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From Issue: 480 [Read full issue]

Drained of Love

It seems that we have forgotten how to act like human beings. Despite all the qualities we possess which the angels envy, we engage in acts that even evil spirits would be embarrassed of. We are overcome with rancor and hatred, flushed with fury, and regard one another with feelings of vengeance. Our breasts are drained of love, a haze of loathing obscures our feelings, and for so many years now the magical aura of love is alien to our perceptions. We constantly produce evil in our thoughts. Destroying our environment, assimilating everything into those things we like, and suppressing the "other" have become almost routine. So many of us act upon our emotions and abandon rational thinking. We trample and silence those who do not think the same as us; this, indeed, is our most distinct character. We plunge forward, headstrong, on our own way, without considering for even a moment that there may be other solutions to different problems; thus, we lead the way to destruction in many cases where we could have been a means for constructive solutions. Winning hearts by addressing one another in sincere tenderness is like a long-forgotten tradition that has fallen out of fashion.

We are frenzied by facing the numerous challenges of oppositional thought and their representatives, all generated by our selfishness. We easily become enraged and filled with hatred; we crush others if we are powerful enough. If we are not, then we do not hesitate to defame them, damaging their dignity with all the power of the media and the facilities at our disposal, causing more grievous harm than death can possibly cause. In the face of all these inauspicious facts, all that can be heard in the world is either the joyous laughter of the tyrants or the screams of the wronged. There are so many countries that have been suppressed for decades, their victimized peoples engulfed. Minds are pacified, emotions and enthusiasm are extinguished, and people becoming alienated from their own values, and thus find that they approach one another with enmity. Violence is everywhere, as savage as, or perhaps even more atrocious than that caused by any barbarian.

Everything and every one expect a helping hand from us; however, responding with indifference and poverty in most cases, we aggravate their desolation. With no sign of emotion, indolence pervades, and their cries are not echoed. Those who sympathize with them do not have the power or the means to help. Witnessing all this violence every day is no different than dying over and over with each incident.

Shaken in despair, we cannot help but say "Then, this is how nations will devour one another; friction will continue between the masses and no one will sincerely love others. People will no longer be concerned for others and no one will extend a hand to the wronged; no mercy will be shown for the victim, people will not welcome one another, no sense of security will remain, mad people, whose thoughts, speeches, and hands are stained with blood, will shape the fate of the world, and once again it will be an era of tyrants . . ." This situation cannot continue; if it does, then the end of humanity and human values is eminent.

Source:
"Longing For Love" - Fethullah Gulen

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