Learning Peace from Cats and Dogs

BEIRUT -- Lebanese leaders and their Arab friends may be wasting their time exploring the realm of politics to try and hammer out a new governance and power-sharing agreement in Doha, Qatar. Instead, they might learn much more from the lessons of nature right at home in Beirut. When the Lebanese politicians return from Doha, they should go straight to the campus of the American University of Beirut (AUB) to learn firsthand about an example of peaceful coexistence between living organisms who would otherwise have a tendency -- even a genetic imperative -- to fight and kill.

I'm not talking about AUB's Shiites, Sunnis, Maronites, Orthodox, and Druze students and faculty, who seem to generally get along fine -- mainly because they leave politics outside the campus gates. 

I'm talking about the campus cats and pigeons, hundreds of which live peacefully together in the beautiful AUB campus that is something of a natural sanctuary. This is about as close as it gets in real life to the idea that "the lion shall lie down with the lamb..."

Cats are natural predators of birds -- except at AUB. A cat stalking an unsuspecting bird is one of nature's most dramatic and suspenseful spectacles: a thrill when the cat pounces and the bird escapes, and a tragedy when the bird is caught and eaten. Birds rarely reverse the process and attack cats -- except perhaps in places where large predators like eagles and hawks can occasionally swoop down and snatch some baby kittens or a lazy adult cat for a meal.

Everyday as I walk across the AUB campus, I am pleased to see many of the several hundred AUB cats that live freely on campus dozing happily on the grass or amidst bushes and trees, while delicious-looking pigeons of assorted sizes walk lazily past them, just meters away. The cats don't bat an eyelid. Natural aggression and the instinct to hunt and kill are somehow blocked, in favor of happy coexistence.

"Could this amazing reversal of natural law and biological imperative be applied to human beings?" I wondered the other day, while trying to stay out of the way of bullets exchanged by Lebanese gunmen on the streets of my neighborhood. We are likely to get a short-term political accord from the Doha gathering, but not permanent stability -- unless, that is, we discover a way to live according to the same principles that define the lives of AUB's cats and pigeons. 

Having pondered this issue and closely observed the beasts on campus for some years now, I conclude that a natural conflict of interests has been replaced by a fraternal conviviality due to the following reasons, some of which are especially apt for the Lebanese politicians in determining how they can treat their fellow citizens:

1. Cats and pigeons have stopped fighting and fearing each other at AUB because they live under a clear law, or set of rules. There is an actual "AUB cats policy" that is posted on the university website. It clarifies that cats are fed and inspected regularly, are not allowed into buildings, and should not be taken on or off campus without supervision. Even cats, it seems, thrive under the rule of law -- if it is explicit, clear, and is fairly and consistently applied.

2. Cats have become non-aggressive because their basics needs are met -- especially food, water, shelter, medical care. When basic needs are met, and desperation fades away, living beings become prone to peaceful coexistence.

3. Credible institutions have been established to provide for the cats' needs. AUB has an Animal Welfare Club, which is responsible for feeding, spaying, and neutering the campus' cats, "in order to sustain a healthy and steady population of felines on campus," according to the university Cats Policy. Institutions, rather than the whimsy of individuals, seem to create conditions that are conducive to security and conviviality.

4. Simple human decency and dignity, or, in this case, decency to animals, prods beasts of all kinds to coexist naturally. Cats are treated kindly at AUB -- students gently pet them on benches and on the grass; the wonderful lady who feeds them twice daily has a name for each cat, to which each animal responds warmly and quickly. The anonymity and alienation that many humans suffer, and that often prods individuals towards violence, does not exist in AUB's cat universe, where there are no refugee, stateless, nameless, or homeless cats. They each have a name, friends, dignity. I'm not surprised that in turn they treat the pigeons kindly, understanding better than most human politicians that dignity, law and institutions -- not violence -- is the lynchpin to stability and security.

If the cats and pigeons get it, a few dozen Arab politicians should be able to rise to the same high standard. We shall soon find out.