BY MIROSLAV M. KIS

DECADE OF SAVAGE CONFLICTS in the former Yugoslavia caught many of us by surprise. This, after all, was Europe, the continent where the atrocities of two world wars had already drenched the soil with innocent blood. Had we learned nothing from the madness of our history?

Even those of us who were born there could scarcely believe the reports of cruelty, torture, and inhumanity against innocent civilians. Despite what some Western commentators assert, Albanians, Serbs, Bosnians, Croats,          and Kosovars are not barbarians. My Ukrainian minority family lived for decades in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia, and all we remember are the different cultural expressions of kindness.

I haven’t found any significant differences in the human quality of life and relationships between the 25 years I spent in that region and the more than 30 years I have lived in the West, nor can there be much difference between “ethnic cleansing” and “segregation,” “holocaust” or “apartheid.”¹

The problems so painfully apparent in the Balkans are real and can surface anywhere. But why? Why is it that as the war erupted, and the civil controls weakened, and food, water, and shelter became scarce, and medical care vanished, it seemed as if social conscience, common sense, international identity, and a sense of destiny faded away? At least a segment of hitherto respectable citizens turned into terrorists and “butchers.” Why?

I began to wonder about myself. How would I fare under those conditions? Could I resist the pressure of becoming an enemy to my fellow human beings? How are enemies made? Who is my enemy?

What Enmity Requires
Distance is of the essence in creating and maintaining animosity. It is nearly impossible to kill someone at “close range.” Closeness is almost always an antidote to enmity.

This is the overwhelming message of the Bible. The word oyebh, “enemy,” always denotes an assailant who comes from outside to inflict personal (1 Sam. 18:29) or national (Esther 7:6) injury. Other synonyms express the notion of distance because enemies are “oppressors” (Num. 10:9), who “hate” (Ex. 23:5), who “persecute” (Ps. 18:17), who “rise up against” (Ps. 18:48), and who “seek someone to harm” (Num. 35:23).

In the New Testament, echtros (derived from echthos, “hatred”) means the “one who is hated,” and conveys irreconcilable opposition to someone (Rom. 12:20). Its synonym, miseo, is found as a parallel to echtros (Luke 6:27).

All levels of human relationships—personal, interpersonal, and social—experience distancing. Genesis 3 depicts the dreadful moment when Adam and Eve “knew that they were naked.” Something new, a frightening, shameful change, struck at the core of human identity and seemed to require hiddenness. The narrator simply reports that “they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons” (verse 7).

The rest of human history knows much about inner brokenness, about self-alienation, about this house divided against itself, which, when tucked away from public view, becomes a time bomb. The conflicting thoughts begin to accuse or perhaps excuse themselves.

But this inner distance is inevitably followed by distance from others. Because the inner conflict consumes all human energies, nothing is left for a relationship with the neighbor, except for the reflex of self-defense and self-absorption, except for the search for leaves large enough to hide the inner struggle. Like two lonely islands, standing next to each other—so close, yet suddenly so far apart—Adam and Eve could speak only in self-defense, forgetting the other. Just a short time before, moved by their love’s closeness, they would have protected each other with passion. But in the words of Rollo May, love’s opposite is not hate; it is indifference.² And it grows quickly: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate. . . . The serpent beguiled me, and I ate” (verses 12, 13, RSV). Indifference brings about exclusion of the other.

The stage is now set for segregation, for holocaust, for apartheid, and ethnic cleansing. The personal and interpersonal distancing is now magnified exponentially to cataclysmic proportions, to a social, national, or international scale. Why such an escalation? Reinhold Niebuhr gave this explanation:

“In every human group there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group, reveal in their personal relationships.”³

As biblical Christians we know that the reason for the atrocities and savageries in the Balkans and elsewhere is sin. Sin creates the inner split and estrangement that makes me my own enemy, and sin generates self-centeredness, which isolates me from others. Sin also makes it so that when all of us—covered with our fig leaves—come together, we become naughtier and feel much less responsible for what happens.

