Days ago a friend of my daughter, she is a fellow Pakistani, insisted on giving us groceries while we didn’t need them.
You see, I was at work (in a schoollibrary). I had had no time to buy groceries yet. I usually buy them after work on such days. And I was going to receive some money the next day, so it was better to buy them the next day when I would have more money and could get everything needed. I was planning to cook veggies and bake fries for that evening and then buy groceries the next day when there would be more money and time.
Well, when I came home, there were groceries. Lots of things we don’t use and some things we do use, it was kind yet unnecesary. As it turned out, this fellow Pakistani friend had insisted on giving us some of the groceries of her family. I was surprised. My daughter said she had told her friend over and over that we do have some groceries and that tomorrow we have more money (and time) to go to the supermarket. Yet her friend didn’t believe her and insisted on giving us groceries.
I thought it was kind and weird at the same time. So days later I wanted to give some money, in a polite manner to that friend. My daughter took the amount to school, but the friend didn’t accept it. So I wrote in polite Urdu and Dutch how thankful I was, but that we didn’t need it, and that I was sending them a small amount and if they would be as kind as to please accept that small amount. Yesterday they put it back in our mailbox, writing that they gave us groceries because of ‘humanity’ and not to receive money.
Well, I never said or wrote they gave us groceries to receive money. I was very polite about receiving their groceries while we didn’t need them and never asked for them as we had enough money to buy our own. I was too polite to return the groceries immediately, so that’s why I opted for the small amount (which did about cover their groceries) and a very polite and grateful thank you note. And then they return that. And call it ‘humanity’.
That is certainly NOT ‘humanity’. We have people dying of hunger here, some have nothing at all. They are the ones who really needed these groceries. We have ‘foodbanks’ here now, for people who can’t afford to buy (enough) groceries. Those foodbanks are constantly asking people for help. If the family of the friend of my daughter would insist on giving groceries to those foodbanks or to the hungry people we increasingly have here in town, that would be TRUE humanity.
How would you feel, if people you don’t even know (their child just being a school friend of your child and nothing more) insist on giving you groceries you never asked for and you don’t need as you still have something left in your home and will have money and time the next day to buy everything you need? And then you want to return it somehow, but want to remain polite, so you don’t throw the groceries back at their face, but instead accept them out of politeness and then write a humble and grateful and polite thank you note asking them to be please be as kind as to accept that small amount as those groceries were not necessary and then they don’t accept that and return it quite unpoU litely?
Many of you would think it’s strange and not quite polite and humane, even if you would or wouldn’t admit it. I’d like people to consider how we all treat each other. We all have mistakes, that’s allright. Important is to become aware and change when you notice. Or at least try. Now, if you want to help someone, it is not helping and not polite and certainly not ‘insaniyat’ if you force that help on someone who does NOT need it and never asked for it and who is doing fine in fact and then to refuse to acknowledge that and refuse in an inpolite manner anything that someone you ‘helped’ gives you as that 'help’was never needed really, that is NOT ‘humanity’ nor ‘helping’ . . .
If you truly want to help someone for the sake of ‘insaniyat’, you give to the needy. There are charities or really needy people surely in your town or village or somewhere else near enough. And when you help, that still does not give you a free ticket to be arrogant towards the person you’re helping. Remain respectful towards those people and remain respectful in the manner you give that help. And make sure those people truly need it.