Living in this blessed country is considered comfortable enough that we often forget how suffering really look like. Even when someone on our social networking platform might have posted a picture/video or two on wars and the victims of the latter, the best we are often guilty of doing is to scroll up very quickly just to land on a wonderful post of a cute baby or luxurious cars, even delicious food. We feel emotionally touched by pictures of romantic couples, videos of smart little kids saying “I love you Mom, Dad” to their parents, and even how beautiful the decoration of a cake is. We restrain ourselves into getting emotionally involved with pictures of Syrian innocents killed in a mass murder, need not I mention other countries also facing similar agonies. Ironically, once the news of calamities in countries we all stereo-typically want to travel to is trending in those social networking sites, we hashtag and re-post to join the weeping. What about that country that went through loss of loved ones and what seem to be an eternal misery with no light at the end of the tunnel for more than 60 years of cruel? 60 plus years of agony. Yet we dismiss those who stood up for them as extremists. We ignore – always the next best option.
Ignorance, in this case, is not bliss. It’s evil. The most evil thing in this world is when people just ignore that there is evil in this world. No one is trying to change themselves, to change the world. The irony of having thousands or millions of self-help courses to “make a change” is that, the change is only for own self benefits – be it wealth, family, love, success in life – and we place ourselves in this arena of comfort and world-oriented goals and purposes.
How about walking through a pile of bodies, with the stench of decay and blood that might not go away for a few days, and entering a hall filled with injured men, women and children? How about searching for the remains of our family members under the rubble of our bombarded house? We rarely desire for this walk. We never want to see all those. If we travel, we wanted peace, entertainment, nice things. Never in our mind we want to travel to a country that offers discomfort, poverty, and fear. Never in our head to be exposed to the sound of missiles and cries when we sleep at night, and tanks, screams, when we hide inside our house praying hard not to be killed. Why? Because that’s not what we want. Our fitrah (nature) is to stay in a good environment, to do good. No one wants to be placed in a place filled with all those affliction. Not even the Rohingya people, not even the Palestinians, the Uyghurs, the Egyptians, the Africans, and the list continues.
So why then, we choose to turn a blind eye on them? Because we lack empathy. Our idea of individualism is very much embedded in our principles nowadays that we all live alone in this world. Yes, no one else could pay for our bills if we don’t work hard to do so. Yes, no one will supply us with food without asking for something in return. No one will sponsor us with a grand wedding reception if our families don’t have that much money. We are all, for the fact that we often deny, helpless. We think so much about our own pain first, that we demand everyone else to understand us. We feel depressed when we don’t receive as much love, when in fact we haven’t given any love to anyone. We ask the people around us to put their feet in our shoes when we never want to wear theirs. How many selfless people have we met each day? Still a little. Try going out on the road and observe how people lose their patience easily when a bus or a truck is moving so slow ahead. Try recalling how many times we held our tongue not to curse as another driver overtook our car without signalling? How about those that tailgate us when we have already reached the maximum speed limit? We are angry that they don’t want to understand our problems, but do we even try to understand theirs?
So turn a blind eye, continue doing so.
Until the world turn a blind eye on us too.
They always do anyway, because we are part of the world.
See the relationship there?
Yours Truly,
snb
abookunwritten 