Human Dignity

I live a privileged life. So when it comes to the marketplace of opinions, I tend to do more listening than talking. But unlike other privileged people, I have the experience of living in a place which gives me a tiny sliver of insight into what it feels like to be a minority. To be a migrant. And to be at the receiving end of a system that doesn’t care one jot about me. To feel - on a visceral level - that my human dignity can be taken away at the whim of the authorities. And to value my privilege all the more, versus those whose human dignity is crushed on a daily basis, and in their own place of birth.

I have family living in Israel, and I’m the grandchild of holocaust survivors. So I feel a deep heartbreak about the utterly reprehensible actions of Hamas this week. I don’t even know what words to use. Inhuman, sadistic, diabolical? None of them feel strong enough. But ‘heartbreak’ is certainly the right word. That’s not just a poetic flourish, I can literally feel the pain in my chest right now for every Israeli. However, that’s not the only pain I can feel. I can also feel the heartbreak of a Palestinian who lives a life hopelessly lacking in human dignity. There are no words to describe what ‘burning indignity’ feels like. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just try to imagine a cocktail of rage, fear and despair. The taste is disgusting and ineradicable.

I’m writing this because I have both Jewish and Muslim people in my circle, Israelis and Palestinians. Like you, I can’t personally solve one damn thing. But what I can do is somehow put into words the complex feelings that I’m experiencing, and affirm that it is possible to sit with these two heartbreaks at the same time. Some of you will feel that it’s too soon for this privileged and out-of-touch liberal to ‘both sides’ the argument from his life of relative luxury in Shanghai. While there are people still in the desperate throes of grief. While there are still innocent hostages whose lives are in the balance. You know the taste of human indignity, and I’m truly sorry for offending you by writing this now. But now is exactly the time when the temptation to dehumanise the ‘other side’ is most enticing. I despise the posts I’m reading that justify the Palestinian cause without any reference to the despicable acts of Hamas, whose charter seeks to eradicate and erase every living Israeli. But I also abhor those who would cast all Palestinians as barbaric monsters, whose lives aren’t worth a scrap.

I live a privileged life. And I can’t solve a damn thing. But I can put into words the complex feelings that I’m experiencing.


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