Here is something that a lot of persons should take an interest in reading, if you have the time -- an interesting article and I thought well-written.
Here is a small piece of it, although I have to say that I may get arrested. I'm serious. After all, I downloaded the word "hijab..." So? I must be either a terrorist or a bigot. One or the other.
"
...a woman wearing a hijab and a long black tunic [who] began unloading an overflowing trolley, one item at a time.
She
says: 'I glanced over and thought, “This poor woman's going to be there
for hours.” Her husband was standing closest to me, so I said to him,
“Will you help her?”
'He said, “I've got the children.” I said, “Well, I can help her” and he replied, “What's it to you?”
"
The article itself has more, of course, and, it is from England. For that reason alone there is less manipulation and ideological baggage than the corresponding American article would have.
The last thing the man says above ("What's it to you?") marks this supposedly "Mediterranean" man as an "individualist," of a type who cannot see the connections that actually exist between various persons. They seem separated to him. But that is also his interpretation of the modern society he is in, or what the nature of a capitalist society is. This type of person really believes that the society is made up purely of individuals, and these individuals may be, in everyday life, unconnected. This is the way he sees, but, in a way, there is some truth to it. One may look at things that way. These two persons, the man and his companion (or wife) saw no connection between this same woman, struggling to unload groceries and this other woman, who happened to be English, and who was standing nearby: "What's it to you?"
Are there times when persons have no connection to one another? No. We are always connected. But, sometimes we do not know it. If we do not see our connection to others, then, when an offer to help comes, this act may appear senseless, it came across as a possible threat...
So, read it for your self. You don't want my "help," now, do you?
JS
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