It is seen through the annals of history that communities or groups with little or no political power are persecuted, discriminated and suspected as forces of destabilisation.

Hence, the ruling classes victimise them and reduce them to a state of humiliation and submission, and any resistance on their part is crushed brutally. Sometimes these oppressed communities acquire political power which alters their status, behaviour and attitude. Intoxicated by political power, they forget their past and assume the rule of oppressors against their opponents and hostile elements.

As an example, we can discuss two communities which have transformed their character after acquiring political power and authority. The first example is that of the Christian community. In the early days, Christianity spread from the Eastern Mediterranean throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.

The Christians were a peaceful, humble, submissive and non-violent community which endured hardships and suffering at the hands of the Roman authorities. They were tortured and executed in case of refusal to pay homage to the Roman emperor. Their most prominent apostles — Saint Paul and Saint Peter — were executed by the authorities for refusing to give recognition and respect to temporal and spiritual Roman authorities.

When the city of Rome was burnt during the reign of Nero (54 to 68AD), the people accused Emperor Nero of having caused the devastation, claiming he set the fire for his own amusement. In order to deflect these accusations and placate the people, Nero laid the blame (for the fire) on the Christians so they became a victim of people’s hatred. They were thrown in front of wild animals which was an entertainment practice among the Romans.

However, the number of Christian converts increased gradually which strengthened the community, making them powerful enough to play a political role. In 313AD, emperor Constantine converted to Christianity which suddenly changed the role of the Christian community in the Roman Empire. Christianity became the state religion, the officials were granted financial support and churches were built throughout the empire.

Once the Christian community had state support, it turned against the pagan institutions and their deities. Their temples were destroyed, their philosophers exiled and all traces of old Roman religions were eliminated. As Europe gradually became Christian, the church became strong and oppressive against heretics who were tortured and burnt at the stake. As oppressors, the church used the same methods and tools which had been used against the Christians in the pagan Roman period.

The second example is that of the Jews, who were expelled from Jerusalem after the demolition of temples by the Babylonian king Nebuchad­nezzar. He arrested their nobles and took them to Babylon in 598BC, in what is known in Jewish history as the Babylonian Captivity. Cyrus, the Persian king, (530AD) then allowed them to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild their city and temples.

However, during the Roman period, Jerusalem was destroyed again and the Jews were expelled from the city. Since then, they settled in different countries as a minority. They were tolerated by the Muslim rulers, who allowed them to devote their energies in conducting business as well as to contribute to religious knowledge.

On the other hand, they were persecuted in European countries and were expelled from England, France, Poland and Spain. In the 11th century when a crusade was declared against the Muslims, the crusading army first attacked and slaughtered the Jews who were settled in the Rhineland, a name for the several areas of Western Germany along the Middle and Lower Rhine.

It became customary that the Jews were the first ones to be accused and held responsible for any number of crises, following which the public was allowed to attack them and loot their property. In Germany, they resided in ghettos which were isolated from the majority. They were not allowed to engage in any business outside the ghettos and it wasn’t until the French Revolution that the Jews were granted equal status as citizens.

However, despite political, social and industrial progress, anti-Semitic sentiments did not die in the European society. They emerged with full force during the Nazi period when Hitler launched a policy of pure Aryanisation and planned to exterminate the Jews. Millions of them were killed in gas chambers; the genocide is known by the Jews as the Shoah, the holocaust.

After facing discrimination and persecution in Europe, the Zionist movement was launched by some Jewish leaders for a separate homeland for the Jewish people, as a permanent solution.

In 1917, Balfour, the foreign minister of England promised to facilitate the foundation of the State of Israel in Palestine, which was declared in 1948 as an independent State.

Since then, the State of Israel has been slaughtering, killing and massacring the Palestinians to get hold of their properties and land. Millions of Palestinians, terrorised and forced to leave their homeland, took refuge in other countries.

In the war of 1967, Israel occupied east Jerusalem and Golan Heights and the Israeli forces have occupied and controlled the West Bank ever since. It withdrew its occupying troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but maintains a full blockade of the territory, where Palestinians are constantly harassed, killed and treated like an occupied nation.

Israel has not learnt a lesson from history. It follows the apartheid policy which failed in South Africa. It also built a great wall to confine the Palestinians in the narrow land space as prisoners.

Although there are many thinkers, philosophers and noble laureates among the Jewish people, there are only a few voices against Israeli injustices and the persecution of the Palestinians.

Perhaps, the Israelis would like to follow the American policy of reducing the native Indians to a non-entity after massacring them and occupying their land. Today those natives live in reservation camps isolated from the rest of the American society. The Israelis also want to exhaust the energies of the Palestinians and confine them in an area surrounded by check posts which makes it impossible for them to move freely.

This is how the oppressed become oppressors by ignoring the past and refusing to learn from history. Lord Acton is correct when he says that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Perhaps it is true that the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, August 31, 2014