But what do I as a Christian member of society contribute to bridging the gap of estrangements around me? What are some of the ways in which, even unconsciously, I might be making enemies?

The Seeds of Division
It happened within sight of the garden, at the place where the first family worshiped and where the two brothers heard about the marvels of Eden. The older, Cain, enjoyed a place of honor in his family. “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord,” exclaimed Eve jubilantly after her first child’s birth. Could it be that this was the promised Saviour (verse 15)? But with the younger it was a different story. A different mood accompanies Abel’s arrival. No exclamation, no greeting—just a report of his birth and the naming of the baby boy. He was definitely boy number two.

Then one day the reversal of their standing made Cain the first human enemy and the first murderer. The setting was worship: The issue was the autonomy of Cain versus the obedience of Abel. Appropriately, God noted the difference and drew the line: Abel, not just his offering, received God’s regard, while Cain did not. “So Cain was very angry,” and it was just a matter of time before he would even the score (Gen. 4:5).⁴

Jesus addressed the same issue in a famous parable. Again, the setting was worship: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other” (Luke 18:10-14, RSV).

These two stories contain deep insights into the phenomenon of “my enemy.” All enemies of humanity are closely related to Cain and the Pharisee, and their victims to Abel and the tax collector. These stories also point to the incredible complexity of enemy-making. Like the scourge of cancer, it silently spreads, expanding its deadly network until metastasis. It moves through four phases, each one more advanced, and each one more destructive: identity, reaction, action, and technical rationality.

Identity
Our search for identity often moves in a negative direction: Our self-affirmation comes at the expense of another. Several steps lead to greater distance and exclusion.

The distance of difference. It all starts innocently enough, perhaps with jokes. We tell them with no hurt, no malice intended. Prudently we ask, “Any Americans in the audience?” If not, we proceed with our story and laugh until the tears come—at the expense of another. Some nationalities, colors, or races are “safe” to joke about. Few really tell jokes about Americans, except in Serbia or Iraq. But if your parents happen to be “off-color,” or “off-nationality,” or “off-race,” then you are supposed to expect the off-color jokes at your expense and be mature enough, sport enough, not to take offense.

Each time I paid visits to the war-torn Balkans, I heard dozens of jokes at the expense of warring parties. Most stories were identical: Only the actors “changed” nationality. And, as expected, no one told a story about their own. As I laugh, I feel thankful that I am not like “those other guys.”

The distance of derision. Just one step from jokes is ridicule. The intention isn’t simply to have fun, but to make the other look funny or stupid. I remember a girl in my seventh and eighth grade. She was powerful, but not because of muscles or grades. Mockery was her weapon. In no time, she would come up with a slogan or a jingle, and your enemies first, followed even by your friends, joined in on the malicious fun.

In the Balkans, stories abound about the stupidity of the other side and how “our side” outwitted “them.” Slogans, jingles, and even songs immortalize the distance of derision that sets “us” above “them.”⁵

The distance of defamation. One author perceptively cites a biblical example of defamation: “‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ (John 1:46, RSV). Rhetorical question? Of course! But can it? Ask me about Jesus. Can a bastard amount to anything, ever? . . . Name-calling, assumptions, innuendos, guilt by association: ‘Japanese are traitors,’ ‘Jews are filthy,’ ‘Americans are bombers,’ ‘Albanians are dangerous,’ ‘Germans killed my father,’ ‘Serbs are butchers,’ ‘Samaritans are dogs.’ LIES! Germans are my friends and so are Albanians and Serbs and Japanese and Americans. And Jews are among the cleanest people I have met.”⁶

The distance of indifference. By the time I resort to defamation of character, slander, and ridicule, indifference sets in. The other simply disappears from my screen. I become oblivious to my neighbor who lies in the ditch covered with blood (Luke 10:30-37) and unmindful of what happens in the yard next to mine, be it in Auschwitz, Treblinka, or Vukovar. I mind my own business, and my neighbor must mind his own. Remember Cain’s rhetorical question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9).⁷

Reaction
“Those who crusade not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but worse than it was, before the crusade began.”⁸ They function in a reactive mode, and the downward spiral to enmity leads to deeper problems.

