With complete confidence, I can stand by the statement that there are no human enemies. The concept of an “enemy” is a fabrication, a dangerous tool that has mis-directed humans from fighting distress in our minds and from fighting systems of oppression in our societies. This concept has left layers and layers of hurt on our minds. It is a barrier to our understanding of the concept of “one for all and all for one.” The concept of an “enemy” is a barrier to our unification as a species.


Instead, in accepting the concept of human enemies, we have been forced to settle for fighting and destroying one another. As a species, we keep finding ourselves in dangerous anti-human situations in war after war—Apache Wars, Sioux Indian Wars, World War I, World War II, Vietnam War, Korean War, Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on.


We have a choice to make as a species. We could continue to believe that there are humans out there who are our enemies and, by definition, must be destroyed, and continue to use militarization to fight oppression, colonization, and genocide. Or we can take a stance, discharge, and advocate for a completely different frame—a frame outside of the confines of oppression. A frame that values every human, a frame that understands that oppressor distress and patterns are installed on every mind, and none of us had a chance to fight these patterns as young ones. All of us were defeated in big ways as young people, and now we have destructive patterns that we act in each other’s directions. Accepting the concept of human enemies leaves us defeated back there as young ones and leaves us disconnected and isolated from other humans. It leaves us confused about the early struggles installed on our minds, and it pushes us to blame some human or humans.


Our biggest problem as a species is not our enemy out there—it’s not, for example, the supposedly evil Iranians, Jews, or the Amalekites. Our biggest problem is distress installed on every mind.


I am the International Liberation Reference Person for South, Central, and West Asian-Heritage people, and I am a Muslim and a Mizrahi Jew. My constituents—which include Iranians, Iraqis, Palestinians, Pakistanis, Afghanis, Saudis, Yemenis, Syrians, and others—have been vilified by the most powerful capitalist militaries of the world to justify trillion-dollar wars, genocide of our people, and destruction of our lands. There must be a very powerful justification to redirect much more than a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000+) away from pro-human services like clean water, food, health care, education, housing, and so on, to a destructive dead-end industry like the military industrial complex.


Ousting the concept of enemies in our social justice strategies must be unconditional. We cannot waiver from it. No human. No members of Isis, Taliban, Hamas, Israel Defense Forces. No U.S. military soldiers, white supremacists, members of the CIA [U.S. Central Intelligence Agency]. Not even Trump and 
Netanyahu. None can be seen as our human enemy.


“No human enemy” is not a statement made by naive people. It does not limit our actions or our obligation to think rationally in present time, given whatever circumstances we may face. The statement “no human enemy” is not an easy idea to internalize. But perhaps this has been the missing piece moving toward unification—a revolutionary way to understand the full context of the state of humanity, a basis for us to oppose all forms of oppression in our minds and fiercely fight unjust policies, wars, genocidal military attacks, and occupation of lands and displacement of millions of people.


“No human enemy” does not mean that we don’t hold each other accountable for the mistakes and atrocities that we have perpetuated in the present. It does not mean that we don’t stop each other from committing inhuman acts. It does not mean that we don’t name the reality of what the conditions are: such as colonization, occupation, and genocide. It does not mean that we don’t use force to stop violence that is directed at us. (Force uses intelligence; violence does not.)


Moving toward unification is a huge undertaking. The path may not be clear yet, and unfortunately there are no manuals. We need to hold this statement to the light of discharge and re-evaluate as we keep reaching for each other and rationality.


In Solidarity, Unity, and Liberation,