The question of questioning the government/ society/ ideas/ course of nature and one’s own life is reserved to few selective individuals who are privileged and have the awareness to put their suffering out in the world. These are often urban-based educated citizens sitting inside their rooms, closed off by the curtain which separates their pain from the pain that is often not spoken about. However, those pains which aren’t often not spoken out loud by the one in suffering comes often as criticisms to nature, government, society as this constitutes the main portion of life and that criticism is yet again recorded and written by those who are in power and hold the luxury for writing about such stories. The question of who can criticize and who cannot be understood with a similar pattern of have’s and have-not. Because even privileged has often stepped onto the portion of have-nots at some point in their lives. It often comes out with systemic repression of one’s thought, desire, and following other’s desire as a means of emancipation. By this, I certainly do mean those who do not have the liberty of having the power to criticize and thus by altogether losing the idea of choice. When someone has the power of criticism they often possess the power of having a choice with themselves, thus allowing them to criticize the above option over the other. There are times as well when those who have criticized a past organization will be essentially willing to join the same after a point of time, we must realize this doesn’t constitute under the hypocorism but an idea of necessity when the person makes the choice.

Such examples can be often cited in one’s life. A group of students who will criticize the action of the national army is often considered to be anti-state and thus a seditionist. However, when the students graduate and join the national army, should they be considered a hypocrite as I stated above but a choice made out of an ideal desire that it is best to be earning at a young age. This can be termed for someone doing or approaching one such position out of ideal fear and necessity, considering if the job market was flourishing and the constant family support to pursue a career of the desired choice the outcome would have been much different from what the outcome that was enlisted below. Often students criticize any organization with the goal of change. The state always doesn’t see change as a necessary element but will often consider the idea of the change as a trial to ransack the state’s authoritative power.

Looking at self is necessary and a key element, often it is about self-evaluation and de-evaluation and then again re-evaluation for a better understanding of the position of ideas that shape us. It is thus very important to be aware of issues but in hindsight being aware that these organizations can often employ the role of a saviour at times of need. The ultimate goal that is often to understand: Everything can’t be viewed with a single lens of left or right or black and white. Ideas, thoughts lie in the grey area where it can’t be counted for anything other than pure evaluation of mind that exists inside every human being. I would like to now pick up an example of a girl of eight years in the heart of Africa in the Accra in Ghana. The story of Bamunu, she works as a Kayayo- which means girl-carrier in the Ga language. These girls carry a heavy load on their heads and earn very little, nearly to $1 or even less. The story of Bamunu touched me when I viewed it on Al-Jazeera, it can be also be accessed at any point of time, for those who would want to view the story of Bamunu, can view the story at the end of this.

Bamunu saves little every day after what she spends for her food and it is always meagre like spending. The nature of the extremity of her life is harsh and so harsh that it is impossible not to write about her and try to others on the journey of self-realization. I can express because I have the power of words, but Bamunu doesn’t and may do now because she is attending school which I read from the video. She longed to go to school as her brothers did, but with the nature of the society, she was sent to Accra and to work. On one such Sunday, she was asked to come home and visit her family, her pain of missing her family protruded when she ran to a corner to lay her head in between her head and cry in silence. Even if you consider the fact that it is a dramatization, Bamunu’s pain will slowly start to grip you. When she returns to her family, she was revived warmly by her parents for a few days, and soon they start questioning the fact that why did she bring ‘Less amount back home’. She was sent back with instructions from her father that she must go to bed hungry and spend as little as she can and save more for her family. The father who was the patriarch of the family seemed to be little considered and wanted Bamunu to work, and with such lines, they establish that Bamunu is nothing but an economic deal: We have given birth to you, fed you to work and bring money. Bamunu with a heavy heart returns to Accra to resume her work as a girl-porter.

The point of telling this story is not just an ideal piece of narration from a documentary, but when this slowly starts making sense when you relate it to the question above: Who can criticize and Who Cannot? Bamunu, knowing the fact that she is being put through troubles of life to earn money where the patriarch is less bothered. I can’t be more troubled by the fact that is surfacing on the internet about ‘Not respecting the modern feminism’ Idealism has led to disastrous results with us often trying to picture a situation where the grass is always greener and will never turn yellow with the scorching sun above. Bamunu knowing the injustice and even though discussing the pain of her life with her friends has to accept the commanding authority of her family, this is partly due to the nature of society that never allows us to run away. She discusses the working situation in Accra where she tells her sister that it is the worst place to work but still she was sent back to work in the situation because often humans accept the injustice as a part of life and soon it grips hold of us. Bamunu is working to save her family from dying while she is sacrificing her life every day little by little and layer by layer. Accepting the criticisms about an organization, place, nature, and then returning to the same place often represents the fact that in such situations humans lack the choices and thus have to join the battalion. This doesn’t mean it squishes out the rebellion in one. The rebellion then is not a forceful but retributive one. They try to change the system for good at their level. Slowly and steadily, if those students shouted slogans on the street about nature of the armed forces committing violence it means that they are criticizing the way of its working, and so when they take charge of authority they will try to devise plans which don’t harm the other individual and by this way, it leads to a legacy.

I have established the fact that often it is the one who has more choices in life to often criticize more, and the choices to be such that will earn the mention more than the former. It is to understand that we are part of a continuous circle of breaking and making. I would naturally move why Bamunu’s life will touch you as well and rather than looking it as a critic of the documentary it is to look beyond the physicality of life and moving on to realize the pain and suffering that are common to both the lives, i.e. the readers and the life of Bamunu.

In our lives, we may not have experienced such atrocity of life. The fact that we are all trying to sustain, in some way or other, with or without choices, trying to earn monetary benefit or the essentially being provided and trying to sustain with the same. To the degree we are all trying to survive, human life essentially comes down to sustenance in a capitalist society like ours, and no matter how much we criticize there’s no other alternative that is available and thus going back to the systemic oppression under the capitalist regime. The pain we relate to our lives are the ones where we find naturally suitable relation to it, often films, documentary are made with the idea that it should touch that part of the people where it is still sore. Naturally, a story about Mosul wouldn’t touch many other than those who have faced those kinds of atrocities by the state and aware of the situation under which they are forced to live. Naturally, I feel I am close to Bamunu’s story because I am closing down on choices and will have to choose the one I criticized or trying to be independent like her, the only thing that ran in my mind that, I being so privileged still fail at so many areas of life where she being eight years old carrying out the responsibility of an adult.

Remarkable incidents and memories aren’t created with what we just view but with what we relate to and feel the similarity of the same. It is hard to find similarities, but when the mind does this trick it certainly means that the memory is to stay forever, it will return in forms and still unexpected that in the conscious mind, we may take it as a silly happening of life. It is thus said pinning down those thoughts ‘when they are hot’ is often how such memories are structured and sometimes gives rise to stories, novels, films. As I close this little self-observation that I have made about myself, I must remind you, similarities aren’t a frequent visitor, it must be protected when it does.