Danielle Levy

Up to 15 million people in the world are stateless, people with no country. The media doesn’t mention them, researchers do not focus on them, and until very recently the UN did not discuss them either. One of the largest stateless groups is the Rohingyas. They are Muslim in South Asia refused citizenship by the Myanmar government and many thousands are scattered throughout the region. Aside from the lack of hope or the effect on poverty, stateless people typically have no access to education, health care or formal employment. It is rare for them to own businesses, own property, qualify for a driving license or open a bank account. In addition they can’t get married legally, travel abroad or visit family. Since they can’t vote, politicians have not paid much attention to them. Being stateless says Mohamed Alenezi, a bedoun (another stateless group) from Kuwait “is like being between the earth and sky, you are here and not here.”

We each have issues, problems, things we have to accept, work through, figure out, or handle. Some may even be serious but being stateless is not among them. How fortunate we are.

I was at a public concert and looked around at the people there. As a group they looked like a slice of average humanity, diverse in their appearance, short, tall, thin, heavy, old, young and of any hue from the fairest Caucasian to the deepest of brown. But how average were they, what was beneath appearances? Some must have had police records, maybe former incarcerations, some had debts, for most the car they had arrived in was not paid for, some might have cheated on their taxes, some must have been HIV positive. They smiled and clapped seeming so friendly but underneath some had to be sad, depressed, recovering from addiction or loss of some kind, some perhaps had sexually transmitted diseases, were victims of domestic violence or rape, some no doubt held beliefs opposite of mine, or values harmful to society. And among them too were humble citizens selflessly giving of themselves to those they cared about. It’s so with any crowd, at a mall or stadium there is more behind appearances, more underneath than what we see.

Barry Kosmin, director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Connecticut, has been focusing on non believers, meaning not only atheist and agnostics but also humanists as well as those who are indifferent to religion. His research (which he likens to Christopher Columbus on an expedition to an unknown continent) points to the fact that secularists make up some 15% of the global population, about 1 billion people. As a group they are right behind the 2.3 billion Christians and 1.6 billion Muslims, more numerous therefore than Buddhists, Hindus or Jews. Kosmin says that “…many believe that the US population is steadily becoming more religious—but this is an optical illusion. Many evangelicals have simply become more aggressive and more political.” Given that we live in an age when religion divides as much as ever before, and when fundamentalists threaten cherished values, Kosmin’s research may provide a helpful perspective.