Society

I’ve seen the above photo (post ) and wondered is that really justice? I’ve posted a similar post before but in that post, the situation imposed on people was natural, not human-made. I understand the good intention creator of the photo has but it occurred to me that this is enough for many people.

Just like how most slavery abolitionists stopped after the slavery became illegal, many stop their action when some part of injustice is addressed. In the above photo, the situation is not natural, it’s human-made. The fence is built by humans and it is probably not only for animals, it’s also too keep some people out.

I believe the true justice (in the situation described in the photo) is that they get equal chance, equal opportunity, and equal respect to watch the game from stand among others and get enough/equal chance to contribute to the society they’re in, not to be kept out among animals.

Many people think of Israel and Palestine as two countries at war; with Israel, a state for Jewish people, occupying Palestine, where Palestinians live.

The truth is both Israeli Jews and Palestinians live all over the territory, ruled by one government and one army based on the idea of advancing the supremacy and domination of one group of people of Jews and that is what guides its policies and its practices towards Palestinians. In other words: Apartheid.

There were a group of scientists who were doing some experiments on some monkeys. The put five monkeys in a cage and made them live there. In the cage, they put a ladder and above the ladder, they put some bananas.

Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder and get some bananas, the scientists poured very cold water on other monkeys that were under the ladder, they shocked those who were under the ladder.

After a while, whenever a monkey tried to climb the ladder to get some bananas, other monkeys would pull the climbing monkey down and beat that poor one. A while passed and none of the monkeys, despite the inherent desire to the bananas, would climb the ladder because they were afraid of getting beaten by others.

The scientists decide to replace one of the monkeys, monkey number one, with another monkey that has no idea about the situation in the cage. When they replace monkey number one, the new monkey tries to climb the ladder and others pulled it down and beat it.

After a few times of getting beaten, the new monkey also decided to not climb the ladder for bananas, even though it has no idea why climbing the ladder is forbidden. When this happened, scientists replaced monkey number two with a new monkey.

Monkey number two was replaced and the same situation went on. New monkey tried to climb the ladder and got beaten and after a few times it decided to not climb the ladder even though it didn’t know why it is forbidden to climb the ladder or eat the bananas on top.

This went on until all the monkeys were replaced by new ones. Now none of the first monkeys are in the cage and all are replaced by new ones, and none of the new ones ever experienced the cold water but every time a monkey wants to climb the ladder, it gets beaten.

If we could continue the experiment and ask the monkeys why they beat the climbing monkey, their possible answers would be 1: I don’t know, it’s tradition, everybody does it; and 2: I don’t know, this is what is popular among other monkeys, you should obey the public.

Traditions and belief in the societies may have a very interesting or convincing root but they may be obsolete nowadays. I’m not trying to argue about the root of the problems, but how or whether they are affecting us today.

What I wrote was simply imposing a modern slavery of thought on monkeys. A similar story happened to humans, I believe. I truly believe we humans are experiencing a form of slavery, a modern new slavery, in which we have no idea why we do certain things or obey certain systems, but we’re too afraid of getting hurt to disobey it or act against the mainstream.

We are too afraid of swimming against the river, and even if we try to do, other fishes will stop us, and if you ask why they do it, they have no answer, they simply believe our actions are not right.

I try to change this, and I hope you join me.

Do you know what is the Boxer syndrome? In the book Animal Farm, Animals helped each other to kick out the master and his family and take control over the farm. The first thing they do after is to set Seven Commandments that said all animals are equal and nobody should claim itself master of others.

But it won’t take long that a pig who became the dictatorial president changes the commandments slowly to put advantages and privileges for itself and those around it.

Ultimately, Napoleon, the president pig, becomes an oppressive dictator and begins to adopt many aspects of human behavior. The pigs start walking on their hind legs, drinking alcohol, wearing clothes, and carrying whips near the end of the book. The commandments are changed to say, famously, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Meanwhile, there’s a working horse named Boxer which is very kind and is morally and behaviorally approved by all farm animals. The animals ask Boxer to help them change the situation (or decide what to do) but Boxer doesn’t pay any attention to its surroundings and is only busy with its hard work.

