I am the Other:
\nI have no voice.
\nBecause kids don\u2019t interfere,
\nWhen adults are talking,
\nOr when the adults decide,
\nWho dies tonight,
\nMiles, and miles, away,
\nTarget locked;
\nMissile launched.<\/p>\n
It is mostly the Other,
\nWho perishes under the weight,
\nFor crimes he did not commit,
\nFor death that was not sent for him,
\nBut for someone else,
\nWho got instead to live.
\nFrom the sky i once loved,
\nThe sky that now terrifies me.<\/p>\n
I am the other.
\nAnd that makes me an enemy of people I\u2019ve never met.
\nI don\u2019t know who it is that wants us dead,
\nBecause they never bring death themselves,
\nI am told I am not worth even that,
\nOnly send it by way of the sky,
\nThe sky i once loved,
\nThe sky that now terrifies me,<\/p>\n
I am the Other.
\nIt is not by choice that I am,
\nI suppose I was born into it,
\nThey say it\u2019s just for the bad guys,
\nBut my friend Aziz was always nice,
\nHe let me share his toys,
\nAfter mine were destroyed,
\nWhen destruction came from the sky.
\nThe sky i once loved,
\nThe sky that now terrifies me.<\/p>\n
I am the Other.
\nparents gone, and friends have left,
\nthe sky is merciless.
\nI ask, O God, what is our fault,
\nWhy the skies rain drones tonight,
\nAnd why death sent down to us,
\nFrom the sky I once loved,
\nThe sky that now terrifies me.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrone, Drone\u201d, the Others cry,
\nMuffled breaths, a smoke eclipse,
\nthe moon of our hometown,
\nreplaced by the stamp of death,
\nas the sky i once loved,
\nand the sky that now terrifies me,
\nturns into an enemy:
\nan enemy of the Other.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The first piece I read for this seminar, Following Muhammad, introduced me to an interesting concept of the ‘Other’. This concept became fundamental to our understanding of many aspects along the course of the semester. The theory, in my comprehension, relates to the need of one entity to have an ‘other’ present. The Other is someone that is different from you. Maybe the differences are of a harmless nature, but they are exaggerated to the extent where the Other becomes a scary, threatening entity. In this piece, I used that concept to internalize the thoughts\/feelings of a child caught amidst drone attacks in Pakistan. The attacks have been going on for quite a long time without the government prioritizing the issue for whatever reason. It is unfortunate, and saddening, indeed to see the loss of innocent lives under the banner of eliminating enemies of peace. The contentions between the East and the West are ever present, and have become more of an assumed characteristic of the modern world, where, in reality, the contentions are empty sentences. This ‘Othering’ occurs on both ends and often leads to devastating results with uncalled warfare and fundamental misconceptions that start with religion and pervade an understanding of culture, customs, and traditions. The concept better helped me understand the strife between the East and West, but I felt as if the topic I chose to pen verses about is often lost amidst greater, more pressing problems. This is, for many, a small version of the Othering when compared to bigger giants such as ISIS and Boko Haram.<\/p>\n
But, for me, it is a voice unheard.<\/p>\n
A voice marginalized.<\/p>\n
A voice othered.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am the Other: I have no voice. Because kids don\u2019t interfere, When adults are talking, Or when the adults decide, Who dies tonight, Miles, and miles, away, Target locked; Missile launched. It is mostly the Other, Who perishes under the weight, For crimes he did not commit, For death that was not sent for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7875,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/frsmrzuneera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}