One word that has been weighing heavily on my mind for a while now is oppression. It is there to feel everywhere: in open spaces — like gnats; in private territories—like mildew; and in the inner core of every human being—like a mist that refuses to lift.
I am thinking of oppression again today, when a military strike on a hospital in Gaza wreaked another round of deathly mayhem. Power has always been a thing of dread and bewilderment; a force that can both shape worlds and crush spirits, depending on who wields it and how. No matter how credible a tool power can be to build societies and civilisations, what we have seen — and often remember from history — is how it has been misused, twisted, and hoarded. The face of power has only grown more macabre as time has passed, and nothing seems able to retard its relentless spread. Its ability to infiltrate every corner of our lives — political, societal, familial —makes me wonder, “How do we face and fight oppression? What do we do when we feel crushed by forces bigger than us?”
These were questions I posed to my therapist last week, because the ugly fallout of power and the suffering it caused was beginning to rattle the empath in me. It was getting to a point where watching TV became torture, scrolling through timelines brought anxiety attacks, and the overall sense of helplessness grew heavier with each passing day.My therapist said, “Deal with it in dignity. Make your oppressor feel shame.” It was an unequivocal (and unapologetic) voice of resistance that was not brash. It did not say oppression needed to be confronted with brute force.
It merely nudged me with a gentle but firm reminder: power does not always have to be met with aggression, and sometimes the most profound resistance is measured, composed, and morally unassailable.Her words lingered with me, and I began to wonder if I had not heard this somewhere in my long travails in life. Perhaps in my brief dalliances with the scriptures and religious texts that I trawled, looking for the Truth? What did the wisdom of the ages say about oppression? To swallow it without resistance? To fight it with belligerence? Or something else, gently straddling the above two prospects? Across religions and philosophies — from the Gita to the Bible, from Buddhist teachings to Sufi thought — I found a recurring thread: true resistance is not always loud. It is rooted in courage, clarity, and conscience. Precisely what my therapist had said.The Gita tells us to stand firm in our truth and duty; the Bible to rise above the pettiness of hate; the Buddha to keep our serenity intact; and the Sufis to trust that even in hardship, hidden wisdom is at work.
None of these traditions call for surrender; they call for strength of a different kind — the strength to resist without becoming what we resist. Yielding to power would mean quietly validating it. Bending without question will only make the oppressor exercise their power with more impunity, for that is the only thing they know.Silence and softness are not a solution; they are a slow way of losing our spirit. They are a recipe for our dissolution. Yet there is no wisdom in fighting back with the same vigour as the one on the other side, for it would mirror exactly what we abhor.
The author is a Dubai-based columnist, independent journalist, and writing coach
