Quote:
Originally Posted by IliketoPuck
I feel quite comfortable saying the Russian army, supported by the Russian population (either overtly or by their damning silence), perpetuate a culture that normalizes, embraces, celebrates, or worst of all is indifferent to, the most heinous crimes that I've ever seen, on a scale that is difficult to comprehend.
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Presumably you don’t follow events in Africa.
It’s understandable that most North Americans feel more outrage at slaughters inflicted on people who look like them captured on social media than the slaughters of Africans who have minimal presence on TikTok. But it’s remarkable
how much more.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been slaughtered every year of our lives. Mass rapes by rampaging armies have been carried out every year of our lives. