies; then, we can say that we all have one common identity, i.e. being a human who faces lots of obstacles and strives to be the best of what we can be.
     You and I, we are all part of the same web of life cycles, of a wider community of human associations and societies, and of a global culture. How can we operationalize this universal approach to human identity? It should first start with ‘education’ regardless of primary, secondary or tertiary levels; the youth as students of philosophical learning of human identity. Building a subsidiary organ in the educational agency of the United Nations to train educators and teachers the modules of the ‘Philosophy of Human Identity’ and incorporating it to the curriculum as part of the general education. The mechanism of disseminating this information will be the task of UN partners in the sector of education like national universities, NGOs, and the media.
     The proponent will vehemently volunteer himself for the development of a certain universal curriculum accepted by all parties involved in the project. Afterwards, suggesting the developed curriculum to governments of nation-states to be part of their national education system from elementary to college. If the suggestion was not seriously taken into consideration by governments, then, a widespread advocacy programs with the help of partner groups like lobbyists in the congress and media outlets may intensify the campaign. With these parameters outlined, the proponent hopes that with the success of its implementation, a tantamount decline of human sufferings will be achieved and human identity will be recognized as a universal element and part and parcel of humanity.