“It’s not a big issue as you guys are making it to be. For a couple of you we couldn’t wait so we collectively preponed it than the scheduled time. It’s not such a big issue. Stop focusing on it. We’ve done this before too. This is a well practiced norm, nothing out of the ordinary.”
Our friends tried to convince some of us, the left behinds. And the voices of dissent quelled down not because we were convinced, but because we didn’t want to argue and dwell in the past. I, one of the many that were left behind, couldn’t help but draw parallels of it with the real world. I know how the world operates or at least I think I do. But knowing and experiencing are two different things. As they say, life is lived not on the pages of books but through the experiences one garners in its walk.
Digital revolution’s silent majority
The moment reminded me of US President Donald Trump, whose tweets are outlandish to everyone except his staunch supporters. And even some of them have some doubts but refrain from expressing for they all seek something from him or aren’t really affected by his policies. And they defend him through thinly veiled lies.
True, classes had been preponed, but not with everyone’s approval. Over a dozen of us were unaware about the changed schedule. No position is indefensible as long as you’re the one taking it. And same is true in the real world.
You don’t need to look far, just look around. There should be, or rather are, things that you feel aren’t right, aren’t just. And yet you choose to silence your judgment, voice your opinion in a vacuum where there is no chance of repercussions. Why? Simple, it’s not your burden to shoulder. It’s easy to feel safe, protected when you are in the eye of the hurricane and not its vicinity. It’s even easier to feel pity and share their sorrows behind closed doors for a mouse as it is for a lion in solitude. Well, let’s trade places. You are now the wronged one. What do you seek? Justice? Vengeance? Sure, nothing wrong with the two. But what you really seek is empathy, to know that onlookers are with you against the unjust done to you. And what do you get? You reap what you sow; all you get in return is pitiful looks tormenting you in the name of solidarity.
So, if you feel you have been wronged, don’t wait. Don’t wait for someone to speak on your behalf, take up your lost cause. Remember, nobody joins a lost cause, everyone wants to toast to a winner at the end of the day. If you wish people to be empathetic, you must first accept the harshest truth of all. Nobody stands for you unless it’s election time. So champion you must, for no one else will. Thus you must make peace with the fact that you either must face unjust circumstances or create one. There’s no middle ground. You are either and oppressor or the oppressed. Now, as I think back, it wasn’t about the class being missed or having to come for a single lecture and return empty-handedly but rather the fact that our absence of the presence were absent in the decision making.
The writer is a student at Pulchowk Enginering College.
