Compassion

Compassion is a most admirable human quality. It is a mark of civilization and a defining feature of a humane society.

Sadly, it is absent from much of the world. Last Thursday, 10 January, I heard on the news that the British authorities had deported a terminally ill woman because her student visa had expired. The woman, a Ghanaian called Ama Sumani, was suffering from cancer and had been receiving kidney dialysis treatment, which she needed three times a week.

Mrs Sumani's deportation was an outrageous act of barbarity, matched only by what was awaiting her back home.

Upon arrival in Ghana, she was taken to hospital in the capital, Accra, in order receive her dialysis treatment. However, the hospital refused to treat her, insisting that she must pay in advance the full cost of treatment for six months, which amounted to 6000 USD, or 3060 GBP. Although the British immigration officials who accompanied her from the UK offered to pay for three months' treatment, the Ghanaians refused to settle for anything less than six months' payment.

Driving home, I heard on the radio a senior manager at the Accra hospital confirm that position without even a hint of shame, and acknowledge the fact that, without the dialysis, the woman would die soon (BBC Radio 4, 6 p.m. news, 11 January 2008). So, to him and his ilk, life is all about money; if you don't have money, you're not worth living.

This is just one, well-publicized example to illustrate that, even in this day and age, compassion is a rare commodity indeed, whether you're in the First or Third World.

But there is a crucial difference between these two increasingly distant worlds. That is the existence of a vibrant and free media. Thus, whereas in the First World instances of inhumanity and lack of compassion, whether in Europe, Africa, occupied Palestine or occupied Iraq, are soon brought to the attention of the public by the media, in most of the Third World they go unmentioned by a media that is in shackles and often does not even see lack of compassion as an issue.

Even more fundamental is the level of awareness and understanding of compassion in much of the Third World. In my own country, for example, we speak a lot about compassion, often citing the high value placed on it in the Koran. But at least in that spot of the Arab world, compassion is most conspicuous by its absence. As with the Ghanaian scoundrels who refused to treat Ama Sumani, it is dwarfed by materialism, greed and hypocrisy.

It is hard to know where to begin when trying to instill compassion in these circumstances. But, as far as I am concerned, one thing is sure, and that is the need to start at the grassroots and to understand that compassion is universal, indivisible and applies equally to all living creatures, humans and animals.