Compartmentalization. Indifference to the plight of others is an incubator in which the enemy in me grows increasingly aggressive, lying in ambush to strike when I am confronted with evil against my skin or my kin. My world is divided into “us” and “them.” I become detached from “them” as humans. Albert Speer, Hitler’s minister of armaments, said of the Jews, “If I had continued to see them as human beings, I would not have remained a Nazi. I did not hate them. I was indifferent to them.”⁹ Indifference, like a thick wall, separates a Pharisee from a tax collector.

Projection. Indifference in a relationship signals disappearance of genuine care for the plight of others. “In the absence of love the other becomes a blank screen onto which we project our anxieties: the stranger is always potentially a scapegoat for our own unconfessed sins.”¹⁰ The natural human response is self-preservation. To indifference we react with counterindifference, and to projected hostility with even more intense hostility.¹¹ Unable to face himself or strike back at God, Cain projected his own guilt onto Abel and killed him (1 John 3:12).

Memories. Experiences of hostility unfortunately find their way to our memories. They become an integral part of our identity. In some cultures these memories acquire a status of sacred tradition that no son or grandson dares to forget. “Je me souviens” is the logo of the province of Quebec: “I remember” both the good and the evil done to me and my own. The folklore and oral traditions keep these memories of enmity and past sufferings fresh.

On one hand, there is a good side to this custom. History is an excellent teacher, and memories, films, books, memorials, and monuments serve as deterrence. But on the other, such remembrances may become vehicles for perpetuating hostilities. Just mention a name or a nationality, and the surge of anger erupts.

Spite. Grudges or spite can linger for generations while the stories are told and retold. Memories of pain and suffering are transformed into debts to be collected, scores to be evened. The children or grandchildren inherit either the guilt of their forebears or the duty to even the score. The stage is set, the time is ripe. All that is needed is a spark, and the old atrocities will rage again out of control.

Action
The personal feelings of rancor and bitterness are easily exploited by the concerted efforts of several elements of society to provide the spark and ignite a new inferno. Spite in action is what we call revenge.

Propaganda. Note Miroslav Volf’s telling description of how revenge comes to dominate a society:

“In extraordinary situations and under extraordinary directors certain themes from the ‘background cacophony’ are picked up, orchestrated into a bellicose musical, and played up. ‘Historians’—national, communal, or personal interpreters of the past—trumpet the double theme of the former glory and past ‘victimization’; ‘economists’ join in with the accounts of present exploitation and great economic potentials; ‘political scientists’ add the theme of the growing imbalance of power, of steadily giving ground, of losing control of what is rightfully ours; ‘cultural anthropologists’ bring in the dangers of the loss of identity and extol the singular value of our personal or cultural gifts, capable of genuinely enriching the outside world; ‘politicians’ pick up all four themes and weave them into a high-pitched aria about the threats to vital interests posed by others who are therefore the very incarnation of evil; finally the ‘priests’ enter in a solemn procession and accompany all this with a soothing background chant that offers to any whose consciences may have been bothered the assurance that God is on our side and that our enemy is the enemy of God and therefore an adversary of everything that is true, good, and beautiful.”¹²

Scapegoat. The Holocaust of the Second World War illustrates a well-orchestrated tragedy. By the Nazi government’s analysis, society was faced with the “Jewish problem.” In order to find a “solution,” Jews had been resettled in Poland and society cleansed of a “blight.”¹³ Yet the poverty and miserable conditions of the ghettos intensified the anti-Semitic feelings and provided both a scapegoat and justification for the “final solution.” A government-sponsored magazine editorialized in 1944 on the conditions in Poland:

“Millions of Jews lived amidst other ethnic groups in the territory of today’s Government General. Here, in a breeding ground of modern World Jewry, the Jewish Problem reached its zenith. . . . We had a moral obligation to wipe out breeding places of the most horrendous; the most inhuman and the most beastly vice that, arising from Poland, infested the whole world. It was a task which, in its fulfillment, was meant to bring salvation to the whole of humanity.”¹⁴

Similar means have been used in the Balkans, in Africa, and elsewhere.

