My Friend the Raven

Book excerpt: I have always been haunted by the notion of hatred which not only looks unjustifiable in my view, but also encourages people to commit murder, a crime which has mostly been preceded by hatred and incitement. I have never believed in the saying without hatred, humanity would not have known love or passion. This saying proved to be futile in reality. To prove this, all monotheistic religions came to promote tolerance and spread love among human beings. Personally I still tend to believe that man is born to love, however, over time people have been taught to hate. Up to this moment my belief has never changed that love is the core of humanity, while hatred is an acquired value. In some cases, though, hatred might be justified; the fear instinct, for instance, may drive one to hate the source of that fear. You may like a lion when it is inside the cage. However, once that cage is open the lion becomes a threat to your life. But for a human being to hate another human being or even an animal for no reason other than what has been said in some old books is, from my point of view, a misfortune. Some hatred is based on unfounded narrations which could be no more than witchcraft. However, the world still lives with the results of that terrifying growing hatred; Entire peoples hate each other without even examining the real reasons behind that hatred. In our Arab region where nations of many origins co-exist, we tend to get rid of what we hate forever, be it human being or animal which could cause civilization disruption and psychological shock. I found out that the raven could be used to symbolize this idea. Not only is this bird so peaceful but also friend to peasants and environment. It has good social behaviors and embraces collaboration and team spirit. It learns from its own mistakes through error & trail, and has high IQ. Furthermore, it was mentioned in monotheist books as the bird which taught human beings how to bury their dead (the story of Abel and Cain). Despite all this, the raven is hated more than any other bird by Arabs and Muslims and some peoples of the East. It is, for many, the source of evil omen. The ravens voice is considered one of the roughest sounds on earth. What is even more catastrophic is that some consider the raven as an epidemic that must be eradicated by killing. This book does not literally defend the raven as a bird; it goes deep in hatred, a notion which increasingly controls people's stances and behaviors regardless of their origin, color or tongues.