The Oppressor and Oppressed, Alternate Exchange of Roles

Abdulrashed Alfaqih

Sun – (23 Aug 2015)

The grievances cycle does not seem to stop at least during the near future, and will rather take different forms depending on the type of incidents and places. There happens change in the identities of the offender, the victim, the location and description of the grievance/violation. Our collective burden grows, accordingly, with the increase in abuses, victims and pain. Every time voices are raised to denounce and condemn: but the identities of the denouncer/denounced and/or condemner/condemned and their practices differ from one incident to another.

Hard in all this is the collective will possessed by the effective and efficient forces in the field in terms of platforms and advocates. Every force, every actor, sees the speck in the eye of the other, inside or outside, and picks holes in the practices of the other. In order to accuse the other, everyone has clear evidence, input and ad valorem information, arguments and logic and determinants, but all fade with the first perfectly matching incident once practiced by one’s party. What remains, then, is only the same justifications that were raised in support of their accusations, givens and determinants when they were in an opposing position to the other incident.

We have accumulated a huge experience in the exchange of roles of the position of the oppressor (his tools, justifications and methods) and that of the oppressed (his suffering and screams). This is a kind of experience that strengthens the cycle of injustice, expands the circle of inequity and increases the number of victims. Nothing more!

Faces change. Techniques are introduced. New tools are added. What remains constant is the contents of injustice, evil wills, justifications, terminology, logos, slogans and promises, and the inevitable result is a new-cum-old cycle of grievances, victims, unfairness, weak communities, underdevelopment, conflict, bloodshed, rhetoric, and promises taking new tours to swap the positions of the oppressor and the oppressed.

This is definitely not a destiny, and has nothing to do with genes. It does not need miracles to change it, but rather an effort to focus on humanization of will by every force, every individual, every actor and – on top of them – the enemies inside who wear faces that are not their real faces and whose outside colors do not reflect them per se.

* Previously published in Almasdar daily newspaper