The more I live in this world, the more I realize how corrupted it is… how impossible it is to change; how bad things are so embedded in it that if they were taken out, the world will have turned a complete 180 degrees to the better.
Discrimination is all around; it has been for millions of years and will unfortunately stay for a million more. People are always trying to act superior to others; trying to control one another; trying to feel power.
It’s been seen all throughout history and is still seen even if it’s hushed up. Between man and woman, white and black, parents and children, religion over religion, country over country, generation over generation, hatred, chaos, control, power, and domination are found and depended on.
Fear. Fear is the cause of it all; fear of not having control over one’s life; fear of not being as important and powerful as one can be; fear of being perceived as weak; fear of the unknown; fear of being judged upon; and mostly, fear of being helpless.
Rapes, violence, discrimination, crimes, abuse physical and emotional, all are ways to show the “minorities” who is boss. To show them that whatever they do, they will be around to control them and that there is no running away, no alternative. No matter what they do, they won’t be able to get away from the “all mighty and powerful”.
But that does not stop there. No, it does not. The sad, sad truth is that the only answer to the why is their own unworthiness. The victims will eventually believe the lies that are being told to them; that they are nothing; that they are worse than dirt; that whatever they do, they will never own up to anything; that the person is really “all mighty and powerful”. They will eventually depend on him like he is the drug and they are the addicts. They fail to realize that it is all a façade and that man is made of only flesh and blood just as they and everyone else are; that there is nothing special about him but their thoughts of him; that the power that he holds over them is as strong as they believe it to be.
That it is their opinions of him that makes him who he is and permits him to be.
However, even though my hope wanes and withers away in the belief that a better world is yet to come; I fear the day where hope will cease to exist. For that world will be the literal sense of living hell because without its desperate hold on hope, it will fall through a whirlpool and will be forever lost.
The hope we need is the hope that people will start to stand up for themselves; respect the other; realize that we are all the same, equal; believe that each of us has worth. For that belief will make all the difference in the world and that realization will make us act in a more humane way.
By Maya Beaini, an intern at the World Youth Alliance Middle East.
