Member-only story
The Shared Wisdom of Civilizations: Building a Post-Racial Society Through Common Values
I remember walking through the halls of my school in Markham, hearing a mix of Cantonese, Farsi, Swahili, and English, watching my classmates bring foods from all over the world — steaming dumplings, fragrant kebabs, injera with rich stews, and the simple peanut butter sandwich. We were different, yet we were the same. We were raised in different households, yet taught the same lessons. We came from cultures shaped by different histories, yet carried values that connected us across centuries and continents.
In the world today, we hear too much about what separates us — about the divisions between the East and the West, between the North and the South, between the ancient and the modern. We hear stereotypes that suggest Middle Eastern cultures value power above reason, that African societies lack organization, that Chinese governance is about obedience rather than wisdom. We are told that civilizations are fundamentally different, that cultures are incompatible. But history tells a different story. When we look back — truly look back — we see a thread running through every empire, every kingdom, every caliphate, every dynasty. We see that across time and geography, the values that built great civilizations were not unique to any one people but shared by all.
