Shahmir Sanni
@shahmirsanni.bsky.social
You’re in the right place, just the wrong era - very sorry.
Mostly on Instagram @shahmiruk
No longer on Twitter.
Mostly on Instagram @shahmiruk
No longer on Twitter.
The very uprooting of these systems comes from imagination and hope that there is a system outside of the current in which we can still practise our freedoms and successes tied to the freedoms and successes of everyone, rather than just ourselves.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
The very uprooting of these systems comes from imagination and hope that there is a system outside of the current in which we can still practise our freedoms and successes tied to the freedoms and successes of everyone, rather than just ourselves.
But they are not as powerful as those of us who come together to take the guilt we feel, and turn it into a need for justice and compassion toward the victims of violence.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
But they are not as powerful as those of us who come together to take the guilt we feel, and turn it into a need for justice and compassion toward the victims of violence.
A system of hatred and anger as fuel. Fuel that drives ignorance and most of all, a fuel that drives distraction. A distraction toward ourselves rather than the people who enable it - profit from it.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
A system of hatred and anger as fuel. Fuel that drives ignorance and most of all, a fuel that drives distraction. A distraction toward ourselves rather than the people who enable it - profit from it.
But the line of fire may be toward them now, it will eventually come home to roost if we do not recognise the very system that created it, is the system that we ourselves live within.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
But the line of fire may be toward them now, it will eventually come home to roost if we do not recognise the very system that created it, is the system that we ourselves live within.
Their violence reminds us that we are in fact lucky, and if we were to empathise or seek to help them, we too would put ourselves in the line of fire.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
Their violence reminds us that we are in fact lucky, and if we were to empathise or seek to help them, we too would put ourselves in the line of fire.
We do not need the weapons or the arms companies to succeed for us to succeed - this is a lie. And we do not need to enact violence on a people who can not afford to eat…yet we destroy them. Because it makes us feel better, good about being safe.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
We do not need the weapons or the arms companies to succeed for us to succeed - this is a lie. And we do not need to enact violence on a people who can not afford to eat…yet we destroy them. Because it makes us feel better, good about being safe.
Hate toward that which many have been told is an ideology or people that seek to destroy them. A lie in itself that has been created by the corporations that seek to only succeed and grow based on violence.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
Hate toward that which many have been told is an ideology or people that seek to destroy them. A lie in itself that has been created by the corporations that seek to only succeed and grow based on violence.
That, for me, has quickly become the source of my guilt. But it is also a question of choice. America & England can be free too without dependency on weapons sales. So then what is it that drives such a visceral reaction of violence toward innocent people? Hate of the other, maybe? Too simple.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
That, for me, has quickly become the source of my guilt. But it is also a question of choice. America & England can be free too without dependency on weapons sales. So then what is it that drives such a visceral reaction of violence toward innocent people? Hate of the other, maybe? Too simple.
Do our freedoms depend on choices that suppress or oppress or extract, no? Is this not the system we live in? If I were to reject a system that is built on profit from violence, then that would mean to reject my own comforts, my own freedoms, my own pleasures.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
Do our freedoms depend on choices that suppress or oppress or extract, no? Is this not the system we live in? If I were to reject a system that is built on profit from violence, then that would mean to reject my own comforts, my own freedoms, my own pleasures.
A system so ingrained and strong as that of England or America continues to react so viscerally to calls of compassion or any politics of care for the marginalised or poor, let alone those in the Global South? Is it a crisis of empathy? I would like to not believe that - I don’t.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
A system so ingrained and strong as that of England or America continues to react so viscerally to calls of compassion or any politics of care for the marginalised or poor, let alone those in the Global South? Is it a crisis of empathy? I would like to not believe that - I don’t.
How do you get someone/something so privileged & dependent on the underprivileged to remain as such, like the westerner, to turn guilt into hope into anger into change and ultimately into sacrifice?
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
How do you get someone/something so privileged & dependent on the underprivileged to remain as such, like the westerner, to turn guilt into hope into anger into change and ultimately into sacrifice?
What are we without the benefits of bloodshed in the Middle East? How do we live the way we do without relying on the very systems that let us live as we do? Total revolution seems a pleasurable thought, but it means a destruction of every one of the westerners comforts and freedoms?
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
What are we without the benefits of bloodshed in the Middle East? How do we live the way we do without relying on the very systems that let us live as we do? Total revolution seems a pleasurable thought, but it means a destruction of every one of the westerners comforts and freedoms?
It is not that this violence is merely a result of bad foreign policy, but it is in the arms trade and profiteering and political power plays that the countries we so comfortably (and uncomfortably now) live in rely on in order to keep their own citizens content.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
It is not that this violence is merely a result of bad foreign policy, but it is in the arms trade and profiteering and political power plays that the countries we so comfortably (and uncomfortably now) live in rely on in order to keep their own citizens content.
