I've finally put my finger on it. Events in Bahrain are so emotionally wrenching because the people revealed in the tweets and video clips are so much like my friends, family and neighbors.
All of the characters are there. Any of my children could be the hopeful youth, imagining a better life. I see the fence-sitters, not wanting to trust their eyes, wanting just to go back to regular life, wanting logic to save them in a situation devoid of logic.
I see the doctors, nurses and paramedics moving in a world where I would be at home. I've spent 40 years in hospital settings. I can't begin to imagine a trauma rush of that magnitude for any reason, much less trauma inflicted by one's own government. The reports of ambulances being blocked from the wounded made my blood boil. My husband is a paramedic, my daughter an EMT. I know they would try to sneak back to help the wounded if necessary.
I also see those who scoff. Wealth can make one callous--or maybe it's the fear of losing that wealth that makes one callous. "Those people are beneath me. If they were really my equal, they'd be rich and powerful like me."
Growing up in Papa Daley's Chicago I remember excuses made for lethal force in '68. They're just a bunch of rabble-rousers. They attacked the poor policemen first. They threw feces at them, for heaven's sake. They want to destroy our government. If Daley would have accused protesters of "painting themselves with red paint and lying down to get their pictures taken," (as some upper-level Bahrainis have tweeted today) my parents would have believed him. Yes, I see the spin doctors, too. They might have been Chicago trained.
They're all there. The honest and the liars. The bullies and the bullied. The pure hearted and the jaded. The peaceful and the brutal. They're mixed together as normal people caught up in a surreal landscape that they didn't consent to move to. Yet they're there. They're trying to make sense of it.
God help the Bahraini people. God help us in America with our sects, quarrels and brawls. God help me as I'm glued to Twitter, agonizing over the problems of people on the other side of the world. Maybe they're not that far away.
I tweet back: I'm praying. I'm praying for you and I'm praying for me, too.
-Share with the neighbors whenever you can!-
Missdonna
