"Are you Sunni or Syiah?"
Last weekend I purposely didn’t want to go back to Dublin as it’ll be the last weekend of my rotation here, plus I’m cutting the nauseas and tiredness of the 3 hours journey by bus. (And cutting the cost of the bus fare too). So on Friday evening while having dinner with few other girls who stayed back in the apartment, the news about Pope Benedict’s controversial statements was aired on Sky News. Since all of us are Muslims, we couldn’t be more of the same minds on how displeased we are and how fuming fellow Muslims all over the world would react on his provocative statements.
It was a long conversation we had and one thing led to another. Up till a point that I realized that we were actually talking and agreeing about the very same issues; of the invasion of Palestine and Lebanon, of boycotting Israel’s and American’s products, to the many leaders of the world who’s doing their good and bad parts in this so-called war on terror. Up till a point when my rich syiah friend offered me if I want to have the list of things to be boycotted, and I said I would email her the same thing as well. Yep she’s a syiah, but our minds were locked in the very same world issues.
I still think it’s a shame that sometimes people judge other people by the differences in their faiths, when in truth you could have so many things in common that you can work your way together.
I remember seeing this patient a week ago. He was in his late 60’s, looked very well-versed and was reading a thick serious book when I met him. We chatted and I did my clerking and physical examination, then I finished by looking at his drug cardex. While I was tightening some loose ends on the history, he asked me,
“So, are you a Sunni or Syiah?”
Smiled. “Sunni.”
“Why do you asked? Do you think it makes a huge difference to you?”
“Well, it’s breaking Iraq apart for sure. They’re killing each other now.”
“It sure does. That’s because the media and people (like you) are looking at it the wrong way. Things became uglier.”
He bragged on the differences and I insisted on the common grounds. At last, he finally agreed on few similarities and I had to approve on few disparities as well.
Though I may disagree on the way my syiah friend says her prayers, or the celebrations she celebrates, or how she dresses, or even the way she love lentils and chick peas with olives and salads (and she probably wouldn’t agree on my anchovies and dried shrimp paste as well), I learn that we can’t always escape the truth but we can surely stop making further damages by finding issues we can definitely nod our heads together with. We are indeed living in a very grim world with harsh realities. Now it left to us whether we’d want to jump and drift in the same dismal current, or pick up few good things and use it to our own benefits later.
It was a long conversation we had and one thing led to another. Up till a point that I realized that we were actually talking and agreeing about the very same issues; of the invasion of Palestine and Lebanon, of boycotting Israel’s and American’s products, to the many leaders of the world who’s doing their good and bad parts in this so-called war on terror. Up till a point when my rich syiah friend offered me if I want to have the list of things to be boycotted, and I said I would email her the same thing as well. Yep she’s a syiah, but our minds were locked in the very same world issues.
I still think it’s a shame that sometimes people judge other people by the differences in their faiths, when in truth you could have so many things in common that you can work your way together.
I remember seeing this patient a week ago. He was in his late 60’s, looked very well-versed and was reading a thick serious book when I met him. We chatted and I did my clerking and physical examination, then I finished by looking at his drug cardex. While I was tightening some loose ends on the history, he asked me,
“So, are you a Sunni or Syiah?”
Smiled. “Sunni.”
“Why do you asked? Do you think it makes a huge difference to you?”
“Well, it’s breaking Iraq apart for sure. They’re killing each other now.”
“It sure does. That’s because the media and people (like you) are looking at it the wrong way. Things became uglier.”
He bragged on the differences and I insisted on the common grounds. At last, he finally agreed on few similarities and I had to approve on few disparities as well.
Though I may disagree on the way my syiah friend says her prayers, or the celebrations she celebrates, or how she dresses, or even the way she love lentils and chick peas with olives and salads (and she probably wouldn’t agree on my anchovies and dried shrimp paste as well), I learn that we can’t always escape the truth but we can surely stop making further damages by finding issues we can definitely nod our heads together with. We are indeed living in a very grim world with harsh realities. Now it left to us whether we’d want to jump and drift in the same dismal current, or pick up few good things and use it to our own benefits later.
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