Reclaiming The Reality Of Sorrow
By: Matthew Randall
On 27th March, less than a week ago as I write this piece, a series of earthquakes shattered the already difficult lives of civilians in Afghanistan. In isolated parts of the Hindu Kush, over 2,000 people have now been estimated to have died violent deaths while the country's new interior minister Yunus Qanuni has told of a further 3,000 injured and 30,000 made homeless by the disaster.
By any reckoning this is an appalling tragedy. In a country already ravaged by the recent bombing attacks carried out by the Western powers, it should provoke feelings of almost universal grief and sympathy, an appropriate acknowledgement of the almost impossible tasks that must face the relatives of the dead and wounded. There should, at the very least, be an outpouring of aid, services given in solidarity, flowers laid in reflection and updates that keep us informed on what is being done to help the people that have survived.
Or so one would think in a world not dictated to by the interests of a corporate media.
On 3rd April, Jack Straw urged both his fellow MP's and the UK dissenters to Israel's current actions to employ a little relativism in their statistics. The Palestinian suicide bombings he said have resulted in '.45 killed Israelis and 235 injured Israelis, which is the equivalent in United Kingdom terms to 450 killed and 2,500 injured.' (The Guardian 03.04.2002)
If we employed this numerical comparison to the Afghanistan earthquake, the equivalent tragedy in, say the USA, would have claimed 20,000 lives, 30,000 wounded and over a quarter of a million homeless. The same end result of approximately four or five September 11th's.
Why then has this universal grief and sympathy not even barely surfaced? And why are we not greeted daily with the horror of this immense human tragedy?
The only true conclusion one can draw is that we are being conducted in one great symphony of directed passivity, a policy of omission and disinterest that thwarts and curbs our ordinary human ability to feel genuine compassion and respond to the suffering about us. Upon reflection, it is clear that this takes place in the daily illusion known to many as the 'free press', the supposed thermometer of the public will and mood that will flinch at even the slightest criticism of its 'neutral stance'.
A cursory glance during the last week at the UK's most 'liberal' newspaper, The Guardian, reveals its astonishing disregard for the mass loss of life that occurs in non-Western areas of the world. On March 27th, the day the earthquakes tremors struck in Afghanistan and claimed the most victims, the Guardian made five references to the event, relaying the facts of the tragedy as the news came in. On March 28th, the following day, this 'coverage' had diminished to two brief items, one of which was a reader's letter suggesting that the 1,700 British troops being sent to Afghanistan might be better employed as relief workers. By March 30th, just two days after the tragedy, the newspaper had nothing to say on the subject and, barring a couple of lines in a general article on March 31st, that was that.
Imagine for one moment that the same event had taken place in the United States, or France, or Scotland? How many names would we know, how many personal stories of pain would we have lived through as the coverage unfolded on our screens, how many world leaders would have been expressing deep sorrow and solidarity, how many stories of daring rescues, brave firemen, tears and prayers would we have taken to our beds each night? How many times in our day would we have thought of the victims and their relatives?
How many minute silences have been observed for the Afghans who perished last week?
Satiyesh Manoharajah writing in The Observer on 31st March noticed that:
'the devastating earthquake in northern Afghanistan caused many commentators to reflect on the recent history of the region and its disappearance from the front pages, even as the earthquake relief operation depended upon woefully inadequate resources.'
What he doesn't question is why a country of over 25,000,000 people, with a 'recent history' that seems to read straight out of a horrific movie (labelled as chief terrorist state in the world, bombed by the world's only superpower, struck by multiple earthquakes, etc.), can suddenly disappear from the front pages.
What does this tell us about our newspapers' real agenda? Why is it important not to focus too closely on life in Afghanistan today beyond the odd story of oppressed women regaining rights? Could it be that the mass civilian deaths from the earthquake would draw attention to the wider damage that is has been inflicted on the population over the last six months.
Even if we choose to reject this line of thought how 'humanitarian' can our purposes be in Afghanistan when not even a non-political disaster can hope to catch the media's eye? It is through reflecting on this case of incomprehensible silence in the pages of our most esteemed liberal newspaper that we gain a true vision of how much 2,000 Afghan lives really matter to our liberal commentators.
This week in England a woman died aged 101, a peaceful death of natural causes. Her death commanded 113 references in The Guardian during a four day period when 2,000 deaths, 3,000 wounded and 30,000 homeless in Afghanistan could only produce two.
Is this the 'liberal' media we want? If not then we should challenge it and reclaim our right to reflect on human tragedy as it really unfolds. If we truly want our compassion to breathe again we must recognize when the media is deciding what, and how much, we should care about in our world.
-medialens-