for the last couple of days, we've been talking a lot about "caring" and "helping" and "reaching out" to people who are presumably worse off than us and in need of help. I thought this story merits consideration:
When the people were starving during the "Year of Ashes," 'Umar took a private oath that he would not touch butter or meat until the people were in better circumstances. This oath he kept faithfully until his skin grew dark and he grimaced if he ate an olive. It happened that there came into the market a skin of butter and a skin of milk, and one of 'Umar's servants bought them for forty dirhams. The servant went to 'Umar to tell him what Allah had granted to him; how this skin of butter and skin of milk had come into the market, and how he had bought them for him. But when 'Umar heard the price he said: "It is too clear; go and give them away as alms. I cannot bring myself to eat what is bought extravagantly. He sat silent for a space and then added: "How can the state of my people be of concern to me if what touches them does not affect me?"
How much do we - can we - care if what touches "them" (those whom we profess to care) does not affect us?
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I think the problem of the West is exactly the false presumption that “what touches ‘them’ does not affect ‘us’”. What right do we have to care if we do not allow ourselves to be touched by these things? But I don’t think it is morally acceptable to realize the problem our inability to care in a genuine, loving manner and move on without our lives as usual, ignoring the suffering others are subjected to. Instead, maybe we/I could learn from the story above. What is striking to me about the story is that Umar seems not to be the ruler of his subjects, as the translation says. Rather, he himself, by refusing to eat the food that his people do not have, is allowing what touches ‘them’ to touch him also, therefore making himself subject to them. If the West truly cares about its others, wouldn’t it, too, make itself “their” subject—subservient to “them” yet still equal?
Maybe the case of famine idea can be pushed further. As it stands now, we share our harvest with our international neighbors in their times of need, because they are equal and we “care”—but this is only after we have first finished eating ourselves. In a time of famine amongst those we personally love and care about, the harvest would surely be divided up beforehand. What if, when we read about a famine our job is not to “care”—to produce extra food and send it—but rather to stop eating so much ourselves? Many of us care that the lives of others are placed in a precarious position, but it is rare that we ever question the fact that it is the West itself that has manufactured the political/economic conditions that guarantee our own certainty at our others’ expense. When famine touches another part of the world, it is not that something touches others and does not affect us. Rather, could that be the very moment us touching/affecting them? How could the abundance of food on my plate which I take for granted NOT be connected to its absence on another?
Since class Wednesday, I have been trying to imagine a politics of “not caring” is would not cold and heartless. At first I was offended by the idea, but I think it could actually be a much more morally demanding approach. If we remain morally oriented, there are only certain conditions under which we might allow ourselves to not care. Would we feel such a strong need to send food to feed those who experience hunger abroad if we were already counting the grains of rice we ate ourselves, eating only what we needed? Would we still slap around other world powers if we did not allow ourselves license to clinch our fists in defense? If the U.S. is indeed the world’s most awesome country, why are its politics framed in the language of ‘moral leadership’ rather than ‘moral deference’? For all our/my talking and writing about saving the world, maybe the ultimate act of compassion and love would be to reorient our gaze, and consider what it would mean to first save ourselves.
Yeah, what would it mean to first save ourselves? For all its cling-clanging, the help is never mutual. Apparently, the acknowledgment of being in need of help is unthinkable for the supposed powerful: for shameful reasons, Bush ruthlessly rejected aid when Chavez was the first to respond to Katrina, offering to send doctors, medical supplies, and fuel to compensate for downed oil rigs.
When I read Wendy Brown's Regulating Version, her analysis of the tolerance discourse reminds me so much of the politics of care. Who are in the (taken for granted) position to tolerate/care? What kind of subject is thought to be essentially helpless/powerless/destitute? The humanitarianism sphere is always depoliticized as "neutral," "nongovernmental," "nonprofit," hiding pretty effectively the genealogy+asymmetry of power as well as the implicit universalism of "civilized" freedom, democracy, economic development, etc.
I like your comment on how Umar is not a ruler but more of a server to his community. That is why "democracy"'s critique of any hierarchy is so ironic to me when the former actually maintains a hierarchy of identity under the veil of tolerance, while the latter is not always so straightforwardly authoritarian. They have lots of meaningful ways of relating to one another, including being subservient to each other in different ways, as the story tells so beautifully. Of course, we should not exclude the instances of oppressive exercise of unequal power, but that happens in any hierarchy of power, whether it's manifest in a "monarchy" or a "republican"/"democratic" state.
another passage that I really like from the same book:
"... it is desirable that alms be given in secret and privately to the necessitous. Thus, on the one hand, the self-esteem of the recipients is safeguarded, and on the other hand, a check is put upon conceit and pride. "If you give alms in public, that is good; but if you do it secretly and give to the poor, that is better for you." (2:273) And there is a tradition of the Prophet in praise of the man who "gives his alms, but conceals the fact to the point where his left hand does not know what his right hand is giving." This is an outstandingly fine picture of the way in which charity should be kept secret and should not be accounted for a matter for pride or publicity."
The difference between the virtue of this way of almsgiving and the ubiquitous clamoring campaigns for humanitarian aids!
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