HATRED is as old as the hills, one may say. Hills may erode with the passage of time but not hatred inherited and nurtured by the human race. It has become a second habit with us. We can hate others without really understanding why we do it. Whenever our rational mind developed over millennia forces us to find the reason we offer one based on our historical memory or we manufacture one out of the debris of our present.

The root cause of widespread hatred is hidden beneath the phenomenon of diversity, a product of natural and universal principles that govern our planet. It`s in fact our inability or our failure to come to terms with the phenomenon. Just look at the history of human evolution and development. One is horrified to realise that in our civilisational march we have killed millions of species in the name of human advancement. From the tiniest to the mightiest we have destroyed all that came our way. To have some measure of it, have a look at what wecall the natural world. What is left of it from the anthropocentric activity is appallingly denuded of its riches.

This is no doubt the unenviable result of our having not been able to fully understand the phenomenon of diversity which affirms that we are not alone on this planet and innumerable others have equal claims on it. The presence of others, unknown, little known and known, creates creeping anxiety and fear among us with unsettling effects.

Others, humans and non-human, appear different from us as an individual and a group. The difference signifies the existence of another force that is perceived as hostile to us at conscious and subconscious levels. What is different creates a perception of threat. That is why we find in human history an everincreasing propensity to level things up, to standardise things in order to control them. An ancient example is the subcontinent and historically recent one is the USA.

During the period of decline of Harappa civilisation, incoming Aryan hordes had to fight the locals who they described in the Rigveda and other scriptures as people ofdark complexion. After having overwhelmed the Harappa people, who were far more advanced and civilised than Aryans, reconciling with apart ofthe uppercrust ofthe vanquished they rationalised their hatred by creating neatly parceled categories in a hierarchical power structure. This resulted in a perpetual subjugation of certain human groups such as Shudra, Adivasi, and Dalit placed at the lowest rungs of social division based on the concept of caste. This was to regulate society tothe advantage oftheuppercastes and also to mollify their hatred of indigenous people. This system based on the hatred of others still grinds on in India. The white Europeans, after having landed on American soil, started hating the ethnically different native American tribes they faced. Being less philosophical and more aggressive, they employed plunder, massacre and war as tools to exterminate the indigenous tribes.

The presence of so-called `Indian Reservations` in the USA is an unmistakable sign of white hatred towards native American peoples whose ways of life have been highlycompatible with nature and natural environment.

Hatred has always been there but it got an immense boost with the emergence of the concept of nation state which had its origins in the West in the `Treaty of Westphalia (1648)`.

It envisaged a new post-feudal state with clearly demarcated territorial boundaries, a central authority based on the claim to have shared socio-cultural traditions of its people.

The evolution and development of the nation state gradually persuaded its residents/citizens to perceive all those outside their boundaries at best aliens and at worst enemies. The resulting notions of sovereignty, national honour and ethnic pride paved the way for `othering`. The issue of immigration displays state sponsored hatred of others in a spectacular manner: if you are not like us, you are against us. The irony is that the so-called era of globalisation with its slogans of free movement of capital and labour has proved a modern myth. In the era of pre-nation states the movement of capital whatever its form and labour had less restrictions on them. There existed no strict legal framework to deter the move-ment of goods, services and peoples.

Hence the meeting of people in relative freedom created a bonhomie among them.

The nation state takes pride in its cohesion and celebrates its homogeneity while the fact is that no nation state, developed or underdeveloped, is completely homogenous.

Usually, it is dominated by one racial and cultural group that forces other groups within the state to be its carbon copy. Whipping up patriotic hysteria is the norm. But it needs a target, an enemy to fight against. Thus it creates direct and indirect enemies. Even sports arenas haven`t remained unaffected by the contagion of hatred bred by a process ofothering.

International football matches turn into killing fields. Can you forget the patriotic hullabaloo that accompanies the matches in Europe and Latin America? The Ash series becomes a matter of asserting national honour. Cricket matches between Pakistan and India turn into war theatres where national pride is perceived at stake. Ruling cliques that run nation states conveniently manufacture the myth ofothers, the perceived enemies, and employ it to manipulate public opinion. It`s a standard practice used with a deadly effect; it diverts people`s attention from finding the enemies within who control their destiny and play with it in the name of patriotism. The projected enemies of the nation state are not necessarily the peoples` enemies: the USA and China, for example, are enemies at the state level but when their citizens meet in person, they discover to their pleasant surprise that they don`t hate each other.

Same is the case with Pakistanis and Indians whenever they meet.

It`s the power games that capitalise on the peoples` sense of insecurity with the insidious objective of keeping the hatred of others on the boil forthe vestedinterests.

Let`s hear from the poet Brecht what hatred can do to human beings, even to those who struggle for the transformation of society for a better future: `Hatred, even of meanness, contorts the features / Anger, even against injustice, makes the voice hoarse.` So beware of hatred; it can make you ugly. soofi01@hotmail.com