© T.H. Warrior – Tender Hearted Warriors
– S.S.P. & E.L.C.
Around most of Shakespeare’s plays, tragedies have always stood at the top. In the most basic sense of the word, a tragedy becomes a reality, as the life of a central character comes to an end.
The term comes from the Greek language, dating back to the 5th Century when it was assigned by the Greeks to perform a specific form of plays that awakened a mood of religious behaviors in favor of priests and figures of ideology who also attended the performance.
Whether the term goes back to the 5th Century or the 16th won’t change the fact that tragedies are still to be seen, not on the scene but in our daily lives. Not in costumes, but in expensive Armani suits. Not only in the hard-to-pronounce countries, far far away, but in the most developed democratic nations.
As a student, I was lucky enough to be able to talk to a lot of people at a very young age. I have witnessed serious crimes, from domestic violence, child abuse, rape, to even first -degree domestic murders. They were crimes, sometimes accidents, at times having gotten neglected by luck. They were heartbreaking, but emotions aside, not that difficult to resolve and move on from, since the facts were there, and everyone saw the big pink elephant in the room: „The doer of the wrongfulness.“
Those crimes, although very different from each other, had something in common:
„As long as the crime was defined, the report was written, the suspect was interviewed, interrogated, prosecuted, sentenced, once the hashtags were posted, the thoughts and prayers were sent, and the psychology papers were published, everything was fine. We forgot. And we moved on.
„People want answers.“
This is the number one narrative that the media has for us, and apparently from us!
I once gave it some deep thought. Do all people want answers? Do they want answers or just a nice wrap around questions? And what kind of answers would be pleasing?
Let me make myself clear with an example:
Let us take a closer look at some of the few recent and unfortunate terrorist attacks. Media asked and provided people with answers:
„Someone in power said or did something. Some guy got angry and did something bad. It was ugly as hell, but to other bad guys, the idea sounded so well. So off they went and did it again, and again, and again.“
There it is. We have answers.
We know what the reason behind those attacks was. We have arrested those bad men. And we set some harsher laws. We posted our hashtags, sent our thoughts and prayers, took our earphones off while walking in the street, and were on our guards for a couple of days, and what are we all thinking about right now?
What happened to the victims‘ families? Or are we or are we not going to be able to fly outside the country during the holidays?
We forget.
We forgot the 9.11; we forgot the SARS pandemic, the Armenian Genocide, Slavery during the construction of the Suez Canal, and the most recent one, the FIFA world cup abuse of human rights in Qatar. We do enjoy the fancy air-conditioned stadium, we will buy tickets, and we will attend every single match, and yes, we will post a thing or two on Twitter about how we loath the bad guys.
Collective or historical memory is defined as the ability of a nation to transfer data from their short-term hard drive to their long-lasting memory card.
In my opinion, historical memory is manifested during events in which different groups react to the same tragedy differently. It is safe to say that people cannot save a memory unless they can, in any way, link themselves to it. Let me elaborate with the following example:
Most people think the odds of getting killed by an airplane crash are much higher than a shark attack. According to the statistics, getting attacked by sharks is 30 times more probable than traveling by air and having a crash. This sounds absurd to most people since most of us don’t know someone who was killed by sharks. But all of us have been on a plane.
If you remember the 9.11 attacks almost every day in your life, even after all these years, you probably are among the victims‘ families or worked in the very same building and simply happened to call in sick the very same day. It could’ve been you. And that is precisely why you remember it. To most people, the memory will be, of course, spine chilling. But unless they are reminded of that event, they don’t think about it anymore.
Another interesting fact about our historical memory is that our national/collective memory is composed of different sub-memories. Ethnic and religious minorities do not enter the stream of national historical memory. Minorities always remember things differently. They have gone, had to go, and still go through different tragedies than the Majority. From this point of view, historical memory is not unconscious, but selective, and even worse, with years passed and events becoming antiquity, a tragic memory becomes a plausible myth.
