Upon listening to “Us and Them” by Pink Floyd

Over the decades, some of my brightest students, whom I fondly remember, are Palestinians, Jews, Saudis, Kuwaitis, Iranians, Iraqis, Cubans, Chinese, of course thousands of Americans, and many more — from countries A to Z. Some served in the Israeli, Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and U.S. armed forces. All came to the classroom to learn subjects such as Global Issues, Conflict Resolution, Political Science, International Affairs, and some of the 70 courses I have taught over three decades.

All of them came to be in an environment of mutual dialogue, respect, and understanding, ready to open their minds to deeper and wider perspectives, whatever ideologies they hold and whatever worldviews they have held.

Last year I had a student who served in the U.S. armed forces in Abu Dhabi, which was bombed at the beginning of the war. She spoke fondly of the people of the Emirates and how, as a Christian woman, she still remembers the deep calmness the Islamic call to prayer (the azan) brought her every morning.

I am touched by the stories of my students’ backgrounds and what they hope for the future, as I engage them with Socratic questioning in all my lectures and listen more than I preach or teach. Dialogical was my method. More than this — these are my students. Not “us versus them.” In those moments of classroom exchange, in that “American classroom environment of democracy and education” and of “dialogical and constructivist principles I uphold,” they flourish as humanists — as human beings rising above differences.

Today, we are seeing the ugliness of the world of “us versus them”: innocents killed, reluctant soldiers sent to the slaughter, wars fought for the filthy rich in the name of whatever. Some of these places are where students I cherished are from: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, the United Arab Emirates, and even Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This is my sadness now.

May the war stop. May humanity come to its senses.

© Eurasia Review