Universalization. Concerted efforts in society next focus on legitimizing the atrocities. The above example illustrates how one government attempted to justify genocide by claiming that the “scapegoat” was not just a local problem but also a universal plague.

Technical Rationality
As human beings are depersonalized, other ways of seeing them become common.

Loss of the human dimension. Human conflicts come to be understood as problems fit for engineering solutions. Humans become cases without history, without individuality, without dignity. Human action is explained, not in biblical terms, but through the development of general laws and models. Just as understanding centrifugal force or gravity doesn’t require a personal or human dimension, so also the issues of personal concerns in society and politics come to be dealt with in strictly impersonal, scientific, and objective fashion.¹⁵

Human beings as things. Humans become mere commodities, tools, or instruments to accomplish a task. Note this chilling correspondence between Auschwitz and the nearby I. G. Farben chemical trust:

“‘In contemplation of experiments with a new soporific drug, we would appreciate your procuring us a number of women.’

“‘We received your answer but consider the price of 200 marks a woman excessive. We propose to pay not more than 170 marks a head. If agreeable, we will take possession of the women. We need approximately 150.’

“‘We acknowledge your accord. Prepare for us 150 women in the best possible health condition, and as soon as you advise us you are ready, we will take charge of them.’

“‘Received the order of 150 women. Despite their emaciated condition, they were found satisfactory. We shall keep you posted on developments concerning this experiment.’

“‘The tests were made. All subjects died. We shall contact you shortly on the subject of a new load.’”¹⁶

Legalization of evil. From the early 1930s a careful stream of legislation in Germany, piece by piece, prepared the legal support for ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, and genocide. Each act of legislation stood on an “innocent” foundation, and only when taken together could the tragedy be foreseen.¹⁷

Expediency triumphs. Expediency becomes more attractive than principle. Public administrators and citizens alike come to see an advantage in replacing substantive moral values with procedural ones. “Doing things the right way and protecting organizational interests can define or supersede doing the right things and make it easier to commit or contribute to destructive acts by separating—mentally—the doer from the deed.”¹⁸

On the Personal Level
Who then is my enemy?

The answer doesn’t come easily. Enmity has countless sources, innumerable forms and intensities. To begin with, I must admit that every person, including me, can become my enemy. This fact calls me to prudence and caution. How much distance is necessary to prevent anyone from hurting me or others? I must not be naive.

In the same way, I must be responsible enough to resist violence of any kind, to stand firm against injustices, and to part company from those who plot evil, even if my doing so creates new enemies. In some situations we can’t avoid having or making enemies, because the decision is not only ours. This is why the apostle Paul urges his readers, “If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18, RSV).

A special consideration must be given to situations of war. Those who have never experienced such tragedy can speak only in theoretical terms. During a war too much is out of the hands of any one individual. People are caught in the whirlwind of misinformation, frenzy, and paranoia. In fear and under pressure much evil is perpetrated. Those who have lived under totalitarian regimes will remember the constant oppressive mistrust of everybody, the fear of those who wield power over others but have no power to control themselves.

So I ask again: Who is my enemy? At first, the answer may sound something like this: Everyone who by their own choice, through ignorance, or because of a situation out of control stands far off from me to hurt me.

But the Bible presents the opposite answer: No one. No one is my enemy.

