Ethnic Nationalism and Religious Sectarianism Manufactured by the Ruling Class Has Divided People in Order to Rule Them More Effectively (Divide and Conquer)

"And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils. And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, 'How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.' " (Mark 3:20-27, Matthew 12:22-30; Luke 11:14-23)

On June 16, 1858 more than 1,000 delegates met in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse for the Republican State Convention. At 5:00 p.m. they chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the U.S. Senate, running against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. At 8:00 p.m. Lincoln delivered this address to his Republican colleagues in the Hall of Representatives. The title reflects part of the speech's introduction, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," a concept familiar to Lincoln's audience as a statement by Jesus recorded in all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke).

The Arab, the Iranian, the revolutionary

Hashem Beni Torofi [photo courtesy of Hashem Beni Torofi's family and friends]

March 27, 2016

Hamid Dabashi - Whoever heard of Hashem Beni Torofi? Have you ever heard of Hashem Beni Torofi? Of course not - how could you? Don't try to Google him. You will find nothing in English, and very little in Persian or Arabic.

In March 23, a noble man died peacefully in his home in Tehran. There was no official announcement of his death. Scarce anyone except his immediate family, friends, and comrades took notice of his death. 

The ignorance of people in both Iran and the Arab world, and by extension, around the world about who Hashem Beni Torofi was and the significance of his passing is no comment on his precious life, cherished legacy, and revolutionary ideals, and far more, a gloss on the calamity that has befallen both Arabs and Iranians who no longer recognise their mutual and common heroes.


A life dedicated to justice

Born in 1926 and raised in my hometown Ahvaz in southern Iran to a poor Arab family, Beni Torofi grew up to become a widely loved and respected physician and principled revolutionary activist committed to the cause of social and economic justice in his homeland.

After his early education, Beni Torofi entered Tehran University to study medicine in 1947. Soon after, he joined the newly founded Iranian Tudeh (Socialist) Party.

After the CIA-sponsored coup of 1953, he was arrested and jailed for three years. Released from jail, he returned to his medical studies at Tehran University, and with the Tudeh Party now banned, he continued with his principled commitments to the cause of the poor working-class throughout his life.

He was again arrested in 1959 and spent another 15 years in jail and in exile in the poor and disenfranchised parts of the country. He used this period to read and translate books that kept the critical edge of his mind sharp and alert. He returned to university again, and this time was allowed to finish and become a physician specialising in and practising general medicine.

Soon after the Iranian revolution of 1977-1979 and the regrouping of the Tudeh Party, he rejoined his comrades and became a member of the Central Committee of the Party.

During the devastating Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), he was in his native city practising medicine until he was arrested yet again - this time by the ruling Islamist regime - and sent to jail for yet a third time.

Upon his release from prison in 1986, he returned to practising medicine and treating the poor in Ahvaz. He continued this until 2008, when he suffered a stroke. Having lost his ability to speak, he was forced to go to Tehran, where his wife provided the peace and comfort of his final years.

The happy few, the mournful many  

I had, of course, heard of the significance of Dr Hashem Beni Torofi. But I was not aware of his death before mutual friends, both his Arab and Iranian comrades, informed me. A few scattered but heartfelt eulogies have started to appear celebrating his life in both Persian and Arabic by his friends and comrades.

Was Beni Torofi an Iranian or an Arab, a Sunni or Shia? Neither this nor that; both this and that.

But why is that the case? Why is there not a wider celebration of the life and legacy of Beni Torofi in Iran and the Arab world? The answer must be placed in the diabolic calamity of both Arab and Iranian ethnic nationalism and sectarian politics that have now befallen them both.

Was Beni Torofi an Iranian or an Arab, a Sunni or Shia? Neither this nor that; both this and that. The absurdity of even asking this question marks the cataclysmic catastrophe that has befallen the political cultures of both Arabs and Iranians, having forgotten what binds them together and what pulls them apart.

Beni Torofi was both and Arab and an Iranian by virtue of the exemplary life he led and in which he transcended the pathetic politics of both such compromising identities and rising to the revolutionary responsibilities of his people - both Arabs and Iranians.

The life and legacy of Beni Torofi are an enduring testimony to a world that is now thickly covered up by a ghastly ethnic nationalism and religious sectarianism manufactured by the ruling class to divide people to rule them more effectively.

