Lines on a piece of paper
What Makes Some More Human Than Others?
by Brian Farenell
(c) 13 September 2001
This has been a weird few days. Two days ago, a pair of hijacked airliners destroyed
the World Trade Center towers and killed probably thousands of innocent people.
A lot has been said since. The gamut of emotions has been run. Shock, sadness,
frustration, anger. As is human nature, things are
said in the heat of the moment that perhaps would be
best left unsaid. We want to blame all Arabs and all
Muslims for the despicible actions of a handful of
their brethren. We think that because some Arabs in
the Occupied Territories or a handful of Muslims in
Nigeria celebrated the attack that this vindicates our
blanket hatred. We must realize
that while there are evil people, there is not a people who are evil.
Perhaps this desire to overgeneralize the blame is understandable, but I
sincerely hope it passes in the heat of the moment.
Enough innocent, apolitical people have been
victimized, have shed blood, have been orphaned; we
don't need any more. We want to bomb the hell out of
somebody. We don't care who. We just want to make
ourselves feel better regardless of if it actually
does something, regardless of if it's actually the
guilty who are punished. This too is understandable
but dangerous and I hope this also passes. At moments like these, I am glad we live in a republic
rather than in a direct democracy.
We have been grieving for people we do not know. Some
of us in this country know victims or know someone who
knows a victim, but most of us do not. Sometimes it
strikes me that it is arbitrary lines of a piece of
paper called a map that determine the degree of
humanity we attribute to people, determine our emotion toward death.
If unknown people who live between the lines on a map
which we arbitrarily call Rwanda or Sierra Leone are
slaughtered by lunatics, then it is "unfortunate" but
not really of any consequence to us. These deaths are
part of the course of the "way the world is."
Realpolitik. Or "collateral damage." If unknown people
who live between the lines of a map which we
arbitrarily call New York City are slaughtered by
lunatics, then it is as though we ourselves were
attacked. We are frothing at the mouth in outrage. We
mobilize our military and want to strike anybody and
everybody.
Not only did we choose not to act to stop the
slaughter in Rwanda, but we actively impeded others
who wanted to do so themselves. There were 800,000
people killed in Rwanda in 90 days; a per day death
total that will probably exceed the death total in NYC
(one can hope NYC doesn't exceed whatever is 800,000
divided by 90). When a 2-year old Sierra Leonian girl
has her arm chopped off by the rebels, there is little
outrage in this country. Are any of these events less
tragic, less outrageous, less man-made than NYC? No.
They just seem more distant and thus irrelevant.
Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban are a creation of
American foreign policy. We supported them because
they were "anti-communist" when the Soviets controlled
Afghanistan. Much like with Saddam Hussein and Manuel
Noreiga, a creature of America's own creation came
back to bite us in the ass. Except in this case, it
wasn't just soldiers who were killed by our
Frankenstein and it wasn't in some far off land.
It is human nature to react differently to a tragedy
occuring close to home than one occuring far away.
This is normal. Lots of people I know have friends and
relatives down there. A friend of mine's cousin was
supposed to be in the World Trade Center on Tuesday at
9:00 AM but her meeting had gotten postponed until
10:00 AM. If you know somebody who was killed or if you know
someone who knew someone who was killed, my words are not
directed at you. You have my sincere condolences.
Yet, people all across the world are outraged and
saddened by what happened here. Europeans, Canadians,
Africans, even most in the Middle East. It is true
they are not as emotional as they would be if it had
happened in their backyard, but they are still angry
and upset. I would hope that Americans would in the
future start reciprocating that emotion.
In the last two years, over 2 million people have died
in the Congo either directly or indirectly as the
result of the civil war in that country. Given that up
to 11 countries have been involved at some point
there, it might be more properly called a World War,
but that's another topic. Still 2 MILLION PEOPLE HAVE
DIED EITHER THROUGH VIOLENCE OR NEGLECT. How many of
you knew that? How many of you care? I don't mean an
intellectual "oh that's too bad" kind of caring. But
how many of you care about this a third as much as you
care for what happened in NYC? 2 million people is
about 5 times more than the American death toll in
World War II. What about the thousands of amputees in
Sierra Leone? Are you truly sad or angry or do you
just shrug your shoulders?
I don't begrudge people for being upset about what
happened in NYC. I was horrified. We would be inhuman NOT to be.
Even for those who didn't know anyone who was directly affected, we as a
nation were shaken. We as a nation were attacked.
Americans have shown in their reaction to this tragedy
as with others than when the chips are down, we pull
together.
I detest jingoism and chest-beating more than anyone else and I am
usually critical of our foreign policy, but the our
ability to pull together when needed never ceases to
amaze me; we don't suppress our differences, but we put
them aside temporarily. We don't do it perfectly, as I
alluded to above, but it's still pretty damn good.
This isn't the case in many countries. In some place,
tragedy divides rather than unites.
Americans are very insular; we don't know or care much
about what goes on in the rest of the world. We
should. But we can also be among the most generous,
compassionate people on Earth when we want to be. I
would just like to see this more often. I would like
to see this compassion not restricted by "national
interest" (ie: expedience) or lines on a map.
If you would like more info or to help on any of the
tragedies I mentioned above, Doctors Without Borders
(Medecins Sans Frontieres) is a great organization
which helps out anywhere bad things occur. Go to: http://www.msf.org
Click here to go back to my writings' page
Click here to return to my home page
Page last updated: 14 September '01, 2210 EDT
Email: bfarenell@yahoo.com