As I read the Bible, I wonder how a Kosovar might relate to his neighbor-enemy who hid most of his exposed valuables from looters during ethnic cleansing and returned it all when the exiled Kosovar returned home? What chance would enmity have in Bosnia if the car of a Muslim in the ditch is pulled out by a Serbian passing by on a tractor (Ex. 23:4, 5)?

History remembers those unusual survivors of decades of imprisonment who by reason of their faith refused to hate their torturers. Even the extreme mistreatment during “reeducation” periods in concentration camps and gulags couldn’t break their will or extinguish their hope. Their secret? Regular prayer sessions with fellow inmates, interceding for their enemies. These are the sons and daughters of their Father in heaven, says Jesus. They are like God, who makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5:43-48).¹⁹

But this seems so detached from reality! Distances on all levels are real, we say, and so are their consequences.

Yet Scripture continues its profound assertion: No one is my enemy.

Just as the origin of enmity begins on a personal level, so also the antidote to it must stem from the core of our being. If the world is ever to see even a slight reduction in war and its atrocities, I must not indulge in attitudes that create distance. “If you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7, RSV).

Believers must also believe in dialogue, in listening respectfully. Dialogue between Christians and Marxists, Christians and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, between neighbors can happen only if the two sides take each other seriously.

A Christian’s behavior, in the final analysis, must not be a reaction to the conditions around him/her.²⁰ The answer must be found outside the vicious circle. The willpower, the emotional energy, required to make peace is of superhuman proportions. It must come from God or it will never come. Peace brokered by diplomats and enforced by the UN is only temporary and superficial. It is only a more powerful lid that holds the steam inside.

True peace comes from forgiveness, and that is a gift of faith—a gift that makes me see the reality about myself in a different light.

There may be those who hate me because of something I do or do not do. But they are not my enemy, because they do not hate me: they really hate my behavior.

There may be some who do not like my color or my race or my accent. But then they are not rejecting me because of who I am. They are not my enemy, for they reject some unessential part of me. They reject painful memories that keep their wounds bleeding.

There may be people who see me as an obstacle to their advancement and try to trip me, slander me with false accusations, or bring up my confessed and forgiven sins. But they are not my enemy, because I do not compete for advancement. They are rejecting a fictional me.

There may be those who disagree with my beliefs and my theological orientation, but they are not my enemy. They dislike my ideology and the views I hold.

Finally, there may be a distance between my neighbor and me. But there need not be any distance between me and my neighbor. Who I am is not determined from the outside: I am directed from above.

Then, at long last, and lasting for a very long time, there will be peace.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27, NIV).

_________________________
 ¹ Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), p. 60.
 ² Rollo May, “The Art of True Love,” United Church Herald, Oct. 6, 1960, p. 4.
 ³ Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932), pp. XI, XII.
 ⁴ Cornelius Platinga, Jr., Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 158, 159.
 ⁵ Volf, pp. 74, 75.
 ⁶ Donald W. Shriver, Jr., An Ethic for Enemies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 124.
 ⁷ Ibid., p. 125.
 ⁸ Aldous Huxley, The Devils of Loudun (New York: Harper and Row, 1952), p. 192.
 ⁹ Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), p. 315.
¹⁰ William R. Miller, Nonviolence (New York: Shocken Books, 1972), p. 186.
¹¹ See also Volf, p. 87.
¹² Ibid., p. 88.
¹³ Z. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), passim.
¹⁴ Guy B. Adams and Danny L. Balfour, Unmasking Administrative Evil (London: Sage Publications, 1998), p. 145.
¹⁵ Ibid., p. 40.
¹⁶ Bruno Bettelheim, Informed Heart (Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), p. 248.
¹⁷ See Adams and Balfour, pp. 60ff.
¹⁸ Ibid., p. 135.
¹⁹ Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco: Harper, 1996), pp. 319-329.
²⁰ Volf, p. 53.

_________________________
Miroslav M. Kis is a professor of theology and ethics at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan.