Seminar: "I Can’t Breathe" with Dr. Osman Latiff (2021-06-10)

## Description

In light of the racially motivated cold-blooded murder of George Floyd, Dr. Osman Latiff will deliver an academic seminar on mechanisms of othering and dehumanisation and how Islam addresses the solution to racism.

Summary of Seminar: "I Can’t Breathe" with Dr. Osman Latiff

This summary is AI generated - there may be inaccuracies. *

00:00:00 [01:00:00

discusses the idea of "othering" and its implications for discrimination and conflict. notes that othering is a false creation, and that it can lead to hatred, abuse, and savagery.

00:00:00 In this presentation, Dr. Osman Latiff discusses the significance of "I Can't Breathe" being one of the most notable quotations in 2014. He goes on to talk about the victimization of people, and how it has led to social injustice and even worse things. He then discusses how islam addresses othering, demonization, and empathy, and how it can help us to understand and deal with these issues.

00:05:00 presents the idea that empathy is very powerful, but it is also limited because each person experiences empathy differently based on their own life experiences and social human life experiences. Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, describes a remarkable scene in which he is in a carriage with other Auschwitz prisoners being transported to another concentration camp. He describes the moment they passed the camp and the sense of jubilation they felt knowing they were not going to that one.
00:10:00 Discusses the poem, "The Haunted Oak," by Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The poem is about a tree that experiences the pain and anguish of a lynching. The tree is personified and is unable to withstand the memory. The poem is a powerful example of the importance of witnessing and the weight that it carries.
00:15:00 This seminar discusses the idea that the closer a perpetrator perceives of a victim, the more detached they are from the atrocities they are committing. It also discusses the book "On Killing" by Dave Grossman, which discusses the psychological effects of killing.
00:20:00 The seminar discusses social death, which is when victims are pushed to the margins of society and are no longer accepted. Social dying means generational change, and the descendants of the victims will no longer be able to live in normal, accepted society.
00:25:00 The seminar discusses the idea of social death, social dying, and othering. It explains that in order to create the other, you need an in-group and an out-group. The out-group is the other one, and in order for that to exist, you need an in-group. The self versus the other is based upon a human being's or people's perception of themselves. This can be based on many factors, one of which is disability.
00:30:00 Dr. Osman Latiff discusses how the Prophet Muhammad taught us to interact with others and to view race in a more holistic way. He also discusses the poem "Two Beautiful People in the Mercedes," which illustrates the idea. Dr. Latiff points out that even though we are together in reality, we are not together because some people have more wealth than others. He encourages us to follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad and to treat everyone equally.
00:35:00 This seminar discusses the concept of "othering" and its implications for discrimination and conflict. notes that othering is a false creation, and that it can lead to hatred, abuse, and savagery.
00:40:00 In these two examples, one of which is about a white man changing his skin color to black, the author points out that often times when people with different skin colors interact, the people with darker skin colors are seen as inferior. This is especially true when it comes to areas like race and morality.
00:45:00 Discusses how black people are seen as different, and how this difference leads to tragedy. Dr. Osman Latiff gives an example of John Howard Griffin's experiences as a black man in America. Griffin was tortured by police, and cried for his mother. He says that the stereotype view of black people creates a chasm between those who see us as different, and those who perpetrate cruelty and violence against us.
00:50:00 Discusses the significance of a halo, or halo-like symbol, that appears around a person in a photograph of torture victims from Denmark. The guards behind the person may also be wearing animal-like costumes, which symbolize their role in the victim's captivity.
00:55:00 Discusses the contrast between isolation and togetherness, and how this can be applied to the situation of a torture victim. It discusses how the torturer sees the victim's condition based on what he is seeing at the time, rather than extrapolating to a more inner realm. This is important because it makes it difficult for the torturer to feel empathy for the victim.

01:00:00 [01:35:00

Dr. Osman Latiff discusses the importance of empathy and its role in the dehumanization of victims. He points to the light that we need in order to see people compassionately--in Islam, specifically. Dehumanization begins with stripping away the moral code that binds us as human beings. It precedes any physical injury or death inflicted on a victim.

01:00:00 In this seminar, Dr. Osman Latiff discusses the importance of empathy and its role in the dehumanization of victims. He points to the light that we need in order to see people compassionately--in Islam, specifically. Dehumanization begins with stripping away the moral code that binds us as human beings. It precedes any physical injury or death inflicted on a victim.

01:05:00 The Qur'an teaches that humans are created in the image of God, and that diversity is a sign of His greatness. This message should lead to empathy and understanding between people, rather than contempt and discrimination.
01:10:00 In this seminar, Dr. Osman Latiff discusses the verse in the Quran "They are not all the same." He points out that while no two people are the same, we must not create distinctions between one another based on superficial factors like race or religion. He suggests that instead, we should focus on the closer relationships we have with Allah and be aware of our own biases. This will help us to be more just and equitable towards one another.
01:15:00 Dr. Osman Latiff discusses the differences between 'othering' and 'bridging.' He says that 'othering' allows for communication to be inhibited, while 'bridging' allows for understanding and creativity to flourish. Latiff also discusses the example of the George Floyd concert, in which some bystanders attempted to shout at police officers and insult them, while others tried to rescue the officers. He says that this demonstrates the different reactions that can occur when someone is confronted with injustice.
01:20:00 Discusses the importance of recognizing and responding to injustice, and warns against the consequences of doing so. also speaks about the weight that witnessing injustice can carry, and how focusing on individuals rather than groups can help to avoid these consequences.
01:25:00 Dr. Osman Latiff discusses the central idea of the poem "I Can't Breathe" and how it can be applied to our daily lives. He reminds viewers that despite the challenges we face, we must remember that we are all human and have the potential to empathize with others.
01:30:00 Discusses the similarities between pre-Islamic Arabs and the Nazis, as well as the reasons for those similarities. He also mentions different aspects of Arab society that can lead to similar behavior in humans. Finally, the speaker discusses the effects of dehumanization on Arab society, and ends the lecture by thanking attendees for their attendance.
01:35:00 In this seminar, Dr. Osman Latiff discusses the medical condition known as sleep apnea, which can cause individuals to experience difficulty breathing. He provides information on the symptoms and treatments available for sleep apnea, and provides tips for preventing the condition.

Full transcript with timestamps: CLICK TO EXPAND

0:00:17 uh 0:00:18 welcome alhamdulillah on this uh very 0:00:20 important presentation called i can't 0:00:21 breathe 0:00:22 uh i am dr osman native and this is with 0:00:25 sapience institute 0:00:26 uh this is in fact i think one of really 0:00:29 one of the most important topics for all 0:00:31 of us to consider 0:00:32 we are of course when we consider 0:00:34 ourselves as human beings we are of 0:00:35 course able 0:00:36 uh to perform amazing acts dizzying 0:00:39 dazzling acts of of goodness of kindness 0:00:42 and we in fact we see them we 0:00:44 feel them we experience them like on a 0:00:46 daily basis we see 0:00:47 love we see mercy we see kindness we see 0:00:50 attachment 0:00:51 we see comradeship we see all kinds of 0:00:54 beautiful things in our relationships 0:00:57 but we also have you know a a darker 0:01:00 potential a darker potential 0:01:02 that human beings have and i think one 0:01:03 of the worst kinds of 0:01:06 those um dark potentials of human beings 0:01:09 is to otherize other people what that 0:01:12 means therefore 0:01:12 is to uh subjugate is to relegate is to 0:01:16 marginalize 0:01:17 other people so that we tend to believe 0:01:20 that the kind of basic rights or we 0:01:22 should be afforded as human beings or 0:01:24 the ones that we love should be afforded 0:01:25 as human beings 0:01:26 is not the same as those others over 0:01:29 there 0:01:30 and this therefore when it becomes 0:01:31 unchecked leads to even worse 0:01:34 uh mechanisms like the human nature 0:01:36 we're going to cover all of these 0:01:37 inshallah 0:01:38 today in our presentation so therefore 0:01:40 this is called i can't breathe 0:01:42 now that statement i can't breathe 0:01:46 um i think it relates to all of us i 0:01:49 think all of us know something about 0:01:51 the context of that statement i can't 0:01:54 breathe in fact it's a declarative it's 0:01:56 a declarative 0:01:57 i can't breathe that statement 0:02:00 declarative i can't breathe in fact 0:02:02 became 0:02:03 in 2014 one of the most 0:02:06 notable quotations in the yale book of 0:02:09 quotations in that year 0:02:12 and we're going to go through the 0:02:13 context of that statement 0:02:15 the victimization of people of course 0:02:18 who whose final 0:02:19 last words was that declarative 0:02:21 statement i can't breathe 0:02:23 and then look at the the the way that 0:02:26 uh people in human history and today of 0:02:29 course 0:02:30 uh have been are being authorized and 0:02:33 the dangers that this leads to we're 0:02:34 going to look at things like social debt 0:02:36 social dying 0:02:37 we're going to consider historical 0:02:38 examples uh 0:02:40 current contemporary examples also uh 0:02:44 and then look at the the worst 0:02:46 constructs of dehumanization 0:02:48 and genocidal tendencies emerging out of 0:02:51 uttering and dehumanization as well 0:02:53 and then think about the islamic 0:02:56 response the islamic solution 0:02:58 looking at the quranic narrative looking 0:03:00 at the prophetic example 0:03:02 and how uh othering and dehumanization 0:03:04 was understood and how it was 0:03:06 uh put in its right place and how it was 0:03:08 you know um 0:03:10 uh it was challenged and it was dealt 0:03:12 with uh in in those traditions so 0:03:14 we're gonna begin inshallah in the name 0:03:15 of allah subhanahu wa to allah i can't 0:03:17 breathe 0:03:18 here we are so now 0:03:21 we have we can't breathe and and why 0:03:24 that's important 0:03:24 is because uh there is something that 0:03:26 that does target our collective human 0:03:29 conscience and i think that 0:03:30 if we think about and and i think it 0:03:33 could be quite true that we 0:03:34 if we think of those murders of these 0:03:37 individuals eric garner 2014 david 0:03:40 dungay 2015 0:03:41 adam matr 2016 most recently george 0:03:44 floyd 2020 um 0:03:46 in some ways uh they they come to 0:03:49 symbolize 0:03:50 kind of a watershed moment or moments 0:03:53 for us in human history 0:03:54 um and why that is because you know 0:03:57 watershed moments 0:03:58 don't always have to be grand events it 0:04:01 could simply be 0:04:03 times of um 0:04:06 you know narrative changed it could be 0:04:09 times of paradigmatic changes in human 0:04:12 society 0:04:13 and it's also true that those are going 0:04:15 to be felt by some 0:04:17 maybe more than others uh the family 0:04:20 members 0:04:20 the the ethnic communities might be 0:04:24 might feel those more than others but i 0:04:25 think that there is a kind of a tugging 0:04:27 at our collective human conscience 0:04:29 uh when we saw what we saw most recently 0:04:32 in the tragic killing of george floyd in 0:04:35 2020 but also in fact an 0:04:37 air gun in fact sticks in my mind a lot 0:04:39 and in fact aragon is something i 0:04:41 discussed in my book 0:04:42 uh on being human how islam addresses 0:04:44 othering demonization empathy which is 0:04:46 available for free download 0:04:47 at sapience institute website um 0:04:50 and so therefore think about that the 0:04:52 idea of our collective human 0:04:54 consciousness meaning that we're all in 0:04:55 many ways speaking the same 0:04:58 languages we're all feeling the same 0:05:00 kinds of things 0:05:02 the the way that empathy of course is 0:05:04 constructed for everything one of us is 0:05:06 different um because we have different 0:05:09 social human life experiences 0:05:11 uh but the point is that we do feel and 0:05:13 that's the whole point that we do feel 0:05:15 this 0:05:15 amazing account of and i discussed this 0:05:17 again in my book 0:05:19 um of um of viktor frankl 0:05:22 in his book command search for meaning 0:05:24 of course viktor frankl was a 0:05:25 auschwitz survivor holocaust survivor 0:05:28 but he described this really 0:05:30 uh remarkable scene haunting but 0:05:32 remarkable as well that he's in his 0:05:34 carriage with some other 0:05:36 um auschwitz uh you know prisoners 0:05:39 and they're being transported to another 0:05:42 prison um and what happens is he 0:05:45 describes this moment 0:05:47 in the carriage there's only a few of 0:05:49 them there being transported 0:05:51 and there is of course uh okay as a slit 0:05:54 a gap 0:05:55 uh in the doors of the carriage and 0:05:57 they're able to see where they're going 0:05:59 remember of course this was 0:06:00 the homeland homeland for many of these 0:06:02 people in poland 0:06:04 many people lived in fact in those areas 0:06:05 or news or they knew in fact 0:06:07 uh the landscape of where they were and 0:06:10 so 0:06:11 uh what makes it so interesting this is 0:06:14 again the power of empathy 0:06:15 but also the uh in some respects the 0:06:17 limitations of empathy is because 0:06:20 viktor frankl was was the one who was 0:06:22 asked to go and check and see 0:06:24 if they could see where they are right 0:06:26 if they could recognize 0:06:27 uh you know buildings and and the 0:06:30 landscape and 0:06:31 sites of significance and and as they're 0:06:34 passing 0:06:35 and as they're passing through they see 0:06:37 that they're passing 0:06:39 par they're going past uh another of the 0:06:42 the death camps 0:06:43 that had a kind of a horrific reputation 0:06:45 of course they were all 0:06:46 gruesome but but he describes this 0:06:49 moment 0:06:49 and he says that when they passed it he 0:06:52 says the sense of jubilation 0:06:54 that they felt um at that moment in time 0:06:57 knowing that they're not going to that 0:06:59 one 0:07:00 was something any even fact he says that 0:07:02 no one could have 0:07:03 known what we had felt at that moment 0:07:06 unless you were in the courage with us i 0:07:08 said the whole point is 0:07:10 is that um empathy is so powerful 0:07:13 but empathy breathes from an individual 0:07:17 human life experience all of us feel 0:07:20 different things because of who we are 0:07:21 where we've been what we've seen 0:07:23 what we're seeing that has a bearing on 0:07:25 how we feel about those things 0:07:28 but in a generalized sense uh we simply 0:07:32 feel that's the whole point so therefore 0:07:34 our collective human conscience can be 0:07:36 tugged 0:07:36 at moments like this and of course there 0:07:39 is a media 0:07:40 narrative around that story that's 0:07:42 played you know and we see that often 0:07:44 and so on and so forth 0:07:45 um now i want to in fact start with uh 0:07:48 well if you if you first think about 0:07:50 these individuals eric garner 2014 david 0:07:53 dungay 2015 0:07:54 adam a trot adama troll in fact was a 0:07:58 a french malian um victim 0:08:01 and he was put in police custody and he 0:08:05 was apprehended by the police 0:08:06 and his final words were adama troy uh i 0:08:09 want to read for you something that his 0:08:11 sister in fact 0:08:12 said uh she said that uh his sister asa 0:08:16 asatro said about her brother that and 0:08:18 and she spoke about 0:08:19 her brother adamatro and george floyd 0:08:23 in the same kind of context this is of 0:08:25 course later after the the the killing 0:08:28 of george floyd 0:08:29 she said that they died in this exact 0:08:31 same way 0:08:32 they carried the weight of three cops on 0:08:34 them 0:08:35 they had the same words and that was the 0:08:38 end of george floyd and that was also 0:08:40 the end for my brother but it is in fact 0:08:44 uh what really struck me with with what 0:08:46 she said is the word 0:08:48 the weight it is the weight so therefore 0:08:51 the physical bearing the physical weight 0:08:54 the physical 0:08:55 pressure that led to these victims to 0:08:59 gasp in their final moments those 0:09:02 final words of i can't breathe meaning 0:09:05 the 0:09:06 the suppression of breath the inability 0:09:08 to breathe 0:09:09 to breathe uh to have lack of access of 0:09:12 air of oxygen that would of course be 0:09:15 the necessity 0:09:16 of life itself um is is understood 0:09:20 in this sense i think when we look at it 0:09:22 also figuratively metaphorically what 0:09:24 what does weight actually mean and what 0:09:27 does weight mean 0:09:28 really in our collective human 0:09:30 conscience all right 0:09:32 to to what extent do we feel that sense 0:09:35 of of burden 0:09:36 the burden of weight of responsibility 0:09:40 right that might breed what we call a 0:09:43 a witness empathy in all of us or any 0:09:45 any of us right it could compel us 0:09:47 propel us 0:09:48 to do something to change to alleviate 0:09:50 uh the suffering of any people 0:09:52 right all depends in fact on that weight 0:09:55 on our human 0:09:56 conscience right um and so therefore 0:10:00 we're gonna start with this poem this 0:10:03 poem is called 0:10:04 the haunted oak paul lawrence dunbar is 0:10:07 probably the most 0:10:08 uh celebrated of all african-american 0:10:10 poets it was young in fact a remarkable 0:10:12 poet 0:10:13 and uh the poet that i want to discuss 0:10:16 or 0:10:17 some of the poet of the syrup on the 0:10:19 poetry of the poem 0:10:20 is called the haunted oak now this poem 0:10:23 in fact has a con this was published and 0:10:24 written in 1900 0:10:26 it could have been based in fact on on 0:10:29 any of the dozens of lynchings uh 0:10:32 in that year but in fact this this poem 0:10:35 the haunted oak has 0:10:37 has a narrative has a context and and it 0:10:39 says that 0:10:40 uh that once paul laurence dunbar was 0:10:44 passing through 0:10:46 a village and he met a man from alabama 0:10:51 and he was complaining or he was 0:10:53 speaking 0:10:54 to dunbar about the fact that his nephew 0:10:57 had been lynched 0:10:58 on this oak tree and he said that now 0:11:02 this 0:11:02 oak tree it shrivels and 0:11:06 it becomes yellow and and the leaves 0:11:09 fall off it withers away 0:11:11 and it's withering away he's saying 0:11:12 because of the fact that this oak tree 0:11:15 experienced what it experienced in 0:11:18 having this innocent 0:11:19 african-american victim lynched on the 0:11:22 oak tree 0:11:25 there's a lot in fact about this uh when 0:11:28 i was in auschwitz but canal some years 0:11:30 ago i 0:11:30 i remember asking in fact the tour guide 0:11:33 that 0:11:33 because there's trees of course in the 0:11:35 in the perimeter 0:11:37 of the camps and i and i asked the tour 0:11:40 guide 0:11:41 were there trees uh you know during the 0:11:44 years of the holocaust were there trees 0:11:47 and she said uh she said yeah and they 0:11:49 were the first witnesses 0:11:51 and that really struck me in fact i was 0:11:53 almost anticipating her to be honest 0:11:55 i was almost anticipating that she would 0:11:56 say that because that's exactly what i 0:11:58 was feeling at the same time that they 0:12:00 were the first witnesses to this 0:12:02 um meaning first what she's trying to 0:12:04 say therefore is that they were there 0:12:06 right uh before and after and during 0:12:10 uh what the victims of of of auschwitz 0:12:13 birkenau 0:12:13 experienced um allah says in shaheed 0:12:17 allah is a witness over all things 0:12:19 um and so therefore uh this is part it's 0:12:22 a longer poem 0:12:23 the haunted oak and i and i have much 0:12:26 more of the poem in my book 0:12:27 on being human um but this is a line 0:12:30 that sticks out for me 0:12:31 uh now of course in this poem 0:12:34 the the oak tree is personified the oak 0:12:38 feels what this victim feels the oak 0:12:42 experiences what the victim experiences 0:12:44 the oak feels 0:12:45 that sense of pain you know because of 0:12:49 the proximity the closeness the anguish 0:12:52 of the victim and in this line it says i 0:12:55 feel the rope against my bark 0:12:57 and the weight of him in my grain i feel 0:12:59 in the throat of his final woe 0:13:01 the touch of my own last pain right so 0:13:04 think about that look at the words that 0:13:05 the 0:13:06 weight of him the weight of him the 0:13:09 throw 0:13:10 in his final woe the touch of my own 0:13:12 last pain there's a kind of a 0:13:14 coalescing there is a conjoining there 0:13:16 is 0:13:17 a merging together of the the tree 0:13:21 and the victim in that what the victim 0:13:24 experiences 0:13:25 the the tree has a feel of that 0:13:28 in that there is a sense of dissipation 0:13:30 as that as the 0:13:31 life of that victim is being drained out 0:13:35 of that person 0:13:36 there is a dissipating in the life of 0:13:38 the tree 0:13:39 the tree therefore uh is dying as 0:13:42 the the lynched victim is also dying 0:13:46 right so therefore and the idea is that 0:13:48 the personified tree is an 0:13:49 active uh intimate um 0:13:53 witness as opposed to being a spectator 0:13:56 or a bystander 0:13:58 the tree here in fact is a is a witness 0:14:01 and it's 0:14:02 unable to withstand the memory of the 0:14:04 horrors that the tree 0:14:05 uh witnesses so therefore the idea these 0:14:07 themes of witnessing of burden of weight 0:14:10 and our collective human consciousness 0:14:12 are very very powerful there so 0:14:14 therefore we're looking at 0:14:15 these examples of arigana devadungi 0:14:17 adamandez of course so many more as well 0:14:20 george floyd i can't breathe meaning we 0:14:23 can't 0:14:23 breathe just like the tree um that's 0:14:27 in the frame of human 0:14:30 life and death experience of the victim 0:14:34 that poor lauren zanbar writes about 0:14:38 just like he's of course unable the tree 0:14:41 is unable to 0:14:42 to uh to cope or unable to withstand the 0:14:45 horrors of that 0:14:47 there is a sense of kind of a 0:14:48 collectivizing then the collectivising 0:14:51 in the collective pronoun the plural 0:14:52 pronoun 0:14:53 we can't breathe so the individual 0:14:56 personal pronoun 0:14:57 i mean that's a human tragedy connected 0:15:00 to 0:15:01 that human individual and 0:15:05 they you know you can't we can't have an 0:15:07 exactness of empathy here 0:15:09 why because everyone is in their own 0:15:12 human 0:15:12 just like the example of viktor frankl i 0:15:14 mentioned being in that carriage 0:15:16 uh as they're passing through uh and and 0:15:19 he's seeing from that gap 0:15:21 in the carriage that they're not they're 0:15:23 not they're not stopping 0:15:24 at the death camp that they were worried 0:15:27 about 0:15:28 but they're still in that experience of 0:15:31 horror and tragedy that is the holocaust 0:15:34 but he said just a sense of jubilation 0:15:36 that experience he said that unless you 0:15:38 were there in the carriage on that day 0:15:40 at a specific point in time 0:15:42 you could never have felt what we had 0:15:45 felt 0:15:45 so therefore i can't breathe must remain 0:15:48 i can't breathe 0:15:50 for those victims but we can't breathe 0:15:52 the the the plural prone and the 0:15:55 collective pronoun hair becomes 0:15:56 more um more understood or more 0:15:59 acceptable 0:16:00 in a sense that the understanding that 0:16:03 there is a burden 0:16:04 there's a human burdening there is a 0:16:06 kind of a tugging at the human 0:16:08 collective conscience 0:16:10 that we all should be experiencing and 0:16:12 that's really one of the great points 0:16:14 of this um presentation to begin with 0:16:16 what does icon breathe 0:16:18 really mean for us as human beings in 0:16:20 this context that we're 0:16:22 living in and that we might continue to 0:16:24 live in you know in the future also that 0:16:26 we turn the icon breathe into a we can't 0:16:28 breathe if we understand it 0:16:30 from the point of uh the the 0:16:32 collectivized 0:16:33 burdening the collectivized weight of 0:16:36 human responsibility 0:16:38 and that's really i think coming through 0:16:39 quite strongly in the poem of 0:16:41 paul lawrence dunbar so therefore the 0:16:44 weight as you can see 0:16:45 the weight the feel and the touch the 0:16:47 oak experiences symbolizes 0:16:49 the burdens we confront um you know in 0:16:52 in our world 0:16:54 now over here 0:16:57 yeah we confront from the other eyes or 0:16:59 other victims 0:17:00 of our world all right so what is 0:17:04 othering then so what is it so we're 0:17:05 speaking about othering 0:17:07 or other rising the other what exactly 0:17:10 or who exactly is 0:17:11 that other um now the other is or the 0:17:15 other ring is a negating of another in 0:17:17 another's 0:17:18 individual and social work as i 0:17:20 mentioned it is 0:17:21 it is to believe that uh another person 0:17:25 uh outside of us they could be 0:17:28 culturally different they could be uh 0:17:32 different in terms of look they could be 0:17:35 uh physically away from us um 0:17:39 but we but we could run the risk of 0:17:42 othering those people 0:17:44 if we tend to believe that those others 0:17:47 or that other is undeserving of the 0:17:50 basic 0:17:51 human rights uh that we believe 0:17:54 are afforded or should be afforded and 0:17:56 to us or the ones that we 0:17:58 actually love um now i've put her social 0:18:01 death and dying which i think is really 0:18:03 important 0:18:04 um the there's a really interesting book 0:18:07 by 0:18:08 dave grossman called on killing it's a 0:18:10 psychological effects 0:18:11 of of killing uh and war and 0:18:14 he makes his point and he says that the 0:18:16 closer a perpetrator perceives 0:18:19 of a victim it's like any of us really 0:18:22 the more we perceive 0:18:23 of others the closeness or the distance 0:18:25 by which or through which we're 0:18:26 perceiving of others 0:18:28 has a bearing on our attitude towards 0:18:30 those people 0:18:31 and he has a section called altitude and 0:18:34 attitude 0:18:35 and he says altitude because he gives 0:18:37 these examples of 0:18:39 uh you know of let's say soldier 0:18:42 soldiers or army personnel uh uh 0:18:46 in their fighter jets and they're so 0:18:48 high up in altitude and they drop 0:18:50 bombs on on civilian populations who of 0:18:53 course end up being killed in these 0:18:56 um but because they're so far up they 0:18:59 don't see 0:19:00 what they're what they're doing or they 0:19:01 don't have a that sense of distance 0:19:04 uh is a detachment emotional detachment 0:19:06 that they have towards 0:19:08 the victims that they're actually 0:19:10 killing they don't see the horrors they 0:19:12 don't see the anguish they don't see the 0:19:13 blood they don't see the decimation 0:19:16 of of landscape and town and village and 0:19:18 city they don't see that and so 0:19:20 therefore that 0:19:21 sense of indifference is with them 0:19:23 because of the ultimate attitude but if 0:19:25 they're 0:19:26 closer down if they're down with the 0:19:27 victims 0:19:29 then of course they'll see more of that 0:19:31 and there's so many examples of these 0:19:34 um and and of course the same is true in 0:19:36 the holocaust and in 0:19:38 all examples of human genocide um uh 0:19:41 the fact that the perpetrators would say 0:19:43 these kinds of things that you know when 0:19:45 we were up close 0:19:46 uh we could see the horrors on the faces 0:19:48 and it's a very good book called time 0:19:50 for machetes 0:19:51 um by john hatzfeld which again is 0:19:54 discussed in my book on being human 0:19:56 about the genocide of rwanda um and it's 0:19:59 written by 0:20:00 perpetrators you know of of that 0:20:02 horrific genocide in april 0:20:04 to june or july 1994. um 0:20:08 and so therefore what happens is that 0:20:12 the victims uh they experience a social 0:20:15 death or a social dying 0:20:18 and this happens when when the victims 0:20:19 are kind of pushed to the margins 0:20:21 of what's socially acceptable 0:20:24 excommunicated 0:20:25 from what we believe to be standard 0:20:28 and normal for all other people uh 0:20:30 what's normal and moral in society it 0:20:32 simply doesn't apply to them 0:20:34 anymore and this of course is discussed 0:20:36 like i mentioned 0:20:37 in in dave grossman's book on being 0:20:39 human um 0:20:40 now what happens in addition to this is 0:20:43 that 0:20:43 if a group of people are socially 0:20:46 death dead in society meaning 0:20:50 because they're not given consideration 0:20:53 worth value uh there's no sense of 0:20:57 you know uh merging of of societal 0:21:01 identities together 0:21:02 uh they're kind of marginalized they're 0:21:05 ostracized they're 0:21:06 they're they're kept in their own places 0:21:08 um 0:21:09 it's not just that they experience 0:21:11 social death but what social dying 0:21:13 therefore means 0:21:14 is it means generational death it means 0:21:17 generational change it means that 0:21:20 not only have those individuals now died 0:21:23 because they've been uttered right 0:21:25 they've been castigated 0:21:26 away from everybody else the norm but it 0:21:30 means that 0:21:30 their descendants will no longer be able 0:21:33 to 0:21:34 uh live uh you know in as 0:21:37 as normal uh not functioning but 0:21:41 acceptably functioning members of 0:21:43 society because of the fact that their 0:21:46 uh parents or their ancestors sense of 0:21:49 social worth was 0:21:50 decimated in the first place uh this in 0:21:53 fact is quite interesting because of the 0:21:55 ethnic of the idea of ethnic cleansing 0:21:58 so if you think therefore about the 0:21:59 events of 1948 in palestine the 0:22:02 the nakaba the catastrophe ethnic 0:22:04 cleansing 0:22:05 so in the words of ilan pape in his book 0:22:08 at the cleansing of palestine and so 0:22:09 many others also 0:22:11 um the ethnic cleansing was in fact 0:22:14 a precipitating of a creating of of 0:22:17 social death and social dying 0:22:19 so the the the inhabitants of the 0:22:22 five 600 villages that were uh 0:22:26 destroyed from the 1948 nakaba and even 0:22:30 in fact before that as well 0:22:31 um meant that there is now going to be a 0:22:34 sense of invisibility 0:22:36 in those landscapes or new landscapes 0:22:39 meaning invisibility 0:22:41 as per the previous inhabitants 0:22:44 of those villages and so ethnic 0:22:47 cleansing therefore meant not just 0:22:49 the forced expulsion of the inhabitants 0:22:52 from their homes and their villages but 0:22:54 it means that the new 0:22:56 uh villages have to look different they 0:22:59 have to have different names and they 0:23:00 have to have 0:23:01 um you know there has to be a sense of 0:23:04 invisibility about the 0:23:06 previous one so constructing like let's 0:23:09 say 0:23:09 car parks was one was one tactic or city 0:23:12 parks was another one or even 0:23:14 planting forests was a very common one 0:23:17 and if you plant a forest it means that 0:23:18 you can't see 0:23:20 what was there once before uh and that's 0:23:23 kind of how 0:23:23 what happens in ethnic cleansing and so 0:23:26 social dying therefore it's not just 0:23:27 about 0:23:28 the fact that uh people in their 0:23:31 experience of being 0:23:32 othered uh have like in the sense of 0:23:35 social death 0:23:36 because of the fact that they're just 0:23:38 not included with everybody else and 0:23:40 they're marginalized ostracized but it 0:23:41 means that 0:23:42 the the generational change is going to 0:23:45 take place because 0:23:46 the ones that they leave behind are 0:23:48 unable to 0:23:50 reconnect to what once was and that's 0:23:53 also true in fact with 0:23:54 with the crisis of refugees expelled 0:23:57 from their homes who don't have a 0:23:58 return and they can't in fact reconnect 0:24:01 to that landscape 0:24:02 anymore um so what happens therefore 0:24:06 let me give you a few examples here one 0:24:08 example in fact or is from 0:24:10 primo levy primo levy in his book um 0:24:13 survival surviving auschwitz i mean he 0:24:15 his book was also called if 0:24:17 is this if this is man uh or is this is 0:24:19 this man you know 0:24:21 um and it's an interesting title in fact 0:24:25 because 0:24:26 the man here the noun of the man 0:24:29 becomes so um 0:24:33 so powerfully symbolic uh in the social 0:24:36 experience 0:24:37 of not external social social experience 0:24:39 of the victims 0:24:41 of that time because there was a sense 0:24:44 of 0:24:44 demasculinating uh those victims right 0:24:47 so 0:24:48 a sense of you know you're not a man 0:24:51 you're not man enough you're not manly 0:24:53 enough 0:24:54 uh um you know and so uh the idea is 0:24:58 well then is this man who would do that 0:25:02 to another human being right that's kind 0:25:04 of man's inhumanity towards man 0:25:07 and likewise in the experience of the 0:25:09 african americans in their struggle and 0:25:10 civil rights struggle from the 19 0:25:13 i mean 20th century even before that 0:25:15 time um 0:25:17 uh one of the things you might see or 0:25:20 you might have seen pictures of 0:25:21 is of marches uh marches of 0:25:25 uh african americans holding 0:25:28 placards and banners saying uh i am a 0:25:31 man 0:25:32 and i am a man you know and so the idea 0:25:35 is that i'm not a boy 0:25:36 that's the idea i'm not a boy you know 0:25:38 so i'm not the one that 0:25:39 you you subjugate and you diminish and 0:25:42 you demean 0:25:43 and you regard as unworthy and 0:25:46 uncivilized and savage and so on and so 0:25:48 forth 0:25:48 i am a man it's a declarative it's a 0:25:51 statement 0:25:52 of truth meaning this is who i am so 0:25:54 therefore uh prima levy's book 0:25:56 was also called you know is this a man 0:25:59 uh but also called 0:26:00 uh survival in auschwitz um and so 0:26:03 therefore he makes this observation and 0:26:05 he says 0:26:06 i'm gonna read this to you slightly 0:26:08 because i think it's important um 0:26:10 he says that uh this is the idea of 0:26:12 social death and social dying he said 0:26:14 nothing belongs 0:26:15 to us anymore they have taken away our 0:26:17 clothes our shoes even our hair 0:26:20 if we speak they will not listen to us 0:26:22 and if they listen 0:26:24 they will not understand they will even 0:26:26 take away our name 0:26:28 and if we want to keep it we will have 0:26:30 to find in ourselves the strength to do 0:26:32 so 0:26:33 to manage somehow so that behind the 0:26:36 name something 0:26:37 of us of us as we were still remaining 0:26:40 this is so 0:26:41 it's actually very emotive uh to read 0:26:43 this 0:26:44 it's very emotional but it's um very 0:26:46 powerful and read the last line again he 0:26:48 says 0:26:48 to manage somehow so that behind the 0:26:51 name 0:26:52 something of us of