"You Are Not Human!"

"Ecce homo!"

"Look at this man!" It was the cry of Roman governor Pontius Pilate in his attempt to appeal to the people's sense of pity at the sight of the broken and battered Jesus (and to save himself the trouble of making a decision over a politically-charged public execution). Pilate likely made the famous exclamation more for his own sake than for Jesus', but one thing recently stood out to me: Pilate, the leader of the Romans that colonised His people, was probably the only one among Jesus' opponents on that day that recognised Him as a man, a human being.

In the eyes of many of the people present there, and especially those that want Him dead, Jesus was reduced to a "blasphemer", an "impostor" or whatever else they chose to call him; anything but a "man". I believe that at that very moment while they consciously denied Jesus His divinity, they also unconsciously denied Him His humanity. And how do they do this? By ignoring the fact that the Man they were condemning to death with such passion was, in fact, a human being; that He therefore might have be someone's son, someone's brother, someone's uncle, or someone's best friend. Never mind that an innocent person's life might be depending on Him, or that He had done so much good for so many people. To them He was just "the enemy", because had they recognised Him as much a human being as they were, it would have been so much harder for them to condemn Him. It would have meant that they would be condemning "one of their own".

In anthropology this process is often called "de-humanization". The technique is still used either consciously or unconsciously around the world today - in may places, in many contexts, in many ways. Even in the church (more about that later)! In the military enemy soldiers might be referred to as "bogeys" or "hostiles" and never as "enemy soldiers", as calling them so might cause an unwanted, unconscious identification with them. It is easy to blow the brains of nameless, impersonal "hostiles", but much harder to kill a fellow soldier, even if he is on the enemy's side. Over the past century, this process of de-humanization has facilitated human beings in killing other human beings, both soldiers and civilians, paving the way for countless massacres and genocides, simply by denying them their humanity, substituting that identity with terms such as "subhumans".

It is truly sad that while Jesus was subjected to this process of de-humanization, many of those that claim to be His followers today subject others to the same process without a second thought. How and when in the world have we done this? you might ask. When have we ever called other people "subhumans", much less killed them? For most of us, probably never (hopefully). But unconsciously the same paradigm that facilitates such evil may exist in our minds; we might still deny people their humanity.

We do this when we refer treat people as numbers, the same way Nazi concentration camp guards refused to recognise prisoners' names and referred to them by numbers instead of their names. We do this when we refuse to recognize people's individuality, demanding that they become exactly like us or else withdraw our love for them. The Nazis' replacement of prisoners' identity with numbers had the same effect. We do this when we see and treat human beings as "Jews" or "niggers" or "Abos" or "Arabs" or "homos" or "the white guy" and never as "Allan" or "Lisa" or "Michael" or "Cathy" or "Abdullah" or "Muhammad" or "Andi". Heck, we even do it when we treat people as "souls" to be "won" rather than people, individuals with feelings and life experiences like you and I, to be brought into a relationship with God. (And this is why I can get so pedantic about calling people "souls".) The fact is, we de-humanise people whenever we reduce them to a word, a term or a concept, no matter how derogatory (or not). We de-humanize people whenever we deny them their unique individuality and the complex individual identities that come with being human.

What was Jesus like? How would He treat people? When other people saw a Samaritan woman, an outcast belonging to an enemy group, Jesus saw a spiritually thirsty individual with a long and very probably painful history of broken relationships. When they saw an adulteress, a sinner ready to be judged and executed, Jesus saw a broken, repentant woman ready to change at the first taste of mercy. When they saw a greedy tax collector, a traitor to his own people, Jesus saw a man who probably lonely and didn't have too many friends (and not just because he was short), who was ready to change at the first encounter with grace.

Human beings are complex creatures. A "subhuman" or a "soul" is probably not, because they are just words that we impose on other human beings, partly to make them easier for us to handle. Jesus understood the complexity of people, of individuals. Maybe this was partly why He can forgive us better than we can ever forgive each other. That, and He also experienced what de-humanization was like first hand on that most fateful of days. The question for us now that believe in Him is this: will we see other human beings that are different from us the same way our Master did, with the dignity that they were created with and a recognition of their humanity (and human failings)? Or will we treat them, all beloved of our Father in heaven, the same way the mob treated Him on that day - and implicitly told Him through their words anc actions, "You are not human!"?

Acknowledgement: Thanks to The Loonsome Man for giving initial comments that influenced this entry's final version.