When you study Farsi as much as I have, you end up reading a lot of poetry.  And I mean a lot.

But wait a minute, Farsi?  Don’t they speak Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan?  Yes, you’re right, but today, while I was musing on the theme of global citizenship, I kept finding myself drawn back to one of my favorite poems that I read during my four years studying Iranian culture, Farsi, and Persian poetry.  I’m looking forward to adding some new information about Iran on Monday Bazaar in the future, and this is a good first step.

But wait, pause again, Global Citizenship?  Global citizen is the fancy way of saying someone who believes that everyone in the world is interconnected beyond our countries and cities, and that our actions at home impact everyone else.  It also asserts that we are all more alike than we are different.  If there’s anything I’ve taken away from living for 4 years outside my passport country, it’s that.

Every time I think about what it means to be a global citizen, I always come back to the poem “Bani Adam,” by the Persian master Sa’adi Shirāzi.  Here it is in the original Persian:

بنی آدم اعضای یک پیکرند
که در آفرينش ز یک گوهرند
چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار
دگر عضو ها را نماند قرار
تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی
نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی

In English, I like to translate it as such:

We are all limbs of one body,
Having been created of one essence.
When a calamity affects one limb
The other limbs suffer alongside.
If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others,
You are not worthy of calling yourself a human.

This poem is perhaps most famous for being inscribed on the front of the United Nations in New York, but to me it shows how this idea of compassion and global citizenship is a concept that is not some sort of new idea of the 21st century, but actually something that dates back to the 13th Century.

But going even farther back, there is actually a Hadith (a saying of the Prophet Muhammad) with the same message and concept:

The example of the believers (Muslims) in their affection, mercy, and compassion for each other is that of a body. When any limb aches, the whole body reacts with sleeplessness and fever.

Whenever we hear something bad on the news, we all feel upset for it.  People here express immense sadness with each terrorist attack that has happened recently.  In France, our neighbors allowed us to use their phones to call friends in the US after September 11th.  And in America, we are upset every time we hear of a murder, or happy and proud when an underdog we’ve been supporting wins an Olympic medal, regardless of what country they’re from.  Everyone remember the warm fuzzies we got when the South Korean and North Korean gymnasts took the selfie at Rio 2016?

It turns out, that according to many of the traditions of the world, we really are all part of one greater unified world, whether or not we would like to admit it, and our actions, wherever we are, reverberate across it.  Every small piece of good we do in the world is part of making it a better place.  And we must be mindful of the small, seemingly disconnected actions that could cause greater harm to us all.

See the world, talk to people.  And as Gandhi said, be the change.

This post is part of Blogging Abroad’s 2017 New Years Blog Challenge, week one: Global Citizenship.