The Donkey’s Shadow: A Battle Over Names and Identity

By Dr Mohammed Yousif Hassan
Seventy years ago, the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote a short play entitled The Trial over the Donkey’s Shadow. It tells the story of a doctor who hires a donkey on a scorching day. When the heat becomes unbearable, he dismounts and rests in the animal’s shade. The owner then demands an additional fee, arguing that the agreement covered the donkey but not its shadow.
The doctor refuses, and the dispute is taken to court.
That is where the disaster begins.
Lawyers make speeches, the public becomes inflamed, and the entire town splits into opposing camps. Fights break out, war erupts, and by the end only the doctor and the donkey’s owner are left standing amid the ashes. Behind them, the donkey brays mockingly:
“Am I the only donkey in this story?”
We laugh when we read the play, without realising that we live through it every day.
One of the most dangerous afflictions of our age is not disagreement over major issues, but our addiction to quarrelling over the “shadow”. We surrender hours of our lives, sleepless nights and long-standing relationships to matters that, on reflection, are worth almost nothing: a passing remark, a fabricated trend, a football transfer or a celebrity divorce.
Such controversies are carefully manufactured and then thrown to us as bait. We seize upon them as though our fate depended on them.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the picture, beyond where we are looking, decisions are quietly passed, prices rise, rights are forgotten, and matters affecting livelihoods, household security, children’s futures and the building of the nation are buried.
It is as though the aim were to keep us distracted, exhausted and hostile towards one another, so that no one turns towards the real cause.
Being sensible does not mean remaining silent, nor does it mean being indifferent. It means choosing your battles.
Before sharing something, becoming angry or attacking someone, ask yourself: will this issue make any difference to my livelihood, my family or my country a month from now, or at any point in the future? Who benefits when we quarrel? Why am I being forced into only two positions: either with them or against them?
If you cannot find a convincing answer, then you are probably facing yet another donkey’s shadow.
A house cannot be built upon a shadow, nor can a tree be planted beneath it. Choose instead what benefits you without harming others. Do not involve yourself in matters that do not concern you, only to cause harm to yourself and to those around you.
Our lives are too short to burn away in pointless arguments, and our energy is too valuable to waste on noise.
Let us quietly leave every absurd performance behind. Let the latest trend die on its own, and let us return to what is useful: our homes, our work, knowledge worth acquiring, relatives whose ties we should maintain, victories to be won over the enemy, an army whose steadfastness deserves our support, a beloved homeland to be protected, hatred and racism to be rejected, and genuine causes in which we can make a difference.
The town did not burn because the doctor and the donkey’s owner disagreed.
It burned because the crowd chose to fight over the shadow—or, as we might say today, because they allowed themselves to be led into a pointless distraction.

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