“Two hands, two feet, two eyes, good, as it should be, but no separation of the Friend and your loving. Any dividing there makes other untrue distinctions like ‘Jew,’ and ‘Christian,’ and ‘Muslim.'”
I chose this quote from Rumi because I thought it was timely and also connected back to my PO322 class. I think this idea that we are good as humans with our general commonalities and lack of separation is leaning towards the modern idea of equality. The part about how dividing makes “untrue distinctions” then lists religious labels kind of shows how separating ourselves makes it harder to see commonalities, and labels do more harm than good in these instances.
This connects back to my PO322 class because we have been examining the Israel-Palestine conflict which, on the surface, seems to be about religious differences, but is really far more political than that. When I saw the “untrue distinctions” of Jew and Muslim, it made me think of how we are learning about the way in which people on both sides are being reduced to less than human and as enemies instead of people.