I think the guilt is reasonable because at the end of the day we participate ourselves in the freedoms that the violence in the Middle East allows us. In that, our freedom and security and comfort is entirely dependent on the systems that commit such acts of violence.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
I think the guilt is reasonable because at the end of the day we participate ourselves in the freedoms that the violence in the Middle East allows us. In that, our freedom and security and comfort is entirely dependent on the systems that commit such acts of violence.
As we live in western countries that fund the violence, as we ourselves vote and support the violence through political action, whether we like it or not?
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
As we live in western countries that fund the violence, as we ourselves vote and support the violence through political action, whether we like it or not?
I am growing tired of the posts, the stories. But I know that most of what I can do now is that. But awareness has always been a temporary gratification - where do we begin to enact change that allows us to ask ourselves who we are without the guilt of responsibility.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
I am growing tired of the posts, the stories. But I know that most of what I can do now is that. But awareness has always been a temporary gratification - where do we begin to enact change that allows us to ask ourselves who we are without the guilt of responsibility.
But an embracing of the responsibility of selflessness in the pursuit of justice for these people who live (and die) thousands of miles away…what then do the posts, the stories, the tweets mean if they are only ever lost in oceans of guilt-filled content from those who share the same pain & worry?
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
But an embracing of the responsibility of selflessness in the pursuit of justice for these people who live (and die) thousands of miles away…what then do the posts, the stories, the tweets mean if they are only ever lost in oceans of guilt-filled content from those who share the same pain & worry?
My anger described as hateful, my sadness described as anti-semitism or woke extremism - odd a claim of-course when majority of the people who are targets of anti-semitism in the real world want the same as I do - peace, an end to violence.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
My anger described as hateful, my sadness described as anti-semitism or woke extremism - odd a claim of-course when majority of the people who are targets of anti-semitism in the real world want the same as I do - peace, an end to violence.
I can not escape this guilt nor this feeling of responsibility to make sure that my thoughts are not of myself, but of the Palestinian or the Sudanese. And what feeds it most is watching the world around me carry on as normal, news anchors and politicians dismiss this guilt as immature, misguided.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
I can not escape this guilt nor this feeling of responsibility to make sure that my thoughts are not of myself, but of the Palestinian or the Sudanese. And what feeds it most is watching the world around me carry on as normal, news anchors and politicians dismiss this guilt as immature, misguided.
But self-deprecation was never an expectation of justice - the separation of the self, sure. But not in this way? This way that leads me to resent myself for not doing enough, for not caring enough. It is a moral expectation that I place so heavily on myself that it can anger me if others do not.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
But self-deprecation was never an expectation of justice - the separation of the self, sure. But not in this way? This way that leads me to resent myself for not doing enough, for not caring enough. It is a moral expectation that I place so heavily on myself that it can anger me if others do not.
Is this the right way? It must be. If I do not spend every day concerned and angry at the experience of the victims of war and the millions of others facing the full force of humanity’s capacity for inhumanity then I must be rejecting my values.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
Is this the right way? It must be. If I do not spend every day concerned and angry at the experience of the victims of war and the millions of others facing the full force of humanity’s capacity for inhumanity then I must be rejecting my values.
All my worries, all my concerns, all my questions come with an insurmountable weight. The weight of said guilt. A feeling that I continue to suppress, so as to not appear like I am centring myself when I should centre the real victim of violence. I convince myself repeatedly that it is selfishness.
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
All my worries, all my concerns, all my questions come with an insurmountable weight. The weight of said guilt. A feeling that I continue to suppress, so as to not appear like I am centring myself when I should centre the real victim of violence. I convince myself repeatedly that it is selfishness.
Asking THAT question comes with a debilitating guilt. How can I even for one moment think about myself when my eyes and mind are constantly experiencing the destruction of an entire people? Of collapse of democracies? Of the disease of fascism?
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
Asking THAT question comes with a debilitating guilt. How can I even for one moment think about myself when my eyes and mind are constantly experiencing the destruction of an entire people? Of collapse of democracies? Of the disease of fascism?
In the advent of my 30s, it is a question that consumes me. Who am I? What is my legacy? What do I want to do for the rest of my life? What is my career? Inescapable, consuming questions that everyone around me continues to frequent. All of it leading me to ask, “Who am I if not my values?”
November 18, 2024 at 1:58 PM
In the advent of my 30s, it is a question that consumes me. Who am I? What is my legacy? What do I want to do for the rest of my life? What is my career? Inescapable, consuming questions that everyone around me continues to frequent. All of it leading me to ask, “Who am I if not my values?”