us as we were still 0:26:54 remains and that's 0:26:56 that's what social debt and what social 0:26:57 dying actually is there 0:26:59 um now the second blue point is othering 0:27:03 is 0:27:03 in grouping and out grouping so 0:27:05 therefore in order to create 0:27:06 the other uh you have to have of course 0:27:09 the in 0:27:10 group and the in group in fact is the 0:27:12 result of the out group or vice versa 0:27:15 so the out grouping is the is is the is 0:27:18 the other one 0:27:19 and in order for that to uh exist in the 0:27:22 first place there has to be 0:27:24 an in-grouping right so kind of the self 0:27:27 versus the other uh and the way that the 0:27:31 self in fact 0:27:32 uh the way that the other is created is 0:27:34 through the self that's the whole point 0:27:36 in the first 0:27:36 i mean it's through the self so it's 0:27:39 based upon 0:27:40 a human being or human beings people 0:27:43 society you know groups gangs 0:27:47 cults believing themselves to be so 0:27:49 worthy 0:27:50 of of human privileges and rights and so 0:27:53 on and so forth that they believe that 0:27:54 the 0:27:55 owl group then are those who are uh 0:27:58 not the the humans that the uh 0:28:02 in group are or not the worthy the 0:28:05 other becomes the unworthy the 0:28:07 uncivilized and then the savage and so 0:28:09 on and so forth and so 0:28:11 this could be based on many factors one 0:28:12 is disability 0:28:14 so you could i mean people could look 0:28:16 towards disabled people as being 0:28:18 so inherently different to the healthy 0:28:21 bodied ones 0:28:22 um that they don't have a place uh in 0:28:25 the world of the healthy bodied ones so 0:28:28 therefore healthy what the ones could be 0:28:30 a grouping in and of themselves or even 0:28:32 if we don't think of it like that 0:28:34 psychologically uh that could exist 0:28:38 right or subconsciously it could exist 0:28:40 so subconsciously you might think well 0:28:42 my my my uh my company 0:28:45 my pairs in society are the ones who 0:28:49 uh don't have impediments of 0:28:52 let's say walking for example are not uh 0:28:56 are not wheelchair bound for example 0:28:58 right so 0:28:59 the way you could look at the wheelchair 0:29:01 bound once that's so 0:29:02 far removed from you and your 0:29:05 living experiences that you you simply 0:29:08 don't see them 0:29:09 as as part of you or part of your human 0:29:11 society 0:29:12 anymore and that's a tragic example in 0:29:15 fact of of uttering 0:29:16 based on disability there was a a man in 0:29:19 the in the time of 0:29:20 of the prophet sallam uh and he this man 0:29:23 in fact was blind 0:29:25 he was blind and the prophet would say 0:29:27 to his companions 0:29:28 uh he would say 0:29:32 he would say that come and let's go and 0:29:34 visit the one who has vision 0:29:36 who has vision and insight even though 0:29:38 the man 0:29:39 was blind the prophet sallam did not 0:29:42 typify him as a blind 0:29:44 person per se right so his own blindness 0:29:47 of course was his own challenge 0:29:49 in in life but the prophet taught that 0:29:52 in 0:29:52 in the way that he supposed to be 0:29:55 understood 0:29:56 in relation to us and we in relation to 0:29:58 him 0:29:59 is that we do not demean or belittle or 0:30:02 look down upon him 0:30:03 based upon his disability uh but the 0:30:06 fact is 0:30:07 there is a greater conferring of honor 0:30:10 upon him 0:30:11 uh on the fact that he has uh he has 0:30:14 faith he has belief he has 0:30:16 character and so many other things and 0:30:17 he would say therefore let us 0:30:19 go and see the one let us go and visit 0:30:21 the one who has 0:30:22 vision you know he has vision and 0:30:24 perception 0:30:26 uh and this beautiful beautiful 0:30:27 demonstration of how the prophet sallam 0:30:29 taught us to 0:30:30 engage with other people and then of 0:30:32 course number two race and that's one of 0:30:34 our of course main discussions today 0:30:36 about the element of race um which is a 0:30:38 very common one 0:30:39 you know the the complexion of a 0:30:41 person's skin 0:30:43 uh becomes therefore the identifying 0:30:45 marker 0:30:46 by which and through which we see social 0:30:49 acceptability 0:30:50 by which we see uh acceptance worthiness 0:30:53 unworthiness and so on and so forth and 0:30:55 socioeconomic status as well 0:30:58 and i had here a very famous poem that 0:31:01 you guys might remember doing 0:31:02 if you if you did your gcnc's maybe some 0:31:04 years back so 0:31:05 it's called two beautiful people in the 0:31:07 mercedes do two scavengers and drunk 0:31:09 it's by lawrence fernandetti if i 0:31:10 remember 0:31:11 again this poem is discussed uh in my 0:31:14 book on being human which you can 0:31:15 download for free on the sap institute 0:31:17 website and 0:31:18 and and you can clearly see from the 0:31:20 title itself to beautiful people in the 0:31:22 mercedes two scavengers in a truck 0:31:24 the juxtaposition there the contrasting 0:31:27 there 0:31:27 um of uh of people who are 0:31:30 beautiful and inner mercedes and then 0:31:34 the others who are 0:31:35 scavengers um and are not afforded an 0:31:38 adjective had to describe them really in 0:31:40 any in a sense 0:31:42 and they're in a truck as opposed to the 0:31:44 mercedes uh but the poem is interesting 0:31:46 because it 0:31:47 what it shows is that um so these 0:31:51 two sort of in the poem you have the the 0:31:53 people in the mercedes the man and the 0:31:55 woman 0:31:56 who coming from their architect's office 0:31:58 uh 0:31:59 they they uh are seen by 0:32:02 the two people in in the 0:32:05 uh in the garbage truck right 0:32:09 uh because it's because it's a red light 0:32:11 they stop at the traffic lights you know 0:32:13 and it says it's only the red light that 0:32:15 holds these 0:32:17 these two couples together for um for an 0:32:20 instant 0:32:20 for a small moment and it says that 0:32:22 they're hanging on i remember reading 0:32:24 and it says that that the two men are 0:32:26 hanging on and looking down 0:32:28 but even hanging on and looking down 0:32:31 are our metaphoric you know our are more 0:32:34 symbolic 0:32:35 of life itself you know hanging on this 0:32:37 hanging on 0:32:38 hanging on to life and looking down 0:32:41 and looking down in fact could be the 0:32:43 inverse it could be that 0:32:44 the people in the mercedes might be 0:32:46 looking down on the others 0:32:49 um but looking down could also could 0:32:51 also be 0:32:52 a way of i don't know now when i think 0:32:55 about it is it is it a way for us 0:32:56 is it a way of offsetting uh the idea 0:32:59 that we're 0:33:00 creating these altitudes we're creating 0:33:03 these heights 0:33:04 and they're so superficial right so 0:33:06 who's looking down 0:33:08 on who who's at the height the garbage 0:33:10 man interestingly ironically 0:33:12 are at the height looking down on the 0:33:14 people in the mercedes 0:33:15 um and even though we know what it means 0:33:18 uh 0:33:18 in the poem hanging on and looking down 0:33:21 but maybe the poet had it in his mind 0:33:23 that we're supposed to be seeing it 0:33:25 the other way around as well maybe but 0:33:28 of course poetry 0:33:29 is is poetry um it's an interesting poem 0:33:32 therefore and then he says that 0:33:34 and he speaks about the the high seas of 0:33:36 this great gulf 0:33:38 of our democracy and it's speaking about 0:33:40 the fact that even though 0:33:42 we're together in reality we're not 0:33:45 together 0:33:46 right because we can use the 0:33:48 socio-economical economic status of 0:33:50 others um 0:33:52 or of ourselves sorry to create these in 0:33:54 groups and out groups 0:33:56 that we just simply hang around and 0:33:57 stick around with those 0:33:59 that way that we that we know are 0:34:01 wealthy 0:34:02 as we are you know uh and we should 0:34:05 never ever do that 0:34:06 should never ever do that the example of 0:34:08 the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi 0:34:10 is that he would be and this is in fact 0:34:12 the example of prophets prophets were 0:34:14 with those who were on the margins of 0:34:15 human society prophets were with those 0:34:17 who are on the fringes of human society 0:34:19 the prophet says that the best marriage 0:34:21 is that you invite the poor to your 0:34:23 to your wedding you know you don't 0:34:25 simply have a a wedding ceremony and 0:34:27 only the wealthy ones are invited but 0:34:28 what about the poor people who are never 0:34:30 invited why didn't you invite those 0:34:31 people and 0:34:32 and and the problem you know would take 0:34:34 the hands of poor people 0:34:36 in fact a man once came and he said he 0:34:38 said it says 0:34:39 in hadith it says he says a man 0:34:42 came complaining about the hardness of 0:34:45 his heart 0:34:45 and the prophet says to him that's do 0:34:48 you want that allah 0:34:50 you know softens your heart 0:34:53 and allah fulfills your needs and the 0:34:54 man says indeed i would love that or 0:34:56 messenger of allah 0:34:57 and the prophet then says 0:35:04 and if you want that to happen then have 0:35:06 mercy on the orphan 0:35:07 and feed him from your food and allah 0:35:11 will 0:35:11 soften your heart and allah will fulfill 0:35:14 your needs 0:35:14 right this is why and wipe over his head 0:35:16 with this kind of symbolic gesture of of 0:35:18 of mercy and kindness 0:35:20 and feed him from your food and that 0:35:21 love will soften your heart fulfill you 0:35:23 on it so therefore it's beautiful 0:35:24 so therefore also othering is to 0:35:26 generalize right what does that mean 0:35:28 that means that in reality what is 0:35:30 society society is a complex measure of 0:35:32 human beings individuals 0:35:34 the example i've just given you of 0:35:35 viktor frankl and the others as well 0:35:39 are simply stating the obvious point 0:35:41 that every single one of us is an 0:35:43 individual 0:35:45 and so therefore if we're seeing others 0:35:48 groups people as a kind of a uh 0:35:51 as a kind of a generalized you know mesh 0:35:54 of people um that they all must 0:35:58 think the same they all must believe the 0:36:00 same they all must 0:36:01 have same value judgments in life that's 0:36:04 the way that we would otherwise 0:36:06 those people right because the opposite 0:36:08 is true the idea is that everybody in 0:36:10 fact is an 0:36:11 individual with different thoughts and 0:36:13 values and beliefs and 0:36:15 feelings as well uh so therefore 0:36:18 uh othering is to generalize is to 0:36:21 marginalize and therefore 0:36:22 this leads to uh discrimination we're 0:36:24 going to go through some 0:36:26 uh accounts now of of the kind of 0:36:28 discrimination this would result in 0:36:31 um now othering in fact is also a false 0:36:35 creation right it's something that's 0:36:37 that's not true 0:36:38 it's a characterizing of another a false 0:36:41 creation it obscures 0:36:43 it obscures the true identity the true 0:36:46 worth and the true value of another it 0:36:49 demoralizes 0:36:50 of course it does of course it does it's 0:36:53 going to demoralize 0:36:54 right so if a person knows 0:36:57 that they're being perceived of as less 0:37:01 valuable less worthy less important by 0:37:05 others it's going to demoralize them 0:37:07 right it's going to make them feel as if 0:37:09 well they're not 0:37:09 good enough they're not good enough 0:37:11 they're not acceptable enough right 0:37:14 to be with the company or with the group 0:37:17 that's the dominant group in society and 0:37:20 it generates an irrational affair of 0:37:21 another 0:37:23 right so by by castigating by 0:37:26 marginalizing by removing 0:37:28 uh some people out of the dominant frame 0:37:31 by which we look at the world 0:37:33 uh makes us makes us 0:37:36 fair those others as if they're um 0:37:40 as if they're you know not fully human 0:37:43 as if they're sub-humanized entities and 0:37:45 this of course is exactly what happens 0:37:47 and is happening and has happened in 0:37:49 examples of of mass conflict mass 0:37:51 killing human genocide as well 0:37:53 right an irrational fear of another 0:37:55 leading to hatred abuse and 0:37:57 savagery um now here we have an example 0:38:01 of 0:38:01 uh of emmett till emmett chill might be 0:38:04 a name that you might be familiar with 0:38:06 maybe not but it's very again it's kind 0:38:09 of uh 0:38:10 it's it's like a whatsapp movement 0:38:12 really i think in the civil rights 0:38:13 struggle because of that key year 1955 0:38:16 it was the same year in fact that rosa 0:38:18 parks made her defiant 0:38:20 uh decision to remain seated 0:38:23 on the bus uh in montgomery um 0:38:27 you know and this then that of course 0:38:29 led to the montgomery boss boycott for 0:38:31 381 days 0:38:33 uh and it had a kind of a big effect on 0:38:35 on the economy 0:38:36 and it kind of galvanized the spirit of 0:38:39 uh of african americans and also with 0:38:41 whites as well 0:38:42 who had the solidarity with with the 0:38:44 african americans in the struggle 0:38:45 but remember of course it wasn't had to 0:38:47 begin with it was also claudette 0:38:48 colville 0:38:49 claudette colvin sorry um who also who 0:38:52 was only 16 year old but also refused to 0:38:54 give her place to the white man on the 0:38:55 bus 0:38:56 as well but rosa parks becomes really 0:38:58 paradigmatic influential 0:39:00 in the same year therefore we also had 0:39:02 the slaughter of emmett till 0:39:04 um emmett till was a i think 14 15 year 0:39:07 old boy he was in fact from chicago but 0:39:09 he persuaded his mother maya till uh 0:39:12 to uh to allow him i think him and maybe 0:39:15 another sibling 0:39:16 to travel down south to alabama um 0:39:19 when it was alabama yeah mississippi uh 0:39:22 to spend time with his cousin his mother 0:39:25 may until initially resisted 0:39:27 the idea but then she gave in to his 0:39:29 demand and then he goes there and 0:39:31 and then he's um i mean there is of 0:39:34 course 0:39:34 um there is a dominant narrative uh 0:39:37 which has been in fact challenged in 0:39:39 some in some 0:39:40 in