Crystal’s Notes - 21st October 2023

Dear Tribe

One of my favourite childhood memories was when my dad took me to the hawker centre for sugar cane juice. When the mugs of green, frothy, sticky juice were delivered to the table, my dad would take out his trusty and battered Swiss army knife and cut my plastic straw to a height that I could more easily drink from.

It was a simple gesture, but it was a treasured and touching one, because it signified that Dad understood how I experienced the world. He was displaying empathy.

Empathy is the human ability to understand what another person's world is like. It is the taking off of your own glasses to wear the lenses of someone else for a moment, to see how they see the world.

When we lose empathy, we act towards others with a lack of interest or worse, cruelty. This leads to dehumanisation, which is the root cause of conflict.

The conflict in Israel and Palestine is complicated, with no easy solution in sight. During a conflict, both parties and their supporters can lose their empathy for the person or community they feel attacked by. People on both sides feel deep hatred for each other, and cannot find any common footing at all. But this cannot be the way.

I read about a project called the Parents Circle – Families Forum. The project aims to restore empathy and peace to both Israelis and Palestinians. It connected two women, Siham and Robbie. Siham is a Palestinian whose brother was killed by Israeli forces. Robbie is an Israeli whose son was killed by Palestinian forces.

It would have perhaps been easier and almost instinctual for both women to react to the loss of their loved ones with grief, anger and hatred. Instead, with the support of the project, they took a monumental step towards empathy instead.

Robbie reached out and called Siham. She said, “You lost your brother. I lost my son. We are both victims. We both feel the same awful pain of loss. I just wanted to say how sorry I am that you are suffering. Let’s meet.”

The two women met. They cried, listened to each other, talked, understood, and learnt to trust one another. They saw the other's pain. They put on each other's lenses. They experienced each other's world for a bit, and said, "I get it. I know it. I see it." In this way, they saw each other not as Israeli or Palestinian, but as humans again.

When we consider all the qualities that we humans have, empathy must be one of our greatest gifts. It is humble and powerful, and should not be overlooked.

Not only does empathy involve our mind, it engages our heart, values and body. It gives us a connection to humanity and the world. In fact, our entire destiny could depend on whether we can relate to each other, to other creatures, or to the planet we live in. As David Thoreau said, "Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"

In the case of Robbie and Siham, a seed of empathy was planted.

To our community, let us start planting these seeds. Let's work to understand how other people experience the world. Let's focus on a person's state of being, instead of categorising or labelling them. Let's experience their realities. Let us listen and understand the worldview of others, and the experiences that led them there. Let's reach out. Let's wear their lenses and walk a mile in their shoes to expand our moral universe. Let's cut their straw to a height they can more easily drink from. Let us be the magic that we are waiting for.