ONCE UPON A TIME IN MARETH

Despite our differences in identity, socio-economic background, environment, and context, we all share the same instincts: the desire to possess, to know, to communicate, the need to be respected, to have dignity, to be healthy, and to aspire to success, distinction, discovery, and the appreciation of our experiences. We are attached to our families, our ancestors, our teachers, our classmates, our neighbours, our comrades in arms, our colleagues, our memories, and everyone who resembles us or thinks like us. But we also show solidarity and compassion for those who suffer from injustice, tyranny, poverty, discrimination, and disease, even if they do not resemble us or think like us. We feel sympathy for unlucky foreigners who have been abused or are victims of inhumane circumstances. Hence the existence of donations, aid, humanitarian relief, and assistance. Many people were engaged in conflicts they did not choose. Yet despite difficult conditions and hostility, they preserved a sense of humanity. Soldiers on the front lines suffer the same anxieties, fears, frustrations, and pains regardless of which side they fight for.