some reports as well uh but in the 0:39:43 dominant one it says that he was 0:39:47 in a sweet shop and a white woman came 0:39:50 in and he apparently wolf whistled 0:39:52 and then she informed her husband the 0:39:54 husband that night together with his 0:39:56 friend or his brother 0:39:59 went to the home uh that he was staying 0:40:01 in you know with his cousin and the 0:40:03 cousin's grandfather i think it was 0:40:05 and he was beaten beaten to death he was 0:40:07 taken to 0:40:08 the tallahatchie river in mississippi uh 0:40:11 beaten to death i mean 0:40:12 so horrifically uh and killed and then 0:40:15 dumped in the river 0:40:16 um and and then you know 0:40:20 of course he was reported and and then 0:40:22 when they interviewed 0:40:24 uh the um the cousin 0:40:27 and the grandfather who informed them 0:40:29 that that night they came and they took 0:40:31 him uh him and they and they killed him 0:40:34 uh 0:40:34 when the the body was taken out of the 0:40:38 river 0:40:38 it was so badly disfigured uh that 0:40:42 they they they they enclosed it in a box 0:40:45 and they sealed the box and they tried 0:40:47 to convince the mother may tell not to 0:40:49 open the box 0:40:50 right because uh you know you don't they 0:40:52 don't want to see what was being done to 0:40:54 her son 0:40:54 and she said no she said this is my son 0:40:57 and i want to see my son 0:40:59 um and then uh 0:41:02 you know on in the in the funeral of 0:41:05 emmett till 0:41:06 it says around one third of all people 0:41:09 uh 0:41:10 in in the church that they fainted when 0:41:12 they saw what they did 0:41:13 to to that young young child um 0:41:16 now i want to read this this is uh and 0:41:18 just pay attention a lot to 0:41:20 what's uh in red as well because i 0:41:22 thought that's really important 0:41:23 these kind of ideas the mother mayor 0:41:26 tells says that we buried emmet 0:41:28 the state of mississippi said that that 0:41:30 was not ahmet 0:41:31 they said that it was impossible for a 0:41:33 body to deteriorate that much 0:41:35 in that length of time but what they 0:41:37 didn't say they didn't bring out that 0:41:39 the body was badly beaten 0:41:41 that the river water had burst the skin 0:41:43 and it had peeled off the body 0:41:45 the water was hot the beating was brutal 0:41:48 then to beat him they didn't hear his 0:41:50 cries look at that they didn't hear his 0:41:52 cries 0:41:53 you know that's a very powerful thing of 0:41:55 course for a mother to say her about her 0:41:57 son 0:41:58 uh it's almost it's almost as if it's 0:42:00 saying 0:42:01 had they heard his cries wouldn't they 0:42:04 have stopped beating him i mean had if 0:42:07 they heard his cries wouldn't that make 0:42:09 wouldn't have that have made them stop 0:42:11 beating him if they'd heard his cries 0:42:14 right 0:42:14 because in reality when we speak about 0:42:17 empathy 0:42:18 right and of course she's alluding to 0:42:20 this and what she's saying is that 0:42:21 empathy is really to be alert to our 0:42:23 human codes of recognizability the fact 0:42:26 that we can recognize with other people 0:42:28 because of the fact that we our human 0:42:30 codes are 0:42:31 same or similar if not identical we all 0:42:35 cry at times we all 0:42:36 laugh at times we all feel sad at times 0:42:38 you all feel 0:42:39 really happy at times i mean all of 0:42:41 these are simple codes of of 0:42:43 understanding who we are and simply as 0:42:45 as human beings and she said they didn't 0:42:46 hear his cries they didn't touch 0:42:48 them whatsoever this one little colored 0:42:51 boy that did hear them 0:42:52 said that he heard screams coming from 0:42:54 that barn about an hour 0:42:56 and a half he cried for god he cried for 0:42:58 his mother 0:43:00 look at that he pleaded with them but 0:43:02 they were having such a good time 0:43:04 so they didn't consider that he was a 0:43:06 human being and look at that 0:43:08 look at that last line having such a 0:43:10 good time so they didn't consider that 0:43:12 he was a human being 0:43:14 i mean you know i mean this is this is 0:43:17 it 0:43:18 right they didn't consider he was a 0:43:19 human being right so therefore 0:43:22 in in their minds this emmett till has 0:43:24 become 0:43:25 the sub-human you know he's become the 0:43:27 sub-human he's become the 0:43:29 uh he's become the uh you know the 0:43:32 ubermensch he's become the 0:43:34 the ones he's become the uh the 0:43:37 marginalized and he's no longer 0:43:40 part within that human frame and what 0:43:42 that human frame really means 0:43:44 in reality is that the perpetrators 0:43:46 believe themselves to be 0:43:48 so um honorable or so deserving 0:43:52 because of the color of their skin and a 0:43:54 metal 0:43:55 because of his skin was therefore 0:43:57 undeserving 0:43:58 right of all the things those moral 0:44:02 rights those human rights that human 0:44:05 beings are 0:44:06 afforded meaning basic rights of decency 0:44:09 basic rights of being treated with 0:44:11 respect and on and so on and so forth 0:44:13 um but because he was 0:44:17 he was an african-american a complexion 0:44:19 color was different 0:44:21 they didn't see that he was a human 0:44:23 being so it's a very tragic account 0:44:24 there of 0:44:25 from the mother of uh emmett till maya 0:44:27 till 0:44:28 and here's another example 0:44:36 in this example um 0:44:39 again is to do with um the idea of color 0:44:43 and complexion this is from john howard 0:44:44 griffin 0:44:46 uh now join our griffin in fact this 0:44:49 again is to do with 0:44:50 the struggle of african americans 0:44:51 particularly in the 1950s 0:44:54 uh john howard griffin was a white 0:44:56 individual who decided to 0:44:58 have his skin color black and he 0:45:01 describes it here 0:45:03 so that he could experience what 0:45:06 black people are experiencing of racism 0:45:09 in their towns and villages and in 0:45:11 cities and he writes this and he says i 0:45:13 learned within a very few hours that no 0:45:15 one was judging me by my qualities as a 0:45:17 human 0:45:18 individual it was in red there by my 0:45:20 qualities as a human 0:45:22 individual right so therefore the 0:45:24 contrast here is between 0:45:26 the value what's valuable is it going to 0:45:28 be 0:45:30 the superficial color of our skin or 0:45:32 something that's more transcendental 0:45:35 more intrinsic more powerful um 0:45:38 and that is of course the qualities we 0:45:39 have as human beings and everyone was 0:45:41 judging me by my pigment he says 0:45:43 as soon as white men or women saw me 0:45:45 they automatically assumed 0:45:47 i possessed a whole set of false 0:45:49 characters this is why it's of course 0:45:50 the characterizing like i mentioned 0:45:52 false not only to me but to all blacks 0:45:55 and i think this is so powerful so 0:45:57 powerful let's read that again 0:45:58 as soon as white men or women um 0:46:02 saw me they automatically assumed i 0:46:04 possessed a whole set of 0:46:06 false characteristics false not only to 0:46:08 me 0:46:09 but to all black men meaning it's a 0:46:11 complete 0:46:12 it's a complete fictitious 0:46:15 characterizing meaning it's something 0:46:17 you're 0:46:17 cr that's been created imputed upon them 0:46:20 from their imagination right uh and that 0:46:23 has no truth bearing 0:46:25 at all they could not see me or any 0:46:27 other black man 0:46:28 as a human individual because they 0:46:30 buried us under the garbage of their 0:46:32 stereotype view 0:46:33 of us this is it's so powerful what he's 0:46:35 saying here they could not see me or any 0:46:38 other black man 0:46:39 as a human individual because they 0:46:41 buried us under the garbage of their 0:46:42 stereotype view of us 0:46:45 the human being therefore does not 0:46:47 emerge they saw us as different from 0:46:49 themselves 0:46:51 in fundamental ways we were 0:46:53 irresponsible we 0:46:54 were different in our sexual morals we 0:46:56 were intellectually limited we 0:46:58 had a god-given sense of rhythm we we 0:47:01 were lazy and happy-go-lucky we loved 0:47:04 watermelon and fried chicken 0:47:06 how could white men ever really know 0:47:08 black men if on every contact the white 0:47:10 man's stereotype view of the black man 0:47:12 got in the way 0:47:13 i never knew a black man who felt this 0:47:15 stereotype view fit him 0:47:17 always in every encounter even with good 0:47:20 whites we had the feeling that the white 0:47:22 person was not talking with us 0:47:24 but with his image of us i think this 0:47:27 this account of john howard griffin 0:47:30 is is so powerful and so representative 0:47:34 of what othering really is and also what 0:47:37 other ring 0:47:38 really does um the falsity 0:47:41 the falsity of of kind of a 0:47:43 pseudo-creation 0:47:44 really a characterization of somebody 0:47:47 else that's an untrue representation of 0:47:49 him or her or them 0:47:51 of those people because 0:47:55 because it it breeds and it now it has 0:47:58 existed 0:47:59 it's going to create this sense of chasm 0:48:04 difference and binary distinction 0:48:06 between 0:48:07 those two sets of people one of course 0:48:10 is going to be vilified victimized and 0:48:13 other would be therefore the dominant 0:48:14 perpetrator 0:48:16 inflicting on cruelty inflicting cruelty 0:48:19 and uh you know and injustice uh 0:48:22 abuse torture terror murder uh on that 0:48:26 other 0:48:26 you know and then that's kind of i think 0:48:27 what we're seeing here uh so i want us 0:48:30 to really think therefore about 0:48:32 what is it what is it what is the 0:48:34 culture what is the climate that would 0:48:36 lead to 0:48:37 uh those horrific deaths of the 0:48:39 individual we mentioned the beginning 0:48:41 uh uh you know and george floyd for 0:48:43 example and 0:48:44 why is it that he would have a police 0:48:46 officer with 0:48:48 his knee on that individual's neck for 0:48:50 so long 0:48:51 and he's pleading for his life i can't 0:48:54 breathe you know and sometimes you've 0:48:57 been calling out to his mother mama 0:48:59 he's saying that and think about the 0:49:02 fact that you know what 0:49:03 um we just read about uh 0:49:06 about emmett till not emma till yeah 0:49:09 emma till it was 0:49:10 right that he's he cried for his mother 0:49:13 right cried for his mother 0:49:15 right i mean that's a human human thing 0:49:17 there you know 0:49:18 we all have mothers right and so uh 0:49:21 we're seeing that here 0:49:24 now what is it in fact that we're seeing 0:49:26 we keep saying that we're seeing what is 0:49:27 it are we seeing so who and what do we 0:49:29 see 0:49:30 if we look at this uh this watercolor 0:49:33 painting here 0:49:34 this is called surrounded by torturers 0:49:36 he cannot see 0:49:38 see think about it who can't see who 0:49:41 now he this uh individual 0:49:44 in this in this painting who has his uh 0:49:47 head covered in in a hoodie 0:49:51 right he's surrounded by torturers but 0:49:55 he can't see them 0:49:56 right just just take it take a few 0:49:59 seconds to look at it we're going to 0:50:00 talk about it in a second but just look 0:50:02 at it 0:50:03 look at it this is from image custom of 0:50:05 the rehabilitation and research center 0:50:07 for 0:50:08 torture victims copenhagen denmark okay 0:50:10 so look at him 0:50:11 look at what he's wearing look at that 0:50:13 blood mark on his shirt 0:50:16 look at his clothing look at his feet 0:50:18 look at 0:50:19 the hood on his head 0:50:23 and look at what that hood looks like 0:50:26 okay look at those guards behind him and 0:50:30 look at what they look like 0:50:32 look at the halo around him and think 0:50:34 about what is that halo 0:50:36 what is that symbol what does it 0:50:37 represent how is it created how is it 0:50:39 there 0:50:40 all right so once you've seen it we're 0:50:43 going to move on 0:50:46 here we are juxtaposed observation so on 0:50:48 the one hand of course we saw that halo 0:50:50 what does it mean what does it represent 0:50:51 is it a halo 0:50:53 now it all depends what we're looking at 0:50:55 because it could in fact be that the 0:50:57 guards have a 0:50:58 as a torch and they're shining the torch 0:51:02 behind him and then that creates a kind 0:51:04 of halo effect 0:51:05 around him but perhaps we're supposed to 0:51:08 be 0:51:09 we're supposed to see him as if there is 0:51:11 a halo 0:51:12 around him why wouldn't there be that's 0:51:14 a question to ask isn't it 0:51:15 why wouldn't there be or why shouldn't 0:51:18 there be 0:51:19 see it's about sometimes we have these 0:51:22 false assumptions 0:51:23 of other human beings it could be that 0:51:26 you're looking at somebody and you're 0:51:27 thinking 0:51:28 uh you might not be thinking the best 0:51:30 about them 0:51:32 but the kind of things that you might 0:51:35 because remember the othering is about 0:51:37 what you believe to be so good in 0:51:40 yourself 0:51:41 you don't believe that to be in somebody 0:51:43 else right 0:51:44 uh and then what it creates it creates 0:51:46 this kind of an arrogance or 0:51:48 pride about you uh because you're seeing 0:51:51 yourself as 0:51:52 superior and others as inferior um 0:51:55 and so therefore think about what a halo 0:51:57 that halo which might not be a halo 0:51:59 uh but perhaps it should be a halo why 0:52:02 shouldn't it be a halo uh 0:52:04 what it should represent in our life 0:52:05 right what is the halo that we 0:52:07 create should we create halo around 0:52:10 the people that we're observing and 0:52:12 seeing in our world today 0:52:13 and what that could mean is a bit like 0:52:15 what the prophet says about the man who 0:52:16 was blind 0:52:17 that's going to visit the one who has 0:52:19 vision and can see it's creating 0:52:21 something giving that that individual 0:52:23 the goodness 0:52:24 uh the ingredient of of kindness and 0:52:27 mercy and goodness 0:52:28 that all people should be afforded what 0:52:31 about the swollen feet 0:52:33 or if you go back and see this word and 0:52:34 feet there 0:52:36 what do they represent now of course 0:52:38 there could be swollen feet because 