The Values that Matter
In this reflection, Mehra Rimer, Co-Founder and Executive Director of B8 of Hope, writes about the values that guide her life and work. Beginning with respect — for oneself and for others — she reflects on humanity, goodness, dialogue, and the people who choose to act with courage and compassion in the face of conflict.
“At the end of the day, the values that matter to me are just those that make people more human.”
The values that matter are, for me, like Russian dolls: they are enclosed inside one another. However, unlike those well-known dolls, they are not limited to a particular number; they flow from one to another indefinitely, to form a great family of universal values, accepted collectively by all people, even if they are expressed or manifested in different ways by different cultures.
As far as I am concerned the number one value, the matriarch presiding over all others, is respect. More particularly: respect for oneself, which leads automatically to respect for others.
To respect oneself as a human being means to strive to exercise fully one’s humanity and thereby to honor it, and to behave humanely towards others.
Human beings have proved that we are capable of the very worst as well as the very best. Showing respect to oneself — and as a consequence, showing respect to others — brings out the best in us: friendship, empathy, tolerance, generosity, freedom, justice, clemency, forgiveness, reconciliation, solidarity, courage, patience, gratitude. This is to name just a few of the strongest qualities of human beings, the inventors of human rights and universal values, but also the greatest abuser of them.
This idea of the best and the worst reminds me of my Iranian roots and the Zoroatrian philosophy of Ancient Persia, according to which the person is torn between Good and Evil and must, at all costs, strive for goodness through good thoughts, words and deeds. This is what makes us human, in the fullest sense of the word.
Assuming that this dichotomy is present in all of us, respect for the humanity inside us and inside others will steer us towards the Good. It is this effort towards goodness that I admire in others and this is what I try to instill in my children, not to mention striving to achieve it myself.
It is no coincidence that I have chosen to found an association that promotes dialogue, change, and peace in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and which supports men and women who are at once both ordinary and extraordinary, people who “do” good by promoting constructive values in order to move forward and prepare the ground for a lasting peace.
By practicing respect for oneself — and hence towards others — the members of a society can have a tremendous effect on their society and on their own lives. Interpersonal relationships and the humanization of oneself and of others are the key to harmonious and peaceful coexistence and, ultimately, to a better life — both inwardly and outwardly.
Some activists involved in civil disputes have been capable of terrible things, but have nevertheless progressed to become the drivers of good in their communities. Knowing this, that this kind of transformation is possible, allows us to hope that it is never too late to express one’s humanity.
At the end of the day, the values that matter to me are just those that make people more human.
