Compassion should be colour blind

Goh Keat Peng wrote one of the most compassionate and at the same time frustrated letters I have read in Malaysiakini – please do peruse his So little has been done for Gaza.

It’s a short letter and yet he expressed the same frustration I have with the evil machinations of the Israelis. He wrote:

My attempts late last night and early this morning at describing the meaning of Gaza and the plight of its people have all ended with neither coherence or completion. Words fail.

I could find no mind or talent or technique equal to the task. So much needs to be done yet so little has been done for the people of Gaza.

The resolve isn't there and one favoured nation is allowed a free hand to do as it pleases without regard to any reasonable sense of proportion. There has been no semblance of fairness or justice.

The failure to address the needs of those who call the Gaza Strip home is a failure of the resolve of the international community to bring to book a belligerent military power in the Middle East.

You cannot be allowed to live and act unchecked as though you are alone in the neighbourhood. As though only you have the right to live and act.

As though you alone are entitled to make all the decisions. As though only you have the right of survival.

But we can forget about the Americans being an impartial broker – they have consistently failed to rein in their Israeli master. Just as Paul Rees, a British journalist, had predicted accurately, they now refuse to condemn the Israelis for their recent atrocities on the high seas as the world had done. Paul Rees also asked us to picture how the Americans would have reacted had the illegal armed boarders been Iranian commandos who shot 19 people dead.

So long as the Americans continue to subserviently serve Israel as their religious guru, the Palestinians can forget about any justice via the Americans.

Example – what happened to George Bush’s roadmap to peace with the promise of a Palestinian State by 2008? It’s now 2010, and Palestinians continue to live under Israeli bondage. And the Americans continue to turn a blind eye on Israel’s deception to derail every peace talks that could lead to Palestinian statehood.

It even pressures countries like Egypt, Jordan and to some extent Saudi Arabia to toe the Israeli line – and the Jewish State doesn’t want to give up Judea, Samaria and half of Jerusalem.

But what saddens me most of all have been the anti-Palestinian comments by many Malaysians. Instead of judging for themselves the actions of the Israeli military actions against a civilian ship in international waters, they questioned why sympathizers have not expressed similar concerns for the Sri Lankan Tamils, Burmese or Dafur, etc.

How do they know that people like me haven’t?

It’s the same type of argument that Hindraf has posed to people: why voice concerns for Aminulrasyid Amzah but not Kugan or other Indians? Again, how does Uthayakumar know that we haven’t?

But this racially or religiously conscious approach is very lamentable because if one is sincere in expressing concerns, one shouldn’t calculate beforehand whether the victim is Indian, Malay, Chinese, Palestinian, Sri Lankan, Burmese, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.

And what does it matter if our neighbour only expresses sympathy for X but not Y? Sometimes the world is so full of injustice and tragedies that we cannot provide or voice our compassion, care and charity for everybody. Even if the sympathy is limited and directed to one party, so what – at least it’s still compassion.

More importantly we should ask ourselves whether we have feelings for the sufferings of people. Just skip that pack of cigarettes or a lunch, and send the money to the Red Cross or other suchlike organizations. I give as much (and not much, I have to admit – just RM100) each month to an Indonesian boy I adopt via World Vision as I provide to the Red Cross for Darfur. And I am a member of Amnesty International too. What little we can provide, what few words we are able to say, just do it!

Reach into our own hearts, and stop worrying about the other guy – what he/she does is his/her concern.

Related: Gaza's misery lingers as convoy fails to break siege