3 Strategies to Advancing the Global Good

by Abdulrahman Bindamnan*

We are living in a globally divided world. We are destroying each other and the planet. Our health as a human species is under attack. So what are some strategies we can embody to advance the global good? In this essay, I will briefly name three problems and propose three strategies to address them.

First, the world is more connected yet disconnected, all at once. The human species has gone astray. We are divided into racial groups, especially in the United States. We often approach each other with caution. To address this predicament, we ought to look beyond our preordained social groups. We have to understand each other as unique individuals who have a distinctive set of experiences and expertise in the world.

For example, I was born and raised in Yemen but most people in the United States presume that I am Black. Although I have nothing against identifying as a Black person, it is a social membership with which I do not identify. Even so, many people who meet me implicitly—and often explicitly—presume that I am Black. I get this from Black and non-Black alike. When I was living in Mississippi, I met a Black person whose greeting line was, “What’s up my (n-word)?” That was the first time I have heard the n-word. Although he was saying the n-word as a term of endearment, that was presumptuous on his part, because I do not understand myself as a Black person. Therefore, I argue it is a form of interpersonal violence to assign racial categories to others. We ought to look beyond the “racial line” and embrace each other’s humanity as distinctive individuals.

Second, although we live in the age of over-information, society is increasingly mistrusting science, reason, and evidence. Despite our scientific and technological advancement, we are still barred with dogma, bigotry, and superstition. We ought to promote enlightenment values—reason and evidence.

For example, the theory of evolution and scriptural interpretation is an infamous debate worldwide—including in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Let’s consider the case of Islam. When I was studying biology classes in Yemen, I was told that the theory of evolution was the latest Western invasion in Muslim minds. In other words, the theory was dismissed based on the history of colonization and orientalism. Although human empires across history have engaged in imperial quests, we should not reject scientific ideas a priori simply because they came from the West. It is a loss to Muslim societies to wholesale reject the theory of evolution simply because its progenitors happened to reside in the Western part of the world.

Third, we live in an age of increasing violence. When the distribution of wealth in society is unevenly distributed, people will engage in acts of violence against each other. Mass shootings in the United States are on the rise, and acts of terror continue unabated worldwide. Although we have progressed technologically as a species, we nonetheless could not relate to each other in meaningful ways.

For example, when I was growing up in Yemen, the central source of violence was the intersections between politics and religion. We were killing each other in the name of Islam. We invented stringent criteria to understand Islam that compromised our holistic health and well-being as a society. When I immigrated to the United States, I discovered as an outsider that Americans have a predicament relating to each other. Capitalism created fierce competition in society. It is a world in which people will kill each other to get to the top of the hierarchy of success and achievement.

In conclusion, there is no shortage of maladies that prevent us from achieving the global good: inability to connect with others; abandonment of reason and evidence; and increasing incidence of violence. To address these three predicaments, we could learn the art of relational literacy; promote enlightened values; and propose systematic solutions to our pressing problems, instead of addressing the symptoms that we all find disturbing.

*About Author

Abdulrahman Bindamnan received a B.A. in psychology and religion from the University of Miami, an M.S.Ed. in international educational development from the University of Pennsylvania, and recently started a Ph.D. in comparative and international development education at the University of Minnesota. He is a contributing author at Psychology Today.