Sunday 15 November 2015

The differentials of compassion

To those saying that support for France demonstrates that we really don't care about the violence in other places, I say this. Of course we care. It is not nearly that simple. It is that our media focuses more on those things that are closer to us in places that are more familiar - and also where these events are more unusual and shocking. Understandably - but horribly - we become inured to awful things happening in far-away places. It also does not help that much of the reporting is biased and doesn't help to disentangle the political complexities. We do care, but we switch off from the pain and the violence to cope. Those of us with the luxury to do so should undoubtedly do more, and we should do more than updating out Facebook pictures, but it is so hard to know what to do. We want the world to be simple, and our media feed us simple narratives that we are eager to accept because it makes things simpler, allows us make sense of the world - even if that sense is inaccurate.



Saturday 14 November 2015

Again, again

Avoided the internet last night after a grueling week of work staring at a computer screen. Now it seems I'll be avoiding it because I can't read about what happened. Not again. Not Paris again, another atrocity on the list after London and Oslo and Bali and New York and the many, many, many more that happen almost daily in parts of the world we seem to care less about because they are less immediate, less familiar. There is so much to say about this and yet nothing to say. It feels like the millions of words that are being written on it are useless, and I can't read any more. But there are words that should be remembered.

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Solidarite.