Is it enough to live on the same land to become one society?
Difference is the law of life. It is not a social illness that needs to be cured. People differ in their religions and denominations, in their economic levels and cultures—even within a single family. I see in this difference a source of richness and creativity, not a threat to unity.
What I fear for society is the moment when people no longer hate one another, but no longer know one another at all.
Hatred, for all its danger, means that the other is still present in consciousness, even if in a distorted form. The greater danger is that the other disappears from the field of vision, and that a person grows up inside a bubble that the one who is different from him does not enter, where he hears only the echo of his own voice, and sees of the world only what resembles him.
At that point we are no longer facing a society of multiple classes, religions, and ideas, but human islands that are geographically adjacent yet humanly distant, united by nothing but the name of the homeland and an identity card.
But difference is one thing, and separation is another.
Difference means that I see you and understand that you are not like me, and that I acknowledge your right to be different. Separation means that I do not see you at all, that I do not know the conditions of your life, and that I do not feel that your destiny is linked to mine.
When I contemplate the lives of some of our young people, I find those who are born into a closed community, live in a closed residential compound, study in a school that admits only the children of their own class, then enter a university that resembles their school, and work in an institution that resembles their university.
They may travel to the capitals of the world and speak more than one language, yet they do not know how a citizen who lives a few kilometers away actually lives, nor what it means for a family to wait for the salary at the end of the month.
The paradox is that this young man may be polite and kind-hearted, yet he has never been given a genuine opportunity to see the world outside his own circle.
Isolation is not the monopoly of the affluent. A young person may grow up in a poor environment knowing of the rich only stereotypical images, or in a closed religious environment knowing of those who differ from him only what he has been told about them.
The most dangerous form of ignorance of the other is the ignorance that does not even feel itself to be ignorant.
The matter becomes more sensitive when difference concerns religion. A society that includes Muslims and Christians, or that contains within a single religion multiple schools and interpretations, needs something deeper than slogans of national unity.
It needs genuine human knowledge, in which the Muslim sees his Christian neighbor as a human being with his own dreams and fears, and the Christian sees his Muslim neighbor by the same logic, and all realize that difference in belief does not cancel equality in dignity and citizenship.
I do not ask anyone to abandon his faith, but to respect the right of others to differ. Respect does not mean agreement, and coexistence does not require similarity.
Nor do I exempt the relationship between males and females. When each is raised on stereotypical images of the other, differences may turn into psychological barriers. Mutual respect is not born automatically at marriage or at work; it begins with upbringing and with opportunities for acquaintance and cooperation.
As for class differences, they do not produce inequality of income alone; they may produce a separation of consciousness. When schools, hospitals, neighborhoods, means of transport, and places of recreation differ, and people meet only in relations of service, the human person disappears behind the function: driver, worker, guard, manager, or employer.
Here the idea of a shared destiny erodes.
Then technology added a new bubble. We thought that social media would open windows between people, yet it may turn into mirrors in which we see only ourselves. Algorithms offer us what resembles our ideas, so we imagine that the whole world thinks as we do, and we see the different through sarcasm or anger rather than through dialogue.
Connection is not communication.
I recall images of Egyptian life: the school that brought together children of different families, the street whose residents knew one another, the university that allowed young people from the provinces and from multiple classes to meet.
I do not claim that the past was ideal, but the shared spaces gave people opportunities for acquaintance. Today I fear that these spaces are shrinking, and that a child may grow up knowing the capitals of the world yet never having met a classmate from a different social background.
Here I reach the heart of the matter: social harmony is not merely a moral virtue; it is a strategic necessity for the strength of the state.
A diverse society whose members know one another and trust one another is more capable of creativity, adaptation, and facing crises. Diversity separated by isolation may turn into a source of fragility.
When a nation faces an economic crisis or a major challenge, its capacity to respond does not depend on the efficiency of institutions alone, but on the readiness of citizens to cooperate and bear shared burdens.
The strength of the state does not lie only in protecting its geographic borders, but also in preventing the rise of psychological and social borders among its citizens.
Therefore, building harmony is the responsibility of the state, the school, the university, religious institutions, the media, and civil society.
I propose that different schools cooperate in joint scientific, artistic, and sports projects; that universities provide genuine encounters among young people from the provinces and from different classes; that religious institutions go beyond slogans of tolerance to mutual knowledge; and that the media present those who are different as human beings, not as representatives of contending groups.
I do not mean formal visits in which children from affluent schools distribute gifts to the less fortunate, but joint work based on equality and dignity.
Harmony is not made by sermons alone, but by shared experiences, justice, and equality of opportunity.
I return to the philosophical question: What makes a homeland a homeland?
Is it the land, the language, and the history? All are important elements, but they are not enough.
The homeland is not a large hotel in which strangers reside, meeting in the elevator then each returning to his closed room.
The homeland is a relationship and a mutual responsibility: that I feel that the future of a child I do not know in a distant village is linked to the future of my grandchildren, and that the dignity of the one who differs from me protects my own dignity.
I fear that we may wake up one day to discover that society did not suddenly divide, but had been quietly separating—in schools, neighborhoods, the media, and dreams—while we were celebrating our unity on occasions.
I conclude with a question for every father and mother, every teacher, and every community leader:
How many people different from you do your children know in a genuine way—not through a screen or inherited judgments, but as a friend, a classmate, or a partner in a human experience?
If the answer is “very few,” then we should be concerned.
For society does not begin to disintegrate when its children differ, but when they lose the ability to see one another.
What I fear most is that a day may come when we no longer need walls to separate us, because each of us will have built a wall inside his own mind, and will no longer see who stands on the other side.