0:52:40 they've been beaten 0:52:42 so because they've been beaten but the 0:52:44 sword free could also represent kind of 0:52:45 a stamped 0:52:46 presence maybe this one if he in fact is 0:52:49 his sense of defiance and dignity 0:52:51 maybe they represent his courage and 0:52:53 bravery maybe they represent this kind 0:52:55 of internalized authority 0:52:58 right uh what about the hood now the 0:52:59 hood in fact is almost important because 0:53:01 the hood is 0:53:01 is bear-like right so the 0:53:05 the the other the otherized individual 0:53:07 who's 0:53:08 going to end up being dehumanized is is 0:53:10 precisely that 0:53:11 is dehumanized and so one of the the 0:53:14 first things that 0:53:15 you find you see is a very common thing 0:53:18 in 0:53:19 examples of human genocide and and in 0:53:21 great injustice 0:53:22 is that the other victims uh dehumanized 0:53:25 ones are given these 0:53:27 um animalistic animalistic 0:53:31 you know labels like their beasts is 0:53:34 another one you know bears could be 0:53:35 another one 0:53:36 cockroaches vermin rats you know as 0:53:39 an infestation that has to be removed 0:53:42 but the behavior 0:53:43 is a symbol of course of this man's 0:53:46 defiance 0:53:47 uh of his maybe it's his defiance 0:53:50 that ends up here him being a prisoner 0:53:53 here in the first place right um 0:53:56 but the hood but because he's made to 0:53:58 look bear-like 0:54:00 right i think about what that creates in 0:54:02 the minds of those 0:54:04 of those gods behind him as if he's some 0:54:07 kind of 0:54:07 a spectacle in some kind of a zoo as if 0:54:10 he's a captured 0:54:11 animal you know uh it heralded because 0:54:14 he's captured now 0:54:15 you know for the wall to see it's a very 0:54:17 good book to read called 0:54:18 the spectacle it's called the spectacle 0:54:21 the tragedy of ota benga 0:54:24 and this in fact i also discussed in my 0:54:25 book on being human which you can 0:54:26 download for free 0:54:27 on sapience institute website at the 0:54:30 tragedy of ota bengal who in fact was 0:54:31 put 0:54:32 you know with um you know with uh with 0:54:34 monkeys in fact in in bronx zoo uh 0:54:38 in the beginning or and end of the 19th 0:54:41 or beginning of 20th century 0:54:42 um it's a very good book to read in fact 0:54:44 is by i forgot the author's name but you 0:54:46 can see the reference in my book 0:54:48 anyway so you can see therefore what the 0:54:50 what the hood represents there 0:54:52 uh the bear-like right the bear-like the 0:54:55 animal-like 0:54:56 animalistic you know wild connotations 0:55:00 of savage and wild and brutal 0:55:02 right unlike of course the gods behind 0:55:05 him right so therefore on the one hand 0:55:06 of course you also have here the hands 0:55:08 and the hands of course are unseen hands 0:55:09 could represent power 0:55:11 could represent uh you know uh 0:55:14 authority but the hands are hidden so we 0:55:17 can't see them 0:55:18 and think about the juxtaposing here of 0:55:20 isolation and togetherness 0:55:22 the pack predator prey irony so of 0:55:25 course the ones at the back are the ones 0:55:27 who are 0:55:28 uh together and he himself is isolated 0:55:32 so 0:55:33 so where you might you might think about 0:55:35 the uh 0:55:36 the the uh you know the animal 0:55:40 that operates uh as a pack uh 0:55:43 in this case it's the the juxtaposition 0:55:46 of the gods who behind him in fact who 0:55:48 are as a pak 0:55:49 and he himself is the isolated one over 0:55:52 here 0:55:53 right so he is therefore the prey 0:55:57 and then they happen to be the predators 0:55:59 and not the other way around 0:56:02 think about worry and pain defiance and 0:56:04 strength 0:56:05 so the worry and the pain that we can't 0:56:06 see on on the person's face because his 0:56:09 face is concealed it's hidden from view 0:56:11 it's invisible right you can't see the 0:56:14 pain there very good book to read is 0:56:16 called kiribati 0:56:17 this is by s yizhar published in 1959 if 0:56:21 i remember 0:56:23 and this is a book that details the 0:56:25 tragedy of the nakba 1948 written by in 0:56:27 fact by 0:56:28 israeli or this is a historic science 0:56:30 fiction of what actually happened with 0:56:32 the dispossession of homes and the 0:56:34 um the the fact that you know you have 0:56:36 settler colonialism here because these 0:56:38 new settlers are coming in and 0:56:40 taking the homes of of uh of the of the 0:56:42 native inhabitants 0:56:44 of of that land of palestine um but 0:56:47 kiribati is very powerful i think one of 0:56:49 my i'm going to read and shall inshallah 0:56:51 something you know from it 0:56:52 that i think was really really important 0:56:54 um 0:56:56 so uh yeah the worry and the pain so 0:56:59 what's hidden there for is 0:57:01 very keen defiance and strength and then 0:57:03 of course the clothing 0:57:04 is very key here also between the civil 0:57:07 and between the savage and so therefore 0:57:09 the the uniform of the gods comes to 0:57:13 connor and represents symbolize 0:57:15 civility order right 0:57:18 uh everything looks neat everything 0:57:20 looks good 0:57:21 they all use uniformity because they're 0:57:24 all wearing the same uniforms but the 0:57:26 the but the prisoner here who is the 0:57:28 victim 0:57:29 isolated a victim here who is made to 0:57:33 look like a beast an 0:57:34 animal um is uh 0:57:37 is seen represented as savage because of 0:57:40 his clothing his torn and so on and so 0:57:42 forth 0:57:43 um there's a beautiful example in the 0:57:45 quran 0:57:46 in circle yusuf and in surah yusuf it 0:57:49 says that 0:57:50 you know when when when yusuf al-islam 0:57:53 was thrown in the well 0:57:54 allen quran says and then these these uh 0:57:57 these caravan people came and allah says 0:58:03 that they sold him uh for 0:58:06 uh for a small price you know you can 0:58:09 count 0:58:10 on your fingers uh and and they didn't 0:58:13 think much of him 0:58:14 you know even though he he was the 0:58:16 prophet yusuf the the boy at that time 0:58:18 yusuf alayhi salam 0:58:20 but it's all about our perception what 0:58:22 we're seeing of others and 0:58:24 based upon that perception of others 0:58:26 it's what we're going to afford them or 0:58:27 not afford them 0:58:28 of of social space in our social spaces 0:58:32 of worthiness of goodness and so on and 0:58:35 so forth 0:58:36 and so therefore who and what do we see 0:58:38 now this in fact is from ktudor 0:58:40 understanding empathy transactional 0:58:42 analysis journal 0:58:44 um and he says is that when a torturer 0:58:46 looks upon his victim he can it 0:58:48 he can certainly directly see agony in 0:58:50 his face 0:58:51 and humiliation in his posture 0:58:55 the problem though is the light in which 0:58:57 he sees it that's very powerful 0:58:59 actually so on the one hand of course we 0:59:01 had 0:59:02 uh dave crossman in his book uh 0:59:05 on killing right and the idea of 0:59:08 altitude and attitude 0:59:09 but harry is saying that when a torture 0:59:11 even the torture is of course 0:59:12 in not an altitude he's in proximity 0:59:15 with his victim 0:59:17 it's the problem is the light in which 0:59:19 he sees 0:59:20 that victim it is not a matter of the 0:59:22 torture needing to infer a little 0:59:24 further to another 0:59:25 more inner realm in which the moral 0:59:28 properties of the other situation will 0:59:30 be revealed it is a matter of how he 0:59:32 sees the other's condition 0:59:34 what are we seeing of other people right 0:59:37 what did those policemen not see 0:59:40 of george floyd what they what could 0:59:43 they not see 0:59:44 of arigana as he's pleading you know 0:59:46 more than 25 times 0:59:47 i can't breathe i mean that's a lot of 0:59:49 times to say one thing 0:59:51 25 times i can't breathe i can't breathe 0:59:54 i mean you try and say it 25 times you 0:59:57 know i can't breathe 0:59:58 i can't breathe i can't breathe i can't 1:00:02 breathe 1:00:03 i can't breathe i can't breathe 1:00:07 i can't breathe i can't breathe 1:00:12 i can't breathe i can't breathe 1:00:16 just try and say that try and say that 1:00:18 25 times 1:00:20 in the different intonations you could 1:00:22 use to try and stress on the same 1:00:24 message again and again and again try 1:00:28 and do that 1:00:29 all right you know it's a lesson of 1:00:31 empathy just try and do that 1:00:33 you know you're thinking you're trying 1:00:35 to say the same thing 1:00:36 in the hope that one of those attempts 1:00:39 you're making 1:00:40 would be felt by the perpetrator that in 1:00:43 his inner conscience he could 1:00:45 be able a sense of emotional bearing 1:00:47 with that person with a victim 1:00:49 but of course it didn't work and it 1:00:50 wasn't there that means that 1:00:52 there was you know lack of empathy lack 1:00:55 of empathy lack of humanity you know 1:00:57 in that in that and what happened so 1:00:59 therefore uh 1:01:00 it's a matter of how he sees each 1:01:02 other's condition the torturer has the 1:01:04 reality of the other suffering 1:01:06 squarely in front of him under clear 1:01:08 light but that light is somehow wrong 1:01:11 look at that 1:01:12 the light is somehow wrong 1:01:15 look at that you know the light is 1:01:18 somehow wrong 1:01:20 we're using the wrong light we're using 1:01:23 the wrong lenses by which we're seeing 1:01:25 and appreciating others around us 1:01:29 we're not affording people what they're 1:01:31 supposed to be afforded 1:01:33 because our light is wrong right so it's 1:01:37 about the light by which you see 1:01:39 it is a peculiarly cold and harsh light 1:01:41 one that flattens and exposes the other 1:01:44 cuts and holds him open all the better 1:01:46 to prove and toy with him 1:01:48 what is needed is a different line this 1:01:50 is so powerful and it's so true you know 1:01:52 and so i would argue that for the light 1:01:53 that we need is is is the light of islam 1:01:56 to look upon the world with the light of 1:01:58 islam with that with 1:01:59 the mercy that islam mandates upon us as 1:02:02 human beings to consider 1:02:04 so dehumanization therefore is a 1:02:06 relegating of another to a distance some 1:02:09 other 1:02:10 it is a seeing in the other much less 1:02:12 and sometimes a complete absence 1:02:15 of what one sees in oneself all that is 1:02:18 morally reprehensible is defined 1:02:20 in that other so therefore you're 1:02:22 imputing the worst of whatever's in you 1:02:25 your cruelty selfish your self so 1:02:28 selfishness your arrogance your pride 1:02:31 your evil 1:02:32 your now imputing upon somebody 1:02:35 else and that's what dehumanization is 1:02:39 now what what it is really is this is a 1:02:41 stripping away 1:02:42 right this is stripping away uh of the 1:02:45 moral 1:02:46 human code which bonds us as human 1:02:48 beings 1:02:49 the kind of social vitality behind the 1:02:51 person or group is stripped away and 1:02:53 this 1:02:53 defacing precedes any physical injury or 1:02:56 death 1:02:56 inflicted on that victim right so we 1:03:00 spoke about therefore the idea of social 1:03:01 that social 1:03:02 dying and this of course is going to 1:03:04 lead to 1:03:05 the dehumanizing of of the people who 1:03:07 are the victims of 1:03:09 of social death and dying but this 1:03:11 really begins on our mental canvasses so 1:03:13 we just 1:03:14 we just read from tudor about the idea 1:03:16 of the light by which or through which 1:03:18 we're seeing people 1:03:19 uh this begins uh in our mental health 1:03:22 all of us have a mental canvas um but 1:03:26 if on mental canvases that dehumanized 1:03:28 other is painted with 1:03:30 broad strokes and wide brushes meaning 1:03:33 that there is no 1:03:37 there are no identifications no fine 1:03:39 lines no nuances no grays no colors no 1:03:42 subtle outlines 1:03:43 all we're left with is this generalized 1:03:46 mesh 1:03:47 you know of of just nothingness 1:03:51 you know i have a chapter i have a book 1:03:53 being published now inshallah it's 1:03:54 called 1:03:56 it's called uh navigating war descent 1:03:59 and empathy 1:04:00 uh in arabia's relations seeing our 1:04:02 others in darkened spaces published by 1:04:03 springer inshallah coming out next month 1:04:05 um but i have a chapter in that book 1:04:09 called landscaping otherness and 1:04:11 challenging frames of 1:04:12 nothingness in contemporary palestine 1:04:15 right so frames of nothingness 1:04:19 you're creating a sense of nothingness 1:04:22 about others because you're disallowing 1:04:24 those finer lines as finer 1:04:27 identification points 1:04:29 right those points of beauty right 1:04:31 points of beauty and handsomeness and so 1:04:33 on and so forth 1:04:34 and goodness um because and that's 1:04:36 therefore created 1:04:38 you know from our in our mental cancer 1:04:39 it's about therefore the light by which 1:04:41 we're seeing people 1:04:43 and the colors with which we're using to 1:04:45 paint people 1:04:46 what we're drawing of people in our 1:04:48 minds right 1:04:50 and how we're painting them really with 1:04:52 what strokes 1:04:53 and with what kinds of brushes as well 1:04:56 uh historical example the untorment 1:04:58 was the uber mensch right the the the 1:05:01 under men 1:05:03 you know and then the upper men the 1:05:04 under men as in the gypsies as in the 1:05:07 victims of the holocaust the jews even 1:05:09 the mentally handicapped remember as 1:05:11 well we spoke about 1:05:13 dehumanization and othering in terms of 1:05:16 mental 1:05:16 of disability but also mental disability 1:05:20 it could be therefore that you're 1:05:21 looking you look look upon people who 1:05:23 have 1:05:23 illnesses like autism or asperger's 1:05:25 syndrome for example are 1:05:27 as so far removed from your kind of 1:05:30 social 1:05:31 realm or your social world that we kind 1:05:33 of castigate them as 1:05:34 as others and of course we should never 1:05:36 do that um 1:05:38 so the but that's what the nazis also 1:05:40 did 1:05:41 they also of course uh killed off the 1:05:44 mentally handicapped children 1:05:46 as well and so therefore