Ahmad looks good. Smartly dressed, he preps himself up to his chair, waiting for a customer to swing by pass him with a plastic bag that’s worth weighing. One customer comes along and places her bag on the weighing machine. He gets excited over the whole issue. Santa came early for him, as early as 11a.m, just minutes after he clocked in. He beckons forth slowly, and tries to key in the appropriate code; 5 minutes has lapsed. Another customer comes along and lines up. Now it has been 10 minutes and another customer lines up behind this one. 3 anxious customers waiting; the first is perplexed on how technical it could get. “It’s just weighing a bag of prawns for God’s sake!”
Ahmad realizes he is too slow. He twitches. His muscles stiffen, he is teary eyed and pulls out the code book; the Das Kapital for every Tesco worker being sent to the front lines of weighing fresh products everyday. “Salvation!” Not!. By the time Ahmad gets to the code the line has grown to 10 people, the first lady still not having the privileges of modern society. Ahmad’s co-worker comes to the rescue; she dashes in quick! But not without her own sense of frustration. To make matter’s worse? Ahmad can’t even remember who came first! Without having them lining up in a straight line; like a Band of Brother’s marching scene.
When I met Ahmad, I was bypassed many times. Until one good natured customer told him that I was here earlier and that I deserved mine to be weighed. I thought it was racism or neglect. But I also remembered my mother deals with children who have learning disabilities. She goes through a task of epic proportions dealing with children who either by genetic design or “God’s divine will,” are learning to cope with ADHD, autism and even Down’s. Ahmad, successfully fell into one of those. Which one? I couldn’t tell but his case was genuine.
The beautiful part of this narrative was that Ahmad also successfully thanked his customers after sticking a price tag on each plastic bag. Despite his customers reaction to him. “Thank you…Thank you very much… Thank you Sir….Thank you Cik…”
Interestingly, Ahmad lives in a world where “if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). But the twist? Ahmad lives in it involuntarily. Gandhi interpreted this as a physical method for non-violent demonstrations against his “white” imperialists. But the idea of being slapped on both cheeks by an “evil” person goes beyond physical comprehension.
Ahmad could only recoil when he sees the stares, the demands of an iconoclastic, communist, commercialized, “educated” and modern society. We on the other have it better. Normally, when we are attacked, we would wait for a good “counter-attack” or a good “defense.” And this would be culminated with a good “offense,” killing that bad-boy, hater and ultimate critic of what we do and say.
We can’t allow that. We definitely can’t allow injustice but we also can’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable at times either. We can’t be judged by the “evil” people we deem them to be. We can’t. We just can’t.
I think as people with the privilege of thought and reason, blessed with an optimized human body and mind, the spirituality behind being slapped by both cheeks remains a tough one. However what it does give us is something very priceless. Jesus Christ knew when to defend himself and also to allow others to offer interpretations of who he was and what he was doing. He was slapped on both sides; and mind you it was never a backhanded one.
The call thus is to allow that balance to take place. It would hurt us when we allow people to interpret our walk, our goals and our methods. Sometimes it could just be heart wrenching. But forcing people, with a superior tone, and a very defensive scheme would only make us dictators of a cause that would be lost through time. Eternal elements are always open to interpretation, contextualization and the idea that I can make something so personal that I just live what is being taught. And not just being McDonalized for the rest of my life.
I met Ahmad with a smile, when it finally came to me weighing my prawns. I recognized that this man was more sane than I am; more innocent than I am. He’d probably would not understand certain things, but if he was functioning at his best that day; God help us all. That was some damn good attitude.
