meanwhile, elsewhere in the world...

“63 dead in Lebanon’s violence”
“China quake toll close to 15,000”
“Over 100,000 estimated dead in the wake of Cyclone Nargis"


As Lebanese politicians continue to ping-pong accusations and ultimatums back and forth, the mothers of hundreds of children trapped under the rubble of a collapsed school building in Sichuan province, China, angrily accuse the government for the tragic fate of their lost kin: "This is not a natural disaster, this is done by humans". Similarly, the headlines over the past week on the Burmese government's refusal to allow foreign aid into its cyclone-stricken country add yet another example to the same phenomenon: men exacerbating the catastrophes of nature (And I say “men” not in some gender-neutral reference to humanity, but regarding those blokes in suits, turbans or military clothing who dominate the orderly, decision-making, responsibility-taking side of the media images of these disasters, while women and children, while their bare feet and faces grotesquely twisted by panic and rage, inhabit the decidedly victim roles in such representations).

So, is there a link between the media headlines that have swamped our screens over the past week, or is it shallow to attempt to forge connections between events that occur in completely different social, economic and political contexts?

Obviously, one cannot offer blanket analysis of such vastly different events. But there are some striking similarities in the ways that they are presented, which, in my opinion, debunks our age to be one of headline consumption rather than meaningful engagement with the tragedies in the world around us:

1) My aforementioned point about the gender-gap in disaster representation, which, while reflecting the systematic lack of female representation in decision-making roles on a global level (and no, this is not a covert plug for Hillary), simultaneously roots them in our minds as the poor, the starving, the crying, the mourning. With such representation rife, how can we ever expect to overcome the status of perpetual victims?

2) The obsession with numbers. Last week’s hundred thousand cyclone death toll is replaced by this week’s tens of thousands earthquake victims. These numbers act to grab our attention as we mutter ‘shit’ under our breaths and voyeuristically scan over the mass suffering of others hundreds of miles away. But these numbers are completely empty, because the mass media’s abuse of them has made them devoid of meaning. What is the difference between 15,000 and 100,000 dead bodies? I have never even seen one dead body, so how am I supposed to meaningfully conceptualise thousands of them? Such a numerical focus makes us think that we should be content in quantifying the suffering in a headline soundbyte; and we can continue in our own minimalism, our own generalizations, our desires to blame anyone and anything, Syria, Iran, Bush, the Gulf Stream, Mao’s south-east Asian communist legacy, climate change. Blame, all of it serving one single purpose: to deflect attention away from our own apathy.


The deal tolls of these tragedies continue to rise by the minute. And next week, there will be a new one to replace them.