Empathy? Do our government leaders truly care?

EVERYMAN

Common fare

By Jengland Quilala

I bought flowers for my wife the other day on the occasion of our 15 months as a couple. While waiting, I struck up a conversation with the florist in the shop along Al Rigga St. here in Deira Dubai.

I soon found out he was Syrian. I then seized the opportunity to shift from “rosy” topics to the political crisis in his country.

The florist, with much candor, talked about the conflict between the Syrian army and the rebels in Damascus, Aleppo and other cities. He spoke about the violence, the tension, and social unrest in the country. “More than 20 thousand have been killed,” he said, “and many more will be.”

He concluded by thanking Allah that his family back home is safe from the violence.

I then tried to reciprocate his openness. “My country is in crisis, too.” I wanted him to feel that we, too, have a fair share of the world’s troubles.

The florist said he had seen on TV what was currently happening to the Philippines—the flooding that swept Metro Manila and nearby provinces. He talked about the people losing their homes and climbing on roofs waiting to be rescued.

“The thing is, the people do not care. Your government does not care,” the florist said. “Here in Dubai, they built good drainage.”

Back in our flat, I pondered these observations from a foreigner. I remembered an article I had read earlier, Poor People Want To Be Poor by Jonathan Glennie, a blogger from The Guardian, posted at the Poverty Matters Blog Section. He wrote: “the failure of so many people to empathize with the reality of life for poor people is a major barrier to poverty reduction.”

Then he goes on to say in the middle of the article that “empathy is in very short supply. Too few people who worked in the industry (referring to USAid) have ever actually taken the time to try to understand the world from the perspective of the ‘beneficiary’ they are supposed to be helping.”

Also in the same paper, Glennie quoted Jo-Lind Roberts of ATD Fourth World London (a human rights based, anti-poverty organization which engages with individuals and organizations to find solutions to eradicate extreme poverty in the UK). Roberts said, and I also quote: “People living in extreme poverty suffer daily from the contempt, indifference and rejection of their fellow human beings. Yet they possess an expertise, based on their lived experience, that is not recognized.”

In the said article, it is heartrending that with all the poor countries in the whole world, Glennie took the people “living under bridges in the Philippines” as an example of the poorest people in the world, together with those living “on the rubbish dumps of Madagascar.” And further, adding salt to a Filipino’s wound, which is the most tear-jerking part, is that, the article showcased a picture of a Filipino family living under a bridge in Manila.

Given all these, I asked myself: Are Filipinos really apathetic? I concluded we are not—just look at the bayanihan spirit among ordinary citizens, and the collaboration among NGOs, private individuals and others.

How about our government leaders? Is it true that they don’t care?

Frankly, I do not know.

I think what is missing is the lack of will to change among the victims themselves. Apparently, they do not show their anger, rage, hatred, and indictment with the kind of life they had. They seem to be very comfortable with the uncomfortable; they perceive the ugly as something usual, and the flood and garbage as part and parcel of human life.

I would have been pleased to witness their abhorrence and disgust, in the highest humanly possible form, of the kind of life they have, to the place they are living in, and to the situation they are consigned to. Their objection to such will propel them to work their way out of the dark pit.

But why do they submit themselves to their condition as if it were normal?

This mindset, this lack of indignation is disturbing.

In the philosophy of Herbert Marcuse, we are becoming “one-dimensional men.” We are losing our ability to perceive the things as they are, devoid of real sensibility, and stripped with dialectical thinking. Hence, we tend to accept the ugly as beautiful, the irrational as rational, the falsehood as truth, and the immoral as moral. And unless we perceive all this ugliness, inconsistency, and irrationality as something evil, horrible and detrimental to our lives, there is no genuine transformation that will happen to all of us.

So let us not leave our fate to the hands of the elite few. Let us not wait for government to help us. Let us take part in the re-organization of the country we all long to live for.

Mr. Quilala lives and works in the United Arab Emirates.