Being human

But is it not also a sign that human beings no longer see each other as such? It is fashionable nowadays to speak of human rights, but what does it mean to see others as human in the fullest sense of the word? A friend of mine who works with people who are disabled tells the story of a religious sister who went every day to visit the homeless. And one day my friend asked, “Do you know the names of these people you minister to?” And she didn’t. “These people” and I use that term carefully, were nameless and faceless.

According to Christian belief there are corporal works of mercy, each of which demands an act of compassion and a recognition of humanity. But without this idea of the human, each act, whether it is feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, burying the dead or giving alms to the poor, becomes an act of hubris that serves only to shore up our sense of being superior in a world we really perceive to be filled with derelicts.

So that giving alms to the poor might actually lead to a feeling of superiority, or what I have heard called a “God complex,” that serves to create a gap between who I am and the object of charity. Once an individual begins to feel so good about her acts of charity that she becomes judgmental, then we begin to have a different idea of the relation between self and others. It is not that there are no good men and women in our nation. But I wonder how much does this sense of superiority contribute to the calls for a return of the death penalty in Trinidad and Tobago? How does this attitude of being merciful and charitable square with and perhaps even contribute to the reasoning that we should now arm our citizens? After all the call to arms is being made by one who advocated stridently for mercy for the sick, in particular children.

We arrive at a point here where the individual right to self-preservation takes precedence over all other rights. This is of course US President Donald Trump’s reasoning as well, and his justification for refusing the entry of refugees.

Finding shelter for those who have been rendered homeless and hungry by acts of war, terrorism, bigotry or natural disaster marks us as not simply as compassionate but as people who recognise that there, but for the grace of God, go I and because I have today does not mean that I will have tomorrow.

Much more important, it recognises that those in such desperate need are human beings like ourselves and not nameless faces that flicker across our television screens just before we watch our favourite soap. It is a difficult lesson in today’s faceless world of web interconnectivity and material affluence. There is another issue though that flows from performing acts of mercy without a recognition of equal and full humanity for all. For some, or maybe for most of us, giving is often accompanied by an unstated belief that something will be given in return. That something may well be that it will contribute to our status in the world and that there will be some form of recognition and applause for such acts.

In a world where politicians and leaders see themselves as celebrities and judge their success by their television ratings, giving may become a very calculated act indeed.

But then those to whom we give become mere extensions of ourselves.

And the means to our own self-glorification.

And after all it is of the essence of mercy that we do not succumb to the danger of self-aggrandisement. In other words, that we do not see ourselves as superior in any way and that we maintain true humility.

If as a nation we see ourselves as superior (after all God IS a Trini) and our entire education system is built around an idea of superiority, then where does this leave the child who must assert his role and his position in the world? If the rights of upward mobility and progress are so inalienably attached to the idea of a superior being in the world, then that must mean that individual rights must take precedence over all other rights.

If this is what we preach as a nation then this idea will seep down to the bully in the playground who must assert that superiority come hell or high water. So he stomps on the arm of a child who is unable to defend himself. Human rights are linked to other forms of compassion, such as the humility to forgive and to bear wrongs patiently and also to set an example through one’s actions so that the world actually begins to develop a mature sense of what being human truly entails.