Like any other massive political organisation, the Tudeh Party is correctly criticised for many historic mistakes its leadership has made. But the legacy of a massive political movement is not judged only by such mistakes. It must also be remembered by the noble souls like Beni Torofi, who peopled and gave it meaning and purpose.

The Arab and Iranian world in which beautiful people like Hashem Beni Torofi were born and raised will be forever lost to a false and nasty set of binaries engineered between Arabs and Persians, or Sunnis and Shias, if the rich and fulfilling life of forgotten heroes this world has seen are not actively remembered and justly celebrated.

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

A Palestinian Takes A Different Road In His Fight

Bassam Aramin, 46, grew up hating Israel and spent seven years in an Israeli prison. But he gradually came to believe that negotiation, not violence, was the only way to resolve the conflict.

Emily Harris/NPR

Editor's Note: In a conflict that dates back generations, Israelis and Palestinians rarely change their positions or their minds. NPR's Emily Harris, who has reported from Jerusalem since 2013, explores what prompts a relative few to adopt a new perspective. This is one of several stories.

March 23, 2016

NPR - Bassam Aramin was not born hating Israel, but he learned young.

He was 5 or 6 years old the first time he saw Israeli soldiers. This was about a decade after the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank. Aramin's large family lived an ancient lifestyle. Like many families in the area, their home was in a cave in the south, near Hebron. They farmed for a living.

The soldiers arrived by helicopter — a strange creature to the young boy's eyes — and crossed the valley to his home on foot, Aramin remembers. During a conversation he could not follow, one soldier, he says, slapped his older cousin.

"In his face," Aramin remembers. "It's like a shot."

He cowered beside his mother, watching his aunt yell at the armed Israelis.

Now 46, Aramin looks back on a fast track to hating and to fighting Israel that would be familiar to many Palestinians. But eventually he flipped — both his worldview and his ways.

He credits a very unexpected stir of empathy that happened in an unexpected place.

In middle school, Aramin's family moved to town. At a protest, he remembers being kicked and tear gassed by Israeli troops. Another day, he watched as soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager who was throwing rocks at them. The stones were flung from such a distance that Aramin believed the soldiers weren't in danger when they shot.

Seeking Revenge

This amplified his anger, and he swore to take revenge.

"Because," he says of his motivation at that time, "you have this strong feeling that if you don't fight them, they will kill you."

By now, he was about 12 or 13. He and several buddies joined forces to harass and taunt Israeli soldiers. They threw rocks at patrols. They scrawled pro-Palestinian graffiti around their village, Sa'ir, and hung Palestinian flags sewn from old T-shirts in trees where soldiers would pass.

Aramin says he and his friends loved to get a rise out of the soldiers.

"We want to make them crazy," he remembers. "This is how it started. As a game."

But Aramin felt like a real Palestinian fighter. And soon the play grew serious. One day, the boys, now in their late teens, found old hand grenades and a rifle hidden in a cave. They used them to attack an Israeli army patrol.


All the weapons worked, but no one was injured, a fact Aramin credits only to inexperience. He was not directly involved in the attack. His friends had made him stay behind because a limp from childhood polio slows him down. Still, the whole group was arrested, including Aramin. He got the shortest sentence — seven years in Israeli prison. He was 17.

Until then, he had kept his fighting secret from his family. Aramin's father wept when he visited his son in prison. The tears only angered Aramin.

"I said, 'Oh my God. Why you cry?' And he said, 'No, nothing.' I said, 'You must be proud of me. Because I'm in jail.' "

A Prison Education

So many Palestinian boys have spent time in Israeli prisons that it's almost like a rite of passage. And the community inside was organized. Older prisoners gave regular lectures on Palestinian history and politics. Others taught academic subjects, such as languages.

Aramin decided to learn Hebrew. He believed this would prove helpful in his fight.

"In jail very early I learn that if you know your enemy, you can defeat him," he said. "Then directly I decide to study Hebrew. Because I want to know how to kill them, how to defeat them."

One day, not far into his sentence, the prisoners settled in for a movie on Israeli TV. Aramin knew it was about Adolf Hitler. And he was looking forward to it.

