In the last Easter holidays I began suffering from a sleeping insomnia:
It became difficult for me to sleep. And it even increased when I called some friends and asked them to go out, but all my friends were out of Munich travelling, seeing their families or visiting other cities.
I felt as if I was alone in such a big city as Munich abandoned by its population
In the evening the hardest hours of silence and boredom were passing and I hoped that this Easter vacation would be over soon and I would go back to my daily life.
I attempted to sleep before sunrise, but it didn’t work for me.
While I was lying in my bed, I asked myself why it became difficult for me to sleep and why memories were coming up these days – memories I once thought that I had recovered from, but my mind was full of places and people.
I decided to do some research about insomnia, but I did not find anything interesting, except one text that has struck me. The author mentions that : “those who suffer from difficulty in sleeping are the people who make mistakes against others, and it is guilt that prevents them from sleeping“.
I stopped a lot at this point, and I began thinking if I had offended someone. I wanted to apologize if I did so , and ask for forgiveness, but I didn´t remember anyone , and I blamed myself that I did not find my mistakes because sometimes you hurt others unintentionally. I am not an angel, so I should remember my faults with others.
Some moments later I started thinking about all those who sleep out in the cold in the refugee camps in Greece or Jordan.
I wondered whether I might be partly guilty as well ,because I did not do anything to help them.
And from that point on, I asked myself how the Arab dictators sleep, especially and
all those politicians who spread hatred and violence.
So what about Bashar al-Assad who destroyed Syria and displaced millions of people?
Is it reasonable that he sleeps calmly while I am suffering here in Munich from insomnia only because I feel sorry for those millions , although I am not responsible for the situation. I did not hesitate to search on the Internet in order to look how dictators sleep..
I found a German journalist´s interview with the dictator
Bashar al-Assad where he asked him :
„Mister President , can you sleep at night?“
The answer of Basharal-Assad was a big shock for me:
“It doesn’t matter if I sleep or not and I don’t sleep because I have to work. Not because I cannot sleep.”
I don’t know what Bashar al-Assad meant by this phrase “I have to work” because I can’t believe he is doing anything more than killing my people and destroying my country .
How could there be so much evil in one human heart – without any aspect of goodness ?
And as I was very curious, I read many articles telling about the correlation between some other presidents and their sleeping habits.
And I found out that:
Gaddafi, according to an Arabic newspaper, had a toy called “Teddy” and he was not able to fall asleep without his Teddy. Furthermore, he usually didn´t fell asleep before sunrise and only after having made sure that there was no attempt to seize his power.
Another Example: the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler:
As he was fearing everything unknown, he asked the maid to examine his bed every day before he was going to sleep , and he used to do most of his work during the night and slept only between 4 and 6 hours a day . He also had a band playing music for him each night before he went to sleep.
After having finished my research, I decided to check the newest post on Facebook. A friend who still lives in Syria had written : “I am lucky today to have electricity and internet on my disposal because I wanted to wish a glorious Easter holiday to each Syrian and to the world. “
I liked this spirit of simplicity of that friend of mine – and I wondered how one heart can be filled up with goodness even up to naivity.