Empathy is our superpower

The ability for human beings to empathise with others, to see life from another's perspective, is perhaps our greatest gift. It is where all true power for change lies. It is the master key that unlocks all the doors.

So many of the world's problems could be solved if people were to cultivate more empathy in their daily lives. For example, most people in the West turn a blind eye to the suffering their governments inflict on those in faraway lands, like the Middle East, even though it is all funded with taxpayers' money.

There is a huge disconnect. They live 'over there', in Iraq or Afghanistan, so why should we care? We should care simply due to the fact that they are our brothers and sisters. We are bombing our brothers and sisters.

Did you know that many children born in Gaza piss themselves and shit themselves when they hear planes flying overhead? The children here in the UK look up in the sky and point, telling their parents, "look mummy, plane." The children in Gaza and Iraq run for cover because, for all they know, it could be another bomb. Another airstrike.

What if that was your child? What if that was happening right here in the UK, on a daily basis? What if little Billy was pissing himself in bed because he thought the plane flying overhead was going to drop a bomb on his house, killing his entire family?

What if you were holding little Billy's dismembered body parts in your arms because they were the only parts left of him following the devastation of a foreign airstrike? How would that make you feel?

What I described above is a daily reality for thousands, if not millions, of families in the Middle East, and so long as we remain silent about this issue, we may as well be giving the government our consent to commit war crimes in our name. Our silence is complicity.

As one suffers, all suffer.