"I want to enjoy seeing this movie," he said. "You know, I'm in their jail. They occupied us. They beat me. So at least to see a movie. To see someone defeat them, kill them, torture them."

But he did not enjoy what he saw at all. As he watched Jews stripped of their clothing, shot and killed, tears filled his eyes and smeared his cheeks.

"They fell down. They burned them alive. To see such atrocities. I cannot believe that there are human beings that can do such things to human beings in this way," he said.

Aramin's eyes grow distant as he tells this story now, almost 30 years later. This was his first glimmer of understanding the persecution Jews had suffered.

A New Perspective

It led him to view even throwing stones at Israeli troops in a different way. Most Palestinians say stones are no threat to heavily armed Israelis. Israelis disagree. They cite cases in which stones have caused fatalities. Aramin grew to understand both views.

"A stone, against a gun or a tank, it's a very civilized protest," he maintains. "But it's very violent for the Israelis. For them we prepare for another Holocaust, even by this stone."

By the time he was released, Aramin was fluent in Hebrew and had made friends with a prison guard. Meanwhile, Israeli and Palestinian political leaders had agreed to a limited, interim peace deal — the 1993 Oslo Accords, which called for negotiations to end the conflict and create a Palestinian state.

Aramin married and had his first child, a son. He was not ready to give up the Palestinian struggle for independence. But he was ready to fight a different way. No guns. No rocks. No violence.

At this point, he says, he was thinking about the future of his young son.

"I don't want him to go to jail. I don't want him to be killed. And I don't want him to throw stones. I will explain to him, if he has more tools, he can use the struggle in a different way," he said.

Testing His Beliefs

Abir Aramin was 10 years old when she was walking home from school in 2007 near Jerusalem. Palestinian youths were clashing with Israeli security forces when Abir, who was not involved in the confrontation, was hit in the head by an Israeli rubber bullet. She was badly injured and died three days later. Courtesy of Bassam Aramin

Aramin took it upon himself to create those tools, even when the Oslo peace deal crumbled and deadly violence broke out again. In 2005, as the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, began to fade, he helped start Combatants for Peace, a group that brings together former Israeli soldiers and ex-Palestinian militants.

Few Palestinians or Israelis were willing to do peace work at this time. Aramin's dedication to his new beliefs would be severely tested.

One January morning in 2007, his 10-year-old daughter Abir saucily told him she would go to a friend's after school. He told her to come straight home.

She never did. As Abir walked with friends near school after a math exam, Palestinian boys nearby were throwing stones at the Israeli forces. Abir was not involved. But a rubber-coated Israeli bullet struck her in the head. She died, in an Israeli hospital, three days later.

This was Aramin's darkest hour.

"Sometimes you say, 'why me,' especially me. I have no enemies," he said. "I don't hate anyone. Why this soldier shoot my daughter. Why? It's an open question forever."

But he did not seek retribution. It would not ease his pain, he said.

"It's nothing to do with your pain, to kill the rest of the Jews. It's ongoing pain, forever," he said.

Persuading His Son

But his son Araab, then 13, wanted revenge. Soon teachers told Aramin the boy was skipping school and throwing stones at soldiers. Once he learned this, father confronted son.

"I say to him, 'Do you think you are a hero? You are a warrior?' And he said, 'Yes, I am a hero. Yes, I want to take revenge. Is it good for you to spend seven years in the Israeli jails and it's not good for me? I am also a Palestinian and I love Palestine, and I want to fight the occupation.' "

Araab, now 22, remembers that confrontation with his father well.

"He was screaming at me so bad. I think he pushed me a little bit," he says. "I told him, 'You don't care about your daughter's blood, you don't care about the one who killed her, and you still making peace with people, with the Israelis.' "

"It kills me now," Araab says, that he said these things. 

But that night, his father made him swear on the Koran that he would tell his father if he went to throw rocks, or worse. That way, Aramin told his son, he could prepare himself to lose another child.

Araab did not throw rocks again. He has joined his father as an active member in the Parents Circle-Families Forum, a joint Israeli-Palestinian group of people who have lost loved ones to the violence. They work together for a future where the two sides live at peace.

But it took years, time living away from the conflict, and a visit to a Nazi death camp before Araab fully accepted his father's conviction that violence is not the way to win.

Bassam Aramin says this is his proudest achievement — passing his change of mind on to a second generation.