Boxer’s slogans are “Comrade Napoleon is always right” and “I will work harder!” Boxer feels it should work very hard and should not have anything to do with others.

Although Boxer could prevent the terrible events that fall on the animal farm, he worked hard and had nothing to do with others. He was busy with its own work and only found out about the incidents around itself when Napoleon, the dictator pig, sold it to a butcher.

In our lives, we meet so many people who are busy with their honest hard work and have no idea how the system, state, country, or people are moving or where we’re heading.

In a scene in the Titanic movie, while the ship hit the iceberg and was sinking, while people where screaming and running for their lives, while everybody were trying to be saved, there were a group of musicians/players who were performing classic music masterpieces.

They were doing their best, they were true hard-working people who tried to avoid their work be influenced by the environment/situation they were in. But in a sinking ship, while everybody is busy saving themselves or other people, when nobody is even paying attention or cares about your work, when your work has no good effect on the situation, why and how does it matter?

Many people we know are effected with the Boxer syndrome and forget when is the correct time to take a position or change the situation, or even do anything that matters, sadly.

Often when I talk about politics, specially sensitive stuff, some people claim they are neutral. I tell them you can’t be neutral, you’re either on the good side, or the bad side. I’ve written a post about this before, but I felt I should mention this again.

Being neutral is impossible because by being neutral you’re basically helping the bad side to win. Imagine you’re in situation where fire is burning wood, how can you be neutral in that situation? Arguing that you’re not fueling the fire nor turn it off doesn’t make you neutral. By doing nothing, you’re just helping fire to burn the wood without any disturbance.

Doing nothing in politics is meaningless. You’re either siding with one side or their opposer. Often when I talk with people about politics, some claim they’re neutral and I tell them it’s impossible. You’re not neutral in politics, you’re in denial. It’s very simple to me. I can’t believe someone is neutral when one side is a fascist and the other side is fighting for democracy.

I’m sure the slogan “believe all women” came to life with good intentions. For a long time, even today, women are being shamed for what they have no control over. For example, many blame raped women for the assault because of their choice of clothing. Or, many still harass women when they see them driving or working in an office.

I’m pretty sure “believe all women” was a slogan made to make people listen to women and have empathy for the pain they go through everyday. But should we really believe all women?

I don’t consider myself a feminist I don’t believe men and women are equal. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in equality of men and women but my understanding is that equality between men and women is them being treated with justice. When we treat both men and women with justice, we’re treating them equally.

I listen to women. If they say they’re assaulted or harassed, I’ll have empathy, but I won’t accept what they say unless there’s proof of that. I won’t ruin people’s lives because some woman accused them of rape, assault, or sexual harassment. Women are human beings after all and human beings are capable of many awful things, including lying.

I’ve seen social media ruining people’s lives because of a lie some person (man or woman) told and I’ve seen human beings suffer from those lies. Even if millions of people repeat something, unless there’s proof of that, I won’t believe it.

I respect the “believe all women” motto but for me it’s not really to believe, but to feel and have empathy for those who really are assaulted, raped, or harassed. I understand that many may experience a lot of things in their minds and the severity of harassment can be different for people based on their condition (in life or anything) but that’s not enough to accuse people of assault (or rape or harassment).

We should not cancel people or ruin people based on unproven stories. Even if the story is very much convincing, unless there’s enough evidence to prove that story, we shouldn’t accept that. In today’s world that there’s surveillance cameras everywhere (sadly) and we have a lot of tools to capture moments and we have enough technology to save the moments and incidents, there shouldn’t be a culture of cancelling based on myths, stories, and lies.

Let’s fight against this culture and while we’re fighting against them, let’s work to improve the life condition for women and those who suffered. Let’s listen to women, accept them, treat them with justice and manner, and help them to not be second class people. Don’t believe all women, but listen to them.

Instead of ruining people’s lives by believing all women, we can start empowering women to be able to defend themselves. We can develop technologies to help women (and even men) protect themselves.