Columnist Kevorkian’s Fourth Law of Humanity

It’s a strange thing about majorities. The bigger the majority, the more it seems to fear minorities. Therefore, I have developed Kevorkian’s Fourth Law:

"All Majorities Fear Minorities; and the Larger the Majority, the More it Fears a Minority."

It’s a strange thing about majorities. The bigger the majority, the more it seems to fear minorities. Therefore, I have developed Kevorkian’s Fourth Law:

"All Majorities Fear Minorities; and the Larger the Majority, the More it Fears a Minority."

Yes, I agree that seems incongruous. Surely, you say, if you belong to a large majority, you should have nothing to fear from a small minority. But, it doesn’t seem that way. Rather than try to understand, I decided to accept and, thus, form my Fourth Law.

[The others, in case anyone cares, are: 1) "All Governments Lie, and They Tell Their Biggest Lies To Their Own People"; 2) "People Like To Be Lied To, and The Bigger The Lie, The Easier to Believe"; 3) "All Evil Is Done In The Name Of Good, and The Greater The Evil, The Greater The Good Claimed For It."]

Take, for instance, Religion. It seems that countries with a predominant religion–be it Christianity or Islam–seem to fear the handful of "others." Turkey, for instance, which is more than 99-percent Muslim fears the handful of Christians who are remnants of the millions of Christians who were there before the Turks arrived. Or Saudi Arabia, which permits no Christian Bibles in the country, no Christian prayers in private homes–its "religious police" are especially active around the Christmas and Easter periods in invading Christian homes to prevent anything that resembles Christian religious services.

Even within Christianity, let us say, the majority religion fears the minority sects–"You are not our type of Christian." The Church of Rome and its treatment of Protestants. Protestants against Church of Rome adherents. Protestants against other Protestants. Try to keep a straight face as you read about the Puritans who were oppressed in Protestant England and who fled to (what is now) Massachusetts and who oppressed the "Puritanism" of Roger Williams who fled to found the Providence (Rhode Island) colony.

The only tolerant Christian religion seemed to be the Quakers, whose William Penn founded the Pennsylvania colony and tolerated all religious groups. Which may explain why Pennsylvania was the largest and richest colony in the country, until about 1825.

Or Islam–"You are not our type of Muslim." Shi’ites against Sunnis; Sunnis against Shi’ites. Both Shi’ites and Sunnis against the Baha’is.

And, so it goes.

Take our Armenia, where the Armenian Church is the main religion by far. It oppresses the Jehovah’s Witnesses, for instance, and is now toying with a law that makes illegal any religious group of fewer than 500 people. But, that is "acceptance" if we compare what is happening in nearby Azerbaijan where Islamic groups are being severely oppressed by an Islamic government; or the "stan" countries where much the same is taking place, with Islamic majorities oppressing Islamic minorities–as well as Christians, to be sure.

Or, think of the racial majorities: the Whites over the Blacks; the Blacks over the Whites (Zimbabwe is an excellent example); Blacks over the Indians (remember Idi Amin with his Indian minority in Uganda?). Christians over the Jews (everywhere!).

What are these majorities saying? "We may be more than you are but we really aren’t confident of ourselves, so we have to push you around to prove we are better than you are." Is there some sort of insecurity that says, in effect, "Why don’t they become part of us? Do they know something we don’t know?"

At this point, my feeble brain stopped pondering and said: "Learn from religion–don’t try to understand; just accept."

So, I accepted and created Kevorkian’s Fourth Law.