Thursday, October 27, 2005
The history of our enemies
We tend to summarize people. We take one attribute of a person and expand it, stretch it beyond recognition - and that's all they are, it's all they become. Unrecognizable fragments of faces that were once beautiful.
We take a person's life and skip the bits that seem to be unimportant, then coldly deduce and calculate who they are and what they mean to us. We label, categorize, stigmatize, and discriminate. We make enemies out of those who should be friends. Someone tell me why we are so cruel and unforgiving.
"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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9 comments:
salaam *waves*
interesting post, mashallah :)
i'm the first to post now :p
Hey guys, whether or not you think I'm "white" isn't the issue at hand.
If you've forgotten about posting etiquette, please note that I dislike comments that are:
a) completely unrelated to my post (unless they're interesting, in which case I will make an exception)
b) meant to ridicule others who post on my blog.
This post is actually meant to be serious...
Thanks.
sorry :(
i apologise :-/
Is that unpreventable though? I mean, I'm not trying to justify "our" actions but I think of it's somewhere in our human nature to see something/one and judge it and think we understand it at first glance.
That's the worst thing I know I do, but I feel like as conscious I am about it and know it's not a good thing, I still cannot stop myself, even just in my own my mind.
But I still try not to.
Assalaamu Alaikum :D
Wow, that is certainly an eye-opener. We fail to explore the person as a whole which is sad because we all deserve to be seen that way. We hold onto that one entity that they have been labled upon and see them for only that, ... nothing else.
Thank you asmaaaa
Do you go to taraweh prayer with my mom?
Sara, I think we can help it, even if it means we have to make a conscious effort to do so.
Tarweeh? I'm not sure, I didn't go today...I think my mom wanted to go to the tahajud at 4am...
I'm really out of touch with the world right now.
rather utopian :)
I just read this again for the second time. It was really worth reading again! Thank you for your thoughtful posts. I enjoy the funny ones, too, but your thoughtful posts show a deep inner life.
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