When we encounter something, what we think of it will be
what is real to us about it. If we were wandering in the dark and suddenly hit
something hard, we would think that it is a rock, a piece of furniture, or part
of a wall, depending on where we were at that time. But it would seem to be
true also in everyday life, except that we tend to have more memories and prior
experiences of the same everyday phenomena, and therefore less likely to feel
that we were wrong in our perception.
In another country, the same phenomena might have a totally
different interpretation and value, even though we might think of it as a thing
of common sense. So, it becomes acceptable to work from 5 in the morning until
3 in the morning, just because the boss says so, just because of a believe that
justice will prevail, that a merciful and compassionate God looks after the
meek and lowly faithful.
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Old Shoes by sharkbite1414 http://sharkbite1414.deviantart.com/art/Old-Shoes-151818434 |
***
Who wants to be a millionaire? Indeed, our hidden desires
might lie in that direction, though it usually remains wishful thinking. Other
pressing things like how to pay the bills at the start of the new school term,
how to repair the roof of the house which has been attacked by termites, how to
remain in the village when there's no work available, or even more urgently for
some families, how to get their next meal, let alone a permanent shelter or
place to call home.
These pressing needs are some of the legion of foot-soldiers
of a nightmare, a variation of the sudden, dark deep hole of "unlucky
circumstances" just around the corner, which lurks beneath the
consciousness of many people who are not rich, and are getting poorer by the
day.
***
The economics of the rich talks about profits and growth.
There is an unrelenting hunger for more, which tends to increase with each
successful attempt to get more. For these insatiable beings, nothing else
really matters, not the lives of other persons, possibly including their loved
ones, and what more the emaciated, deeply tanned and dirty looking beggar and
his loyal, suffering family who has stayed by his side on the streets.
In order to become rich, any means necessary are sometimes
employed. Including making people work as slave labour, or for as little wages
as possible, if at all. There is no conscience, as there is thought to be order
in the universe which allows masters and slaves, the profiteer and the
profitless.
***
From these three vignettes, is it any wonder that some of
those who decide to work as migrant workers end up with mental illnesses like
depression, disorientation, labile moods, and temporary amnesia? In the face of
such exploitation, mistreatment, and degradation, at the hands of another human
being, the fact that both persons across this material divide share a common
humanity is all but lost.
It shatters the idea that a person can be a person, as one
who inflicts such pain on another person, or as one who has to endure such
inhuman sufferings.
How can these migrant workers reconcile with themselves, in
the everyday society which masks these illogical and seemingly evil
dichotomies? How does a migrant worker reconcile that within a few hours aboard
an airplane, their world becomes benign, friendly, familiar? Do they now see
the world in which they experienced love, family, friends, to be only the
things that matter? Or are these dark matters shadowing their very lives,
colouring their perceptions until hope dies?
The stories of the Nazi concentration camp survivors, and
other human atrocities, people do survive. For many various reasons, some of
which are due to faith, or personality, or to be more general, just pure
circumstance of their own personal experiences, past and present.
Those not so fortunate tend to need help, tough love, space,
and support. Some might be irreparably damaged by their experiences. There is
no magic or formula that can help each and every one of them. There is no
turning back of the clock. What we could perhaps hope for is that with each
moment of knowing and sharing about these wretched inhuman experiences, we
would stop ourselves the next time we see a beggar, or a squatter home, or a
forlorn and crumbling house in the jungle, and wonder, if we are really human
enough to accept those others whom we have alienated from our lives.
Wonder, therefore, perhaps if our lives at the moment are
really uplifting for ourselves, for others, or for no one. Wonder, possibly, if
we can forget about the cost it takes to fight against this despairing, rising,
tide of woe. Wonder, of the wonder of wonders, what it is to try to make a
difference, to reclaim what it is supposed to be human once more, if it is not
too late to do so already.