Now, having already published an article called „memory,“ you might ask yourself:“ why am I again reading about memory?“
The answer is simple:
The tragedies keep happening, as long as we keep forgetting. Or even worse, we accept them as a part of a solid reality.
Not long ago I approached my supervisor about some nonsense that was bothering me at work: this was the answer I got:
„It has always been this way.“ -Translation: „The problem is a lot longer than you might think.“
„This is how we do it over here.“- Translation: „We do certain things, and we don’t even know why.“
I believe real tragedy happens when we firmly believe that we are the way we are, the way we were supposed to be, meant to be, and „God“ intended us to be. Homo sapiens who are born in the colder part of the globe have whiter skin tones and icy hair, and the ones in the warmer parts of the world are darker, just because.
„Tragedies keep happening, as long as we keep forgetting. Or even worse, we accept them as a part of a solid reality.“
T.H. Warrior
Internal and external factors are not only not related to each other but cannot impact each other whatsoever. My husband „has“ a temper. I „was“ born stubborn. The topic „is“ a difficult one, hence, never to be discussed. The Middle East „has“ always been in crisis.
And I bet if we dig a little bit deeper, the answer to all of this would be either religious, or somehow related to the month we were born in, or it would be something like: „I am not a political person.“
Translation: „I chose not to care.“
The real tragedy is that we have only been Resolving and not Solving.
The key difference between these two words is that when we resolve, we put an end to a conflict, and at best, we „strategize“ so that next time, we’d be more prepared.
Solving means figuring out why it’s been happening for as long as we can remember—figuring out the puzzle. „Cracking Davinci’s code.“
The thymus gland is a gland in the upper chest area of children. It is located exactly where a man’s tie knot would be, inside the rib cage in front of their bodies. It is soft, extremely delicate, and mostly looks like a large plump. It is a physical „organ“ which is supposed to stay in the body up until the teenage years. A funny fact about this organ is that it disappears over the course of years due to a large amount of stress and mental or physical pressure. That is exactly why labor children start losing this gland at a very young age.
Resolving this myth would be dissecting the problem and coming up with different theories. Solving it is simple. Even organs, the most stable living things, change behavior.
So nothing „is“ the way it is. No one „was“ born the way they were. And nothing „has“ been the way it has.
Tragedy happens when the right questions aren’t posed.
When instead of finding answers, fingers start being pointed.
People don’t want answers.
We don’t want answers.
Because not knowing and doing nothing is a lot easier than knowing and having to live with the truth.
Blaming:
The fine art of holding others responsible for all the wrongfulness that has been done, all the crimes that have been committed, and all the unknown mysteries that have dust on each and every one of their pages. TV shows that force-feed us scenes of beloved characters being the victim, and there is always an answer—Someone to blame. And every one shall live on, happily ever after, now that one person, one group made of few several people, or a corrupted population of people who are taking over everything, just like a dangerous virus, have been found and held guilty and are paying for what they did.
„Not knowing and doing nothing is a lot easier than knowing and having to live with the truth.“
T.H. Warrior
The problem with this type of painting the picture is that we are still resolving the victim’s pain. There is a loser; there is a bad guy. Where is the“ Winner“?
Is the murderer who ends up being either executed or rotted in prison the winner?
Is the corrupted politician who is stealing our money the winner?
Is the dictator, the leader of an ideology, the winner?
The murderer has to pay for what they did for the rest of their life.
The politician has their greed that will never leave them alone to a peaceful life, and they always want more—never satisfied.
„Tragedy happens when there is no winner.“
T.H.Warrior
And the dictator is the biggest loser of all because they are even scared of their own shadow.
Tragedy happens when there is no winner.
By the end of the tragedy, Hamlet caused the death of Polonius, Laertes, Claudius and Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, and the list goes on and on.
No one won.
And that was the Tragedy.