Tales From Agrabah

• 14. Selective Trauma

• F o u r t e e n •

Selective Trauma

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Putting ourselves in the shoes of another is a task we often think is easy.

It's apparently not, no matter how great your imagination skills may be. Some would even go to the extent of saying it would only ever make sense if we were made to experience the same thing. It doesn't mean trying won't get us anywhere near though. Then again, people will ask you why bother stepping into another shoe? Haven't you got enough thorns and nails in your own? That was disturbingly descriptive, wasn't it? It's reality for some, at least, that's how they see it. 

There's a big difference between what we see and what actually exists. The eye was only made for apparent truths, that's why we have a brain. You can't depend on only one for judgement, that's how we decide which shoes we step into. But the thing about the mind is... its superiority is undervalued. Have you seen those people who fake disabilities for sympathy? Haven't you seen the glint of hardness in their eyes? To use the eyes is to say help for them is money, but to use the brain is to say how do I make them help themselves?

The world is too rushed, they don't use their mind. There's one word to describe it; privilege. When we talk about it there's a notion that being privileged is a tiresome thing. That it makes people question how much of it you've earned. Technically speaking, yes, it's not your fault that you're privileged. It's the desensitisation that comes with it that bothers people. Like how people can look at the news nowadays and do nothing about it.

I don't know if they've lost the connection between the eyes and the brain. Maybe it's detachable, letting them have selective trauma in the name of a sheltered and ignorant soul.

While we're on the topic, with all the police brutality going on around the world, one would think the oppressors have no imagination of the pain of the oppressed. Privilege to them equals superiority in strength and pride, and that's a dangerous combination.

But it's a very frail excuse, especially when you consider the extent of damage these "protectors" have inflicted. There is only one thing we can do when there is no one to call them to accountability; ignite the activist tendencies. Use your eyes a your brain. Amongst the benefits 2020 has brought, one is that many are speaking up against things we've overlooked in the trance of a dunya-oriented life.

Regardless of what we are going through, you and I must be staunch believers for the rights of a human life. The validation of which is not defined by other people from the cradle to the grave. Be that person whose love for humanity doesn't hold impurities; the likes of weakness or self-aggrandizement.

We live in a world that doesn't allow enough justice, and it's important we educate ourselves about this. Because we already have too many twisted intentions which propel the foolish to carry out inhumane tasks in the name of greater good. They're in positions that only give us the flexibility to drink our poison of choice, where the biggest culprit of so-called "illegal chaos" is wisdom and death has no meaning.

May Allah keep us safe from all that is evil.

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-Jasmin A.