After thousands of years of human progress, an ancient, recurring virus still governs minds: a virus called bigotry, whether ethnic or religious.
After humans moved from cave life to space and built civilizations, launching scientific and technological revolutions, we find ourselves still enslaved by an old virus, using military power, authoritarian rule, and the absence of collective reason for good. It is not a biological virus like plague or coronavirus but a deadlier one: bigotry.
The Multifaceted Epidemic
This virus hides behind various slogans, but its essence is the same:
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In the U.S., it appears in a leader using evangelical Christian fundamentalism to fuel division.
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In Israel, through Netanyahu invoking Zionism to justify exclusion and dominance.
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In the Arab world, through extremist Sunni ideology reducing religion to endless jihad against differing beliefs.
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In Iran, through clerics turning doctrine into a tool for political control.
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In Afghanistan, through the harsh treatment of women and social freedoms in the name of religion.
Despite differing slogans, the core is a sense of superiority and exclusion, seeing itself as absolute right and the “other” as an enemy to be crushed, excluded, or imprisoned.
Symptoms of the Disease
Like biological epidemics, this virus has clear signs: dividing people into “us” vs. “them,” justifying killing and violence in the name of the sacred, invoking the past to freeze the present and kill the future, shutting down reason and criticism, and instilling fear and hatred to consolidate control.
Deadlier than Physical Epidemics
Humanity has faced the plague, Spanish flu, and COVID-19, all of which were overcome through science. Bigotry, however, attacks collective consciousness, leading to civil wars, international terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and political tyranny—pulling humans back into the caves despite space exploration.
Treatment and Vaccine
There is no vaccine except through reason, no cure except justice, rationality, and freedom of thought and self-criticism. It requires education that teaches generations to see diversity as wealth, not a curse, and justice that eliminates social inequalities feeding hatred.
It is about building bridges, not walls, and reviving human humanity before any ideology. The greatest threat today is not poverty or climate change alone but this epidemic disguised as religion and nationalism—a direct assault on reason and compassion alike.
History teaches us that epidemics pass, and reason can invent vaccines. Survival requires recognizing that humanity is one body, and any cell infected by bigotry can spread it to all.
Bigotry at the United Nations
President Donald Trump’s speech before the UN General Assembly in September 2025 exemplified this virus: he attacked the institution, undermined international cooperation, and urged nations to close borders and expel “foreigners”—clearly dividing the world into “us” and “them.”
Trump did not call for dissolving the UN but weakened it internally, just as a virus undermines the body’s immunity, leaving it vulnerable. This speech is not a passing event but a warning that the epidemic has reached the heart of the international system. If the world succumbs, the international order will collapse into the law of force and division; if it recognizes the danger, humanity can produce a new “intellectual vaccine” based on rationality, justice, and genuine pluralism.
