Article Title: Hazards of Identity

Article Summary

The article at hand reflects on the growing polarization and lack of human unity in the world today, and tries to trace explanations for these phenomena in historical texts and teachings. The article starts by saying that the world is rapidly moving away from the welcoming, prejudice-free globe of the last century with the very advent of the 21^st, and the most powerful countries of the world are also endorsing this spirit through their politics of either evicting foreigners or preventing their entry on these nations’ soil. The author uses the experiences and teachings of Akbar Ahmed to weigh in on the issue. Ahmed had foraged into erstwhile Europe to check for himself whether the old culture of human communion there was extant still. However, he found that those times were gone, and the author alludes to differing schools of philosophical thought to show how the followers of each had drifted apart. Hannah Arendt is also referred to, and the author reinstates that the biases inherent in dominant nations’ domestic and foreign policies nowadays stem from a deep-rooted elitism. The author alludes to the motto of Pakistan when it was just formed, and says that it supported exclusion over diversity, and India, politically and legislatively headed by minority representatives, started out different. However, it too is a part of divisive world politics these days, like the entire world.