In a previous post on this blog, I did a piece around today’s disgruntlements in the west and how they are mostly people unable to really hear each other’s suffering (The Sound of Suffering Will Offend You…) I never expected this theme to keep repeating in the way that it does in so many aspects and in a way it may be getting worse. I am starting to realize that several of the issues today when it comes to social discord are centered around people unable to listen to each other’s suffering. I see this with every new issue around the gender wars, the ethnic representation issues, the war issues… Everywhere it is clear people are suffering and for the most part they are pretty clear on who the perpetrators of their discontent are.

Earlier this week, on or the day before Thanksgiving an Afghan refugee struck two National Guard service members; killing one and wounding another. Seeing this on Thanksgiving Day, an important American holiday for restoring one’s ties to family was quite heartbreaking. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, would not be going home to see her family and their lives would never be the same. The U.S president was quite moved in his acknowledgment of this that he resorted to put under scrutiny every Afghan refugee currently living in the United States. The following day, he included any “third world” nationals who have shown signs of not willing to assimilate into American culture. An American living under the current inflation, industrial uncertainty and political quagmire has every right to be protective of the little they have vested in this nation. Optimism at a time like this is crucial to surviving into the next era of prosperity. As a nation of people, we have seen a lot, we endure quite a bit despite how much we go back and forth with each other. However, our suffering is not unique.

For about twenty years, the United States sent forces to occupy parts of Afghanistan due to the strikes of 9/11. The mission was centered around finding Osama Bin Laden, who was later found and eliminated in Pakistan in a special operation. A nation was transformed at the barrel of a gun for a crime they may have had nothing to do with. Their society was scrutinized and transformed before their eyes. Their religion vilified. The men were hunted and the women were promised a liberation they had never seen before. As different as their culture was from the West, it was a tradition they had been used to for several generations (since the Islamic conquest). Their society (at least in Kabul) was forced into a model that seemed promising but was mostly unsustainable without our expense. Then in one fell swoop, the US pulled out at the order of the then Commander-in-Chief, Joe Biden. In less than six months, Afghanistan had a generation that was going to face the ire of a previous generation that had been fuming at the presence of these strangers who held them at gunpoint to “behave”. The women were now going to be faced with public and legal restrictions and the non-religious would have to go back into hiding. But then the ones who were the most at risk were the collaborators – the ones who assisted the hand behind the gun barrel. There was no livable future for such. Their options were to either suicide or escape.

Can you imagine living in the United States four years after you were promised to able to bring your family over to safety only to realize you would not? To realize you were probably on the path to repatriation because your stay in the country of refuge was no longer tenable because you immigration status would not be renewed or you would not be able to get one for the family most important to you. Unable to contain his suffering he chooses to make another suffer. Thus the cycle repeats. We mourn the life of a young woman cut short. We mourn with a family that expected to see their daughter, sister, granddaughter on Thanksgiving. We mourn what her life could have been. We mourn the loss of an individual who was dedicated to service. However, we cannot ignore that she was taken from us by someone who was probably mourning. Someone who gave up his family, his culture his own nation to defend OURS. He was someone who brought himself to the point of desertion only to be told his services were no longer needed. To see a young life sacrificed on the altar of cultural desertion, the question becomes; Was it all for nought?

Our suffering though subjective is hardly ever unique and I fear we are getting to a point where we get so caught up in our suffering that we are quick to exclaim at the suffering of another. I fear it offends us to notice that there is another suffering as much as we are, if not more.