the ontario 1:05:47 mensch versus ubermensch 1:05:49 the under men versus the the upper men 1:05:52 and upper men would be the able-bodied 1:05:54 one 1:05:55 you know the the lightest skin the aryan 1:05:57 rays for example 1:05:58 um who were kind of believed to be the 1:06:02 best of 1:06:03 all humans and that's of course the 1:06:05 tragedy and the language of humanization 1:06:07 we've discussed this in fact before 1:06:08 about the way that the dehumanizers are 1:06:11 always 1:06:11 the kind of the cockroaches and the 1:06:13 vermin uh 1:06:15 are always the the rats you know always 1:06:17 the 1:06:18 the kind of the savages and so on and so 1:06:20 forth and this is a very typical 1:06:21 language of 1:06:22 demonization um but also in in others as 1:06:25 well so for example 1:06:27 uh like i mentioned the ethnic cleansing 1:06:29 of palestine so the kind of things that 1:06:30 you you might find there in fact you do 1:06:32 find that 1:06:33 in the accounts of the refuse nics who 1:06:35 are ex-idf soldiers 1:06:37 and that they say that the kind of 1:06:38 language we use for palestinians is that 1:06:40 palestinians are the unemployed 1:06:43 palestinians are unemployed you know 1:06:46 they are the ones who are lazy 1:06:48 you know they are uh erratic arabs are 1:06:52 erratic unemployed lazy 1:06:55 um you know violence for example and so 1:06:58 these kind of these typifications carry 1:07:01 through are carried through 1:07:02 a lot in social life uh in in 1:07:05 discussions 1:07:06 in media on movies in television 1:07:10 in news framing for example good book 1:07:13 called 1:07:14 real bad arabs real as an reel that are 1:07:18 by jack sheehan 1:07:19 where he he examines uh 1:07:22 american movies you know for like a 1:07:25 hundred years i mean 1:07:26 going through movies and where arabs are 1:07:29 presented 1:07:30 uh and by and large always presented as 1:07:34 the uh you know as the as the other 1:07:37 you know as the one who is irresponsible 1:07:40 as the one who is a womanizer as the one 1:07:42 who 1:07:42 is a terrorist as the one who is a cheat 1:07:46 you know as the one who is uh 1:07:48 duplicitous you know all these negative 1:07:50 troops imputed upon 1:07:51 uh and therefore what it does is it 1:07:53 builds up this mental 1:07:54 image of who the arab actually is then 1:07:58 um i i discuss this at length in fact in 1:08:00 my book and about the way that it makes 1:08:02 empathy 1:08:03 far more difficult because you have to 1:08:04 unpeel layers and layers and layers and 1:08:07 layers of stereotyping 1:08:09 that's built up for a very long time 1:08:12 and part of this is connected to the 1:08:14 language of dehumanization here 1:08:16 now what is the quranic solution what is 1:08:19 the quranic outlook towards all of this 1:08:21 the chronic paradigm 1:08:23 um undercutting and offsetting binary 1:08:25 distinctions fueled by hate 1:08:28 um very powerful how we do that so let's 1:08:30 look at it like this today for allah in 1:08:31 the quran he says 1:08:33 another of his signs is the creation of 1:08:35 the heavens and the earth 1:08:37 and the diversity of your languages and 1:08:39 colors 1:08:40 there truly are signs in this for those 1:08:43 who know 1:08:44 allah is saying there for the diversity 1:08:45 here in people's languages 1:08:47 and colors is not a cause for them 1:08:51 to hold others in contempt and to 1:08:54 disregard others 1:08:55 and to make these binary distinctions on 1:08:57 the contrary 1:08:59 allah saying it's a cause for us to 1:09:00 marvel at the majesty of allah subhana 1:09:02 wa 1:09:03 how allah created with such perfection 1:09:06 different things 1:09:07 different colors of plants different 1:09:09 colors of you know flowers different 1:09:11 colors of things 1:09:13 and different colors of human beings all 1:09:14 these truly alliances are signs and this 1:09:16 for those who know 1:09:17 the other verse in the quran from 1:09:20 chapter 49 verse 13 1:09:21 people we created you all you all from a 1:09:24 single 1:09:25 man and a single woman and made you into 1:09:27 races and tribes so that you should 1:09:29 recognize one another 1:09:31 in god's eyes and allah's eyes the most 1:09:33 honoured of you are the ones 1:09:35 most mindful of him and of god allah is 1:09:37 all-knowing and all aware and this ayah 1:09:39 this verse is so powerful really you 1:09:42 know 1:09:42 it's uh one of the verses that was 1:09:44 reflected upon by malcolm x in fact in 1:09:46 the autobiography and in his experience 1:09:48 of the hajj 1:09:49 this is one of us that he mentioned that 1:09:51 this is a solution 1:09:52 to racism in america if they knew what 1:09:55 islam 1:09:56 says about the togetherness of that 1:09:57 human spirit 1:09:59 and human in the human beings uh 1:10:02 that races and tribes have no i mean 1:10:05 there's no bearing in the sense that 1:10:06 these are not 1:10:07 for the purpose of setting up walls and 1:10:10 boundaries and barriers between us but 1:10:12 it's simply for us to recognize 1:10:14 who each person is but then to also 1:10:16 remember that it is 1:10:18 not on account of the race to which you 1:10:20 belong or the tribute you belong that 1:10:22 it has any sense of measure on your 1:10:25 nobility or your greatness and goodness 1:10:28 but in fact uh the most honored of you 1:10:30 with allah 1:10:31 are those who have the most piety are 1:10:33 the ones who are the most mindful of him 1:10:35 and that's what the most important thing 1:10:36 is and therefore 1:10:38 god man and the pursuit of human dignity 1:10:41 look at the verse in the quran adam we 1:10:45 have certainly 1:10:45 ennobled and honored the children of 1:10:49 adam there is a general a general 1:10:52 nobility 1:10:53 unto human beings and of course whatever 1:10:55 they do later on is 1:10:56 is there doing right you could you could 1:10:59 reach heights 1:11:00 amazing heights of of goodness and 1:11:02 excellence 1:11:03 and you could also you know fail in that 1:11:06 and and bring yourself into into ruin 1:11:09 uh by by your your behavior your belief 1:11:12 in your attitude towards other people as 1:11:14 well but but at the baseline 1:11:17 the the basic state of man is simply one 1:11:20 of 1:11:20 of of being honored as being the 1:11:22 children of adam 1:11:24 and the closest then to allah would be 1:11:26 those who have the most closeness 1:11:28 in their hearts towards him and their 1:11:29 actions towards him 1:11:31 and not on account of the superficial 1:11:33 outward 1:11:34 uh how tall or how short you are how big 1:11:37 or how thin you are or how 1:11:39 uh you know how healthy or how sick you 1:11:42 are 1:11:42 right how light or how dark you might be 1:11:46 all of these things are just simply uh 1:11:49 the fact that we're human beings and 1:11:50 human beings are different 1:11:52 and it's not about picking on 1:11:53 differences so that we 1:11:55 create these antagonisms between people 1:11:57 but it is about 1:11:59 you know re marveling in the splendor of 1:12:02 allah's creation 1:12:03 allah created differently but allah did 1:12:05 not make those differences 1:12:07 a benchmark by which we see and value 1:12:10 other people 1:12:11 it's not like that but it's about the 1:12:13 fact that the benchmark is always going 1:12:14 to be 1:12:15 how close we are with allah and that's 1:12:17 the matter of the heart to begin with 1:12:19 anyway so 1:12:20 and again undercutting of setting one 1:12:22 distinctions fueled by hate 1:12:24 uh the chronic paradigm is about 1:12:26 principles of justice to counter 1:12:28 in-group biases so 1:12:30 we could run risk in fact of having 1:12:31 in-group biases because 1:12:33 we create in groups or within groups but 1:12:36 then because we're looking at the others 1:12:38 with that false 1:12:39 light with the wrong light as we learnt 1:12:42 from tudor and others 1:12:43 um we could have we could act on 1:12:47 impediments of love and hate there's two 1:12:49 very key verses in the quran 1:12:51 about that in fact one of them says when 1:12:53 allah says oh you who believe 1:12:55 be upright witnesses to justice you know 1:12:58 for allah 1:12:59 even if it's against yourselves 1:13:03 orifice against your parents whether 1:13:05 they're wealthy or poor 1:13:07 allah is saying don't let the impediment 1:13:08 of love 1:13:10 right make you unjust 1:13:13 right because you could you could refuse 1:13:16 to be just because you love somebody or 1:13:18 something so much 1:13:20 and there's also another verse in the 1:13:21 quran like the first verse but it's a 1:13:23 small difference in it it says oh you 1:13:24 believe 1:13:25 be uh upright you know for allah 1:13:29 this time allah comes first as witnesses 1:13:31 to justice 1:13:32 um and don't let the hatred you might 1:13:35 have for a people 1:13:36 swerve you from being just be just 1:13:42 closer to piety right so therefore um 1:13:46 be beware of that uh look at the bullet 1:13:48 points here allan quran says 1:13:51 they're not all the same not nobody in 1:13:55 fact is all the same 1:13:56 no no two people are the same so how can 1:13:58 the whole group in fact be 1:14:00 all the same no two people are all the 1:14:02 same no two brothers are the same no two 1:14:04 sisters are the same 1:14:05 you know everyone is different they're 1:14:07 not all the same allah says so you might 1:14:09 even find her disbelievers 1:14:11 if you look at even the disbelievers in 1:14:12 the prophet's time 1:14:14 uh there were disbelievers in the 1:14:15 prophet's time let's say the early 1:14:17 mukkan stage people like abu jahl 1:14:19 uh who were like staunch enemies 1:14:23 of the prophet but you also have people 1:14:25 like abu talib who was not a muslim 1:14:28 never embraced islam but he was a a 1:14:31 supporter of the prophet's cause salah 1:14:33 sallam 1:14:33 therefore they're not all the same imam 1:14:36 adi is another example 1:14:37 was of the mushrikeen he died from the 1:14:39 mushrikeen 1:14:40 but he was a supporter of the prophet he 1:14:43 gave help and assistance but therefore 1:14:45 the example is they're not all the same 1:14:48 and then of course the same verse here 1:14:49 we've enabled the sons of adam from 1:14:51 chapter 17 verse 17.1:14:53 um now therefore othering now versus 1:14:56 bridging so solutions there for othering 1:14:58 is the constructing of radical 1:15:00 differences 1:15:02 uh in groups and out groups uh we spoke 1:15:05 about our mental canvases before 1:15:07 let's take a look at the prophetic 1:15:08 principle here now 1:15:10 the prophet in his final sermon he says 1:15:12 that there is no superiority 1:15:14 for an arab over a non-arab right 1:15:18 and for a non-arab over an arab 1:15:21 or for white over the black or for the 1:15:24 black over the white 1:15:26 except in piety so therefore the the 1:15:29 racial 1:15:30 differences mean nothing right mean 1:15:33 nothing 1:15:33 no superiority to do with those things 1:15:35 except in piety 1:15:37 then he says indeed the noblest amongst 1:15:40 you 1:15:40 is he or she who is the most pious right 1:15:43 the most pious 1:15:45 right that's that's the scale that's 1:15:46 what allah is concerned with 1:15:48 and your piety is reflected in many 1:15:50 things your belief 1:15:52 right your belief about allah your 1:15:54 religion but also reflected in your 1:15:56 character 1:15:56 how well you are towards other people is 1:15:58 a reflection of your piety how well 1:16:00 spoken you are how kind you are consider 1:16:02 how merciful you are 1:16:03 how charitable you are how forgiving you 1:16:05 are how forbearing you are all 1:16:07 all of these are reflections of of a 1:16:09 person's piety 1:16:10 um the sec the next the collapsing the 1:16:13 collapsing of bindings therefore 1:16:14 where you might have people who succumb 1:16:17 to this 1:16:18 uh the creating of these binaries uh in 1:16:21 the prophetic exam we have a beautiful 1:16:22 account of the collapsing of these 1:16:23 binaries so 1:16:24 very famous story of bilal and abu dharr 1:16:27 allah be pleased with them both the 1:16:28 prophet's companion so once 1:16:30 abu dharr said to and by the way these 1:16:33 were you know new 1:16:34 converts to islam or didn't know that 1:16:35 much all the time but 1:16:37 he says to bilal who was abyssinian 1:16:39 slave 1:16:40 uh he says who then became muslim he 1:16:42 says to him yamanas 1:16:44 o son of a black woman right so he had 1:16:46 an argument with him and 1:16:48 he said these words to him bilal was so 1:16:50 offended 1:16:51 and he thought well that's so counter 1:16:53 and contrary to the islamic 1:16:55 ideals by which we're being taught by 1:16:57 the prophet he went and complained to 1:16:59 the prophet about what abu dhabi just 1:17:01 said to him 1:17:02 and the prophet was very upset with the 1:17:04 buddha and then came later to prophet's 1:17:06 house 1:17:06 and you could see the prophet was not 1:17:08 happy with them and then he realized 1:17:10 bilal must have come and told him the 1:17:12 story 1:17:12 and so the prophet says to abu dhari 1:17:14 says did you say what you said to bilal 1:17:17 he said to him in the fight you are a 1:17:20 man you still have ignorance inside of 1:17:22 you 1:17:23 that's still old that's like pre-islamic 1:17:27 before islam that's how people would 1:17:29 value 1:17:30 each other based upon the color of their 1:17:32 skin he says we're not that 1:17:34 that's finished with islam islam has 1:17:37 finished that 1:17:38 you know so he says that that's not the 1:17:40 way that we act and abu dharr was so 1:17:42 saddened i mean he was so remorseful uh 1:17:45 that he sought to you know 1:17:47 make amends with bilal and it's 1:17:49 beautiful this sense of 1:17:50 um companionship between them even 1:17:53 thereafter with a newfound kind of 1:17:54 respect 1:17:55 for one another um in that so therefore 1:17:59 othering versus bridging 1:18:00 bridging allows us to open spaces to 1:18:03 foster understanding communication and 1:18:05 enhancing of the collective human now 1:18:08 othering 1:18:09 disallows all of that othering disallows 1:18:12 opening spaces disallows understanding 1:18:14 this allows communication disallows 1:18:16 enhancing 1:18:17 collective inspiration all of us is 1:18:19 disallowed but bridging 1:18:21 in fact allows these new spaces to be 1:18:23 open to first understand understanding 1:18:25 communication 1:18:26 and the best of course that this comes 1:18:27 from dawah comes from calling others to 1:18:30 allah calling others to islam 1:18:32 right with that sense of great respect 1:18:34 that whatever 1:18:35 i as a human being i am seeking in terms 1:18:38 of knowing who my lord is 1:18:40 worshiping him the way he wants me to 1:18:42 worship him following the best example 1:18:44 that allah gave us to follow 1:18:45 and of course having a hope for allah's 1:18:48 mercy 1:18:49 and then a beautiful abode in the next 1:18:51 life in heaven 1:18:52 then of course i would wish the same for 1:18:55 for other people 1:18:56 as well to do that of course you have to 1:18:58 be recognize your own human 1:19:00 potential your own human weaknesses your 1:19:02 human transitioning 1:19:04 navigating journeying in life as that 1:19:06 human being is transitioning navigating 1:19:08 and journeying in life 1:19:10 as well again human codes of 1:19:12 recognizability that's the whole point 1:19:15 um and then of course bystanding versus 1:19:18 rescuing so one of the things that you 1:19:19 might have 1:19:20 i was very happy in fact i was i was of 1:19:23 course the whole george floyd thing was 1:19:25 really really troubling 1:19:26 it was very upsetting uh but the fact 1:19:28 that there were people who were trying 1:19:30 to um you know to uh 1:19:34 to shout at those police officers and to 1:19:37 record what was happening and 1:19:39 and began to uh you know even insult 1:19:42 them sometimes about just 1:19:44 stop doing what you're doing um means 1:19:46 that in life i mean whenever we have 1:19:48 examples of injustice you're going to 1:19:50 have you're going to have perpetrators 1:19:52 and victims and 1:19:53 bystanders and rescuers and bystanding 1:19:56 versus 1:19:57 rescuing now you could have for example 1:20:00 a situation in any 1:20:01 need to play in a workplace in a school 1:20:04 environment on the streets 1:20:06 where somebody is is a victim of racism 1:20:08 where bad words are used where insults 1:20:11 are made 1:20:11 on the bus is on the coaches trains any 1:20:14 it could happen this happens all the 1:20:15 time 1:20:16 but you have a responsibility in that 1:20:18 sense you have a response because 1:20:20 remember we spoke about the burdening 1:20:22 the weight 1:20:23 right that the tree felt you know when 1:20:25 when it 1:20:26 when when it had that uh that lynched 1:20:28 victim on it on itself 1:20:30 you know that burdening remember i can't 1:20:32 breathe and we 1:20:33 can't breathe on the person and the 1:20:35 plural pronoun of that collective human 1:20:38 tugging at our consciousness so 1:20:40 therefore think about injustice the 1:20:41 prophet said it's 1:20:42 beware of injustice injustice will 1:20:45 appear as darkness on the day of 1:20:46 judgement 1:20:48 fair ever is it destroy those before you 1:20:50 and cause them to shed one another's 1:20:51 blood 1:20:52 and to make lawful what was unlawful 1:20:54 right so be aware of 1:20:55 injustice and remember your role is a is 1:20:58 a rescuer not a bystander not 1:21:00 not somebody who sees the racism and 1:21:03 sees the hate 1:21:05 uh and simply bystands and walks away 1:21:07 and has this indifference no 1:21:10 we have to have empathy empathy over 1:21:13 indifference right 1:21:14 empathy of indifference and and that's 1:21:16 going to be really the 1:21:17 the place of of the rescuer and then the 1:21:20 final points for us are these 1:21:23 um to focus on individuals and not 1:21:26 peoples because people generally 1:21:29 are not all the same as allah said and 1:21:31 we've discussed that before 1:21:32 othering is a self-effacing what does 1:21:35 that mean that means that 1:21:37 when you authorize somebody 1:21:40 you're ruining something of yourself 1:21:43 right 1:21:43 because remember it's imputing something 1:21:46 evil of yourself unto another 1:21:48 but to do that of course you have to 1:21:50 ruin something in yourself to begin with 1:21:53 first so it's a self-effacing the 1:21:56 prophet says that the believer is 1:21:58 a mirror to his brother meaning what we 1:22:00 see of others 1:22:02 is what we have in ourselves right what 1:22:04 we see of others 1:22:06 is what we have seen in ourselves what 1:22:08 we see of others 1:22:10 is what we're going to see of ourselves 1:22:11 in ourselves therefore 1:22:13 we're all human in that sense but the 1:22:15 other is to self 1:22:16 a face it is to ruin something in 1:22:20 oneself 1:22:21 before it's ruined in another just like 1:22:23 the way that 1:22:24 this is a very good book called um a is 1:22:27 for ox 1:22:28 by barry sanders it's it's american 1:22:31 author so they say 1:22:33 arcs so this is what a is for arcs but 1:22:35 uh but it really taps into this idea 1:22:38 um about the way that it speaks about 1:22:41 gangsters in america in the 1990s and 1:22:44 and about the way kind of the importance 1:22:47 of literacy and so so 1:22:48 but it has this kind of idea uh you know 1:22:50 within that book about 1:22:52 othering is this idea of self-effacing 1:22:55 remember 1:22:55 what what hate can create hate creates 1:22:58 what does he create think about that 1:23:00 you know what we just uh saw uh 1:23:04 or heard about uh in in canada 1:23:07 you know just a few days ago with that 1:23:10 individual who 1:23:11 who ran over that muslim family 1:23:14 you know four members of one muslim 1:23:17 family 1:23:18 were killed in that and one child 1:23:20 survived you know 1:23:22 but just think about that and it's 1:23:24 fueled by 1:23:25 hate by islamophobia right that's four 1:23:28 members 1:23:29 of family just powered that is just 1:23:31 killed 1:23:32 right and what is that i mean what was 1:23:35 that for 1:23:36 what hate can create right creates 1:23:40 evil creates murder creates 1:23:44 terror creates genocide you know hate 1:23:47 creates 1:23:48 genocide you know uh 1:23:51 so that so the starting point therefore 1:23:54 is 1:23:54 is othering because you're separating 1:23:57 excluding 1:23:58 now from the human frame others who are 1:24:01 not 1:24:02 who you think are not like you they 1:24:03 might have one small difference 1:24:06 therefore that small difference it 1:24:07 becomes now the mountain 1:24:09 that you would use just like for example 1:24:11 genocide of rwanda 1:24:13 you know you have the hutus and the 1:24:14 tootsies and and one group had 1:24:17 more pointed noses other ones had 1:24:19 chubbier noses one group were thinner 1:24:21 the group were a bit more plump 1:24:23 uh but these small differences and one 1:24:24 group was lighter and the group was 1:24:26 darker 1:24:26 the belgian colonizers used this thick 1:24:29 the complexity of people's skins 1:24:31 as a way of uh of other rising 1:24:34 because they gave privileges to the 1:24:36 lighter skinned ones and not the old 1:24:38 dark skinned ones they gave better homes 1:24:39 but the jobs 1:24:41 to the light skin one not a darker skin 1:24:42 one that therefore this carried through 1:24:44 than in kind of retaliatory uh evil 1:24:48 violence in those tragic 90 to 100 days 1:24:52 in 1994 1:24:53 and so therefore to think about 1:24:56 injustice beware of injustice as the 1:24:59 prophet said 1:25:00 um the importance of diversity uh those 1:25:03 verses in the quran are people we 1:25:04 created you 1:25:05 all of you are and so therefore in the 1:25:07 prophetic final sermon the prophet also 1:25:08 said 1:25:09 kulukum in adam adam in torah so when he 1:25:12 says therefore that 1:25:13 the black isn't better than the white or 1:25:15 the white over the black 1:25:16 he says all of you are from adam and 1:25:18 adam was from dust 1:25:20 so powerful kulukum and adam will add 1:25:23 them into 1:25:24 all the way from adam and adam was from 1:25:25 dusk meaning you know be humble in life 1:25:28 um the prophetic hadith love for people 1:25:30 what you would love for yourself 1:25:32 it's been raised by bukhari love for 1:25:35 people what you would love for yourself 1:25:37 or no one wants to be demeaned 1:25:39 don't wish others to be the mean no one 1:25:40 wants to be ostracized and secluded 1:25:42 separated 1:25:43 don't wish that for somebody else 1:25:45 therefore no one wants to be 1:25:47 uh you know felt as if their inferior 1:25:51 social outcast irreprehensible 1:25:54 evil ugly therefore don't wish that for 1:25:57 anybody else that's the lesson and 1:26:01 allows you to remember that a person's 1:26:02 character and not his race or ethnicity 1:26:06 in fact is a reflection of his or her 1:26:09 goodness right so therefore the the the 1:26:11 heart of a person 1:26:12 is simply the heart of goodness the 1:26:14 heart of heart of a person is a measure 1:26:16 of that person's goodness 1:26:17 and so therefore i hope this short 1:26:20 um you know reminder here has been 1:26:23 helpful 1:26:25 in understanding you know what i can't 1:26:27 breathe 1:26:28 should mean for us now moving forward 1:26:30 looking ahead in our world 1:26:33 in our towns villages communities 1:26:36 that i can't breathe really becomes a 1:26:38 collective we can't breathe 1:26:40 and we can't breathe as a reflection of 1:26:41 that sense of burdening we feel that 1:26:44 burdening 1:26:44 right because of the fact that we were 1:26:46 supposed to be 1:26:48 conscious human beings with a sense of 1:26:51 alertness towards injustice 1:26:53 um and that allah made us you know 1:26:55 responsible in that sense and so 1:26:58 uh we ask allah for success in all 1:27:00 things we ask allah to 1:27:02 rid us of these evils of 1:27:05 um of racism and discrimination 1:27:08 and dehumanization towards other people 1:27:11 uh i'm going to check and shall if 1:27:12 there's any questions that you might 1:27:14 have inshallah so 1:27:16 uh let's just have a look inshallah and 1:27:19 see 1:27:20 there we are and it's time to pray 1:27:23 margaret 1:27:23 challen but i'm going to quickly have a 1:27:25 check in charlotte and see 1:27:26 uh the question so 1:27:49 uh question so what's the central idea 1:27:51 of the poem doc 1:27:53 uh yeah the the idea of the poem was 1:27:56 that the uh 1:27:58 if it's the poem um if it's a haunted 1:28:01 oak poem then that would say that would 1:28:02 be about the fact that 1:28:04 uh paulo and sanbar encounters this man 1:28:06 who writes about the fact that his uh 1:28:08 i think it was his nephew who was 1:28:10 lynched on the tree 1:28:11 and then the tree becomes this uh 1:28:13 witness to that but the idea would be 1:28:15 therefore 1:28:16 that uh you know the uh 1:28:20 that the the the element of empathy 1:28:24 in emerges even from the tree uh 1:28:28 the idea that uh the tree has a sense of 1:28:31 feeling 1:28:31 for the victim in our kind of you know 1:28:34 social living 1:28:36 uh the power of empathy is is very is 1:28:38 very 1:28:39 is very is very meaningful it's very 1:28:43 essential 1:28:44 uh in in therefore offsetting these 1:28:47 cultures of of uttering and hate and 1:28:50 and so on and so forth um because 1:28:53 otherwise 1:28:54 uh you know we won't be able to feel 1:28:56 what an other person is feeling so 1:28:57 therefore i think there's a strong power 1:28:58 of empathy 1:28:59 uh in that poem uh but you can read more 1:29:02 of it inshallah in my book on 1:29:04 on being human there's a lot more 1:29:06 discussion inshallah 1:29:07 in that um 1:29:18 all right so um 1:29:34 yeah so you're making you're making good 1:29:36 comments uh in your in your 1:29:38 conversations on the chat um 1:29:41 i i hope inshallah you guys uh you know 1:29:44 took some good lessons 1:29:45 from there um 1:29:50 all right hamdulillah exactly here to 1:29:52 you also uh for your comments 1:29:56 exactly here to you also tom tanks and 1:29:59 the others as well 1:30:00 um 1:30:05 yes a question like what are 1:30:06 similarities between uh pre-islamic 1:30:09 arabs and the nazis or why the 1:30:10 similarity between well 1:30:12 it's not about the why the element that 1:30:14 as human beings of course are going to 1:30:15 act out in different ways in human 1:30:17 society 1:30:18 and they're going to be and there's 1:30:19 gonna be some correlations of course as 1:30:20 well the pre-islamic arabs 1:30:22 uh in the way that they treated women 1:30:25 for example isn't one idea the 1:30:27 where they treated uh the the darkest 1:30:29 skin and by just irony by the way and 1:30:32 even in abu dharren bilal's 1:30:35 exchange in that narrative the irony is 1:30:37 that abudhar himself was very 1:30:39 dark-skinned 1:30:40 and the scholars they say it wasn't 1:30:41 therefore only about 1:30:43 the fact that he's speaking 1:30:47 negatively about uh bilal because he's 1:30:50 because because he's darker skinned but 1:30:53 because of his the fact that he is a 1:30:54 non-arab because abu dharr himself 1:30:57 happens to be very dark-skinned if not 1:30:58 even maybe more dark-skinned than 1:31:00 bilal himself so that's but the other 1:31:03 thing of course is about treatment of 1:31:04 children treatment of women 1:31:06 um treatment of girls for example is 1:31:09 another thing and 1:31:10 so all of these things in fact they tap 1:31:12 into the idea of 1:31:14 of othering and dehumanization so uh i'm 1:31:17 going to end it 1:31:18 now because you know we're going to get 1:31:19 very late for margaret michelle i want 1:31:20 to thank all of you again for your 1:31:21 attendance 1:31:22 may allah bless all of you and please 1:31:24 follow the work at sapiensinstitute.org 1:31:42 foreign 1:36:36 you

Seminar: "I Can’t Breathe" with Dr. Osman Latiff (2021-06-10) ​

Summary of Seminar: "I Can’t Breathe" with Dr. Osman Latiff ​

00:00:00 [01:00:00 ​

01:00:00 [01:35:00 ​

Full transcript with timestamps: CLICK TO EXPAND

Seminar: "I Can’t Breathe" with Dr. Osman Latiff (2021-06-10)

Summary of Seminar: "I Can’t Breathe" with Dr. Osman Latiff

00:00:00 [01:00:00

01:00:00 [01:35:00