This is the same kid who goes home for a weekend only to see his father planted on the couch watching the same news, which is showing not only Yemen but all neighboring countries cracking down on protesters by using “simple things” like mustard gas and rifle bullets being shot by snipers 50 feet away.

This is the same kid who asks his father what he thinks about all that is going on in the Arab Spring, which is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests going on in the Arab world, and I get an answer back from my father saying, “We (Arabs) are at our lowest of times right now, and God is testing us for everything we got, and I think we are failing this exam.”

This exam my dad is referring to is life. And the three countries I think are failing this exam and are numbers one, two and three in the total deaths of civilians in their countries since the protests have taken place — Libya, Syria and Yemen.

I would need a whole book to describe how I feel about the leaders in the Arab world. But what’s really intriguing to me was when I read about these three countries killing people even in the Muslim’s holy month of Ramadan.

During the month of Ramadan, which began Aug. 1 and lasted till Aug. 29 this year, is an Islamic Holy month during which all Muslims are said to fast during the day, offer special prayers, purify themselves and reach out to family, friends and the poor with evening feasts.

This event, which marks the revelation of the Quran to the prophet Muhammad, was an opportunity to take a measure of the region’s recent upheavals and to test whether Islamic teachings offer any lessons on the role of nonviolence and democracy in the societies of the Middle East. Well, my friends, just like the ongoing hate Chicago Cubs fans still have for Steve Bartman, nothing really changed in the Middle East during that month.

On Aug. 24, after heavy fighting in the city of Abu Salim, a region by Bab al-Azizia, which are both cities located in Libya and were still under Muammar Gaddafi’s control, rebels announced that at least 400 people had been killed and almost 2,000 people had been injured.

On July 31 in Syria, a “siege of Hama” escalated during a so-called “Ramadan Massacre,” in which at least 136 people were killed and hundreds wounded when Syrian forces attacked demonstrators across the country.

In Yemen, governmental crackdown on protesters occurred on different days during Ramadan, as people were getting killed daily for standing up for what they believe is right. There was no one day that stuck out amongst the many in Yemen, as the death tolls were fairly even during the days of Ramadan.

The fact these Muslim-majority countries barely slowed in the killings of their own people, even in the month where we should be seeing no evil, makes me think what really can stop them from continuing to do harm to each other.

If your strong faith or the idea you are harming innocent people is not slowing the death tolls down in these countries, then I don’t think anything will. In my eyes, this is an embarrassment to me, to my family and to anyone in this world who is watching innocent people being killed for their own rights.

But, hey, welcome to my world, where we can only see through our eyes on what is really happening. I could only imagine just having to live through this all.

Omar Thabet is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at thabetom@msu.edu.