We come across so many people in our life. Some stay in our memories, but some are hardly recalled while others are totally erased from our memories. And still a question is lingering, are there some who we are unable to look others in the eye?
To really look someone in the eye is a great challenge. To look deep with compassion you can never miss the human touch in any person.
In the movie Titanic, Kate looked at Jack’s drawings and told him, “Jack, you see people” and then one thinks to himself and reviews the way he looks at people, and then wonders, “Do I really see people?” “Do I really feel them?”
There are many ways one may look at others and that could lead to understanding or ambiguity, sympathy or apathy, still life goes by and we may never be able to really sit still and think hard about the way we look at the world around us, people, things and places.
There are so many warring factions around the world nowadays, the Middle East is a mess, there are problems in Nigeria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan and I believe problems and clashes will persist. And one of the main reasons why they persist is not being able to really look at others with sympathy or really understand their situation in life.
In any clash or conflict we basically have two sides, and one is mistaken if he/she is considering solving his problem by terminating the other side, what actually happens is that seemingly winning side temporarily relaxes, but the other side is always on the look, waiting for a chance to take revenge, if only the so called winning side thinks for a while about the other side, then they may reconsider. “ The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong” Gandhi said. When one party is weak and got oppressed all the time, eventually they avenge.
Henri Young was an impoverished teenager in the Depression who stole $5 from a store that also doubled as a Post Office. As a result, his crime was a Federal offense. He was sent to the Leavenworth Federal penitentiary in Kansas. He tried to escape, was seized, became a troublemaker and was deemed incorrigible by prison authorities. At that point, he was sent to Alcatraz.
On Jan. 13, 1939, he and four other men tried to escape on a raft. One, Arthur (Doc) Barker, the youngest son of the infamous bank robber Ma Barker, was killed. The others, including Young, were seized, apparently after a prisoner betrayed them to authorities.
Young was placed in a dungeon in brutal confinement for three years. Hours after his release from solitary, he confronted the man who had betrayed him in the prison dining room. In front of hundreds of prisoners, Young killed the man with a spoon.
What’s really shocking about the story is deeming someone incorrigible, which eventually led to more serious problems. Henry young killed the man who betrayed him and he was executed.
Only can we live so happily when we look people in the eye and really feel them. Only then can we move ahead and forget the pains and anguish of the past.
- Sherif Rizq, URI Global Council Trustee
