Fight Your Own Battles

When you receive something for free, chances are you don’t appreciate it.

You’re living in a nation that is under a dictatorship. An outsider comes, fights the dictator and liberates your nation. Suddenly you’re free, but you’ve never lived in freedom before and don’t have a clue on how it’s done.

It seems like if you’re living under oppression, and have the courage to do something about it, fight the necessary battles, then you also have the willpower to live this new liberated life. But if someone else does the hard work for you, you don’t know how do life in the new situation.

The process is crucial. The frustration that builds up until you cannot remain silent, and must act. The determination you need to get rid of the old to bring in the new. It’s like maturing. You learn some ugly facts about yourself and the world and decided to deal with it. The immature reaction being not dealing with it, and throwing a tantrum instead.

The oppressive governments of Iraq and Afghanistan were overthrown with the help of outsiders. Now Egypt and Tunisia have gotten rid of their leaders by themselves. Iraq and Afghanistan have had trouble learning to stand on their own two feet. It will be interesting to see how life turns out in Tunisia and Egypt.

Ultimately a nation needs a leader who loves his country and his people. May all these nations find such leaders.

Cleaning the House Shouldn’t Kill You

There have been several reports lately in the media about physical abuse of maids in the Middle East. Most recently a Sri Lankan lady returned home with nails driven into her body. What kind of a sick sick person even thinks of doing something like that?

Coming from Finland, where having a maid is unheard of, these employer-employee-relationships are unknown. Since I have never had a servant I don’t know what it feels like when you have someone working for you and how mad you can get at them. In the Middle East I have seen many wealthy families walking around with their maids in tow. Often it is obvious that the maids aren’t treated well.

Recently I read a news article about the mass suicides of Nepalese maids in Lebanon. How can people treat their servants so bad that all they want to do is kill themselves? It shows again how low we humans can go. If you have power over another person it is very easy to take out your anger and frustration on them. We truly live in a fallen world.

The Right to Work

When you dragged yourself to work this morning, you probably weren’t doing a victory dance in your head because of your job. Having the right to be employed is not to be taken for granted. The thousands of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon have not had that right for decades. They’ve been doing the most menial jobs if they’ve been lucky enough to be employed.

A new law guarantees the refugees rights to work as foreigners in the land. Change in law is one step but changing the mentality of Palestinians themselves as well as the Lebanese will take more time. As they say a slave thinks like a slave even when they’re free. The biggest obstacles lie in our own heads.

Read the story here.