Nr. 42

Although the media is dominated by politics these days every so often I do read about either shootings, terror attacks in the Middle East or Asia, and natural disasters causing mass deaths. When these things happen in the western world social media is flooded with thoughts and prayers, profile photos with a flagged face and so forth. I don’t really mind that, and I could write another post about why we do this and why those reasons are benign even if riddled with ulterior motives. What I want to address though is the people who are upset as to why we are not showing the same outrage and empathy when it happens in third world countries. And there is a point to that, however, it doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t care whether people die or not. It’s natural that the impact of people closer to you have significantly stronger emotional pull than those further away. You might say it’s different if it’s family or friends but fellow citizens are still strangers equally to those farther away. And in term of knowing them, yes, but we are beginning to brush into tribalism and patriotic care. If you identify as a citizen of that country you will feel a stronger bond. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about the human race if you don’t feel that same pull by someone far away. The people in other continents might (not) care the same amount when things happen in Europe or America. 

I would love to see that one day we could identify ourselves as equal human beings all over the world and look at the bigger picture collectively. Shaming people for only give empathy to close ones seems misguided. I get the point and it is true that the impact of untimely deaths are tragic no matter where in the world it happens, but there is a better way to address this issue than to be aggressive towards people. Because let’s face it...those who cry out about this injustice has also an equal amount of ulterior motives of being regarded as wiser, kinder, and clairvoyant when it comes to world issues. Maybe we should focus on how we can best convey our message (and also reflect on what our true agenda really is).