Entry *8 - Literary essay- I am not like you...do I deserve ill-treatment?

I am not like you...do I deserve ill-treatment?

Differences among people have always been a reason for ill treatment, discrimination, solitude, sadness and not belonging. They can be tied to a variety of matters, but they all conclude with the same, negative feelings. However, differences are what make people be special and unique, but it is a well-known subject that human beings cannot deal with differences without making the other person feel that he does not belong. This notion of not belonging, as a result of dissimilarities among people, is reflected in some well-known singers’ lyrics such as U2 and Sting.

In the song, “They dance alone”, written by Sting. He presents the consequences of a hard period in Chile in which many men and women were kidnapped and murdered because of belonging to a different political party. As a result of this, Sting sings about women who are dancing alone with portraits of their loved ones. By means of this song, you get how the fact of being different makes you not to belong, and how far it gets since whole families were destroyed without mercy. The point is that not only because of supporting a determined political party are people torn apart and judged, but also because of being homosexual.
“Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
Why are there women here dancing on their own?
They are dancing with the missing
They are dancing with the dead
They are dancing with the invisible ones”

This aspect is tackled in the song called, “An Englishman in New York”, written by Sting as well. In this case he presents the harsh life of a gay man who moves from London to New York and tells us about his experiences as an outcast or as he says in his song, “an alien”. At a first insight, when you listen to the song, you think of an Englishman who feels as a stranger in a different place. Yet, at a second insight, you come to realize that the subject of the song goes beyond that simple one. In this respect, you can see how a man is left aside because of his sexual orientation. He is not physically punished, though people makes him feel as he were an alien. Furthermore the sexual choice is not the only theme which makes people to be cruel and cause the sense of being uncanny. There are other subjects such as religion, wealth or beliefs.
It is the song of U2, “Where the streets have no names” which reflects how people are set apart because of their religion, possessions, beliefs, richness or poorness. At first the song seems to be about a plain trip, whereas it is about Ireland where many cities are divided according to people's values, beliefs and wealth. Consequently, if you know on which street a person lives, you can account for these facts. In this respect, people are totally kept apart going their different ways. The difference is what prevails.

On the whole religious, sexual, political, ethnic differences among people are the definite path to make people feel that they do not belong to a certain group or place. In contrast if human beings could just learn to deal with the differences as if they were something unique in people’s essence, things would be less tremendous and traumatic for us. After all, we did not born to be alone, we are not prepared for that since the first moment of our life, we need the care of the other, the affection, the love, and the acceptance. The sense of belonging is what overrules our lives. Hence there is no reason for ill-treating someone because he is not like you.



  • This is an interest scene I have found regarding the film "Colonia dignidad" in which you can see how women were ill-treated before "dancing alone", "being on a torture table".


Bibliography:


  • Elton John, “All the young girls love Alice” by Bernie Taupin and Elton John.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Music Corporation of America, 1973.

  • Ü Sting, “Englishman in New York” by Gordon Matthew and Thomas Summer.
Nothing like the sun. A&M Records, 1988.

  • Ü U2, “Where the streets have no name” by Bono, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen.
The Joshua tree, Island Records, 1987.


  •  Film “The colony”
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJtcmOLYD4k


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