It was a bright, sunny day and I was getting very bored indoors so I
decided to go to my friend’s house to have some fun. My friend lived in a very
posh society. After I got to his house, we played some games on his PS5 and
then decided to play some football on the roof of his house. His roof had a
very beautiful view of the whole society but one thing, in particular, caught my
eye.
There was an empty plot where I saw a lot of small huts and people living in poor conditions. I
was very surprised to see a poverty-stricken community in such a posh society.
I was just about to ask my friend about it but my friend judged my expressions
and started telling me about them. He was talking in a very hateful tone
referring to them. He said “Please ignore them. They have ruined the image of
our society. They have illegally occupied this place. This plot belongs to a
very rich person who lives abroad.” I wasn’t really focusing on what he was
saying. I was more concentrated on how the people were living in such
substandard conditions. I saw many children my age and younger that were
wearing dirty clothes and not going to school. I also saw an old man walking
out of his hut coughing very badly. I even saw many women that were about my
grandmother’s age that were carrying heavy weights like huge pots of water. I
was very traumatized after seeing all of this. After some time, my friend’s
mother called us down and offered us milkshakes and some snacks. I wasn’t very
hungry after seeing all of that so I didn’t eat much.
While my friend was
eating, we started hearing loud noises and sirens from the direction of the
poor community. We quickly stood up and ran towards the stairs to get to the
roof. When we got there, we saw people destroying the community and were not
considering any children or women. They were destroying huts and hitting people
who weren’t allowed to fight back. I was even more traumatized after seeing all
of this and decided to leave immediately. My friend tried to stop me from leaving
but I was too disturbed to stay any longer.
When I reached my
home, I got through the day grieved but when I went to bed to sleep, I was
bombarded with questions in my mind. I couldn’t help but think that the poor
people were also doing wrong but poverty is not their choice and they would not
have to do this if they were provided with their necessary rights. I feel that
not only the government is responsible for this social injustice but also as an
individual, we should speak up on these sensitive issues. As we all know, social justice is a concept of a
society in which every human being is treated justly, without discrimination
based on financial status, race, gender, ethnicity, etc. If we say that the
people who were illegally living on that land were wrong, then weren’t the
people who cruelly evacuated them from those lands also doing wrong? We cannot
define it as criminal justice if it is only being done to people who are being
ignored by their society and are not being given the necessary rights and don’t
have the power to fight back. Then, I slept with a new hope that our generation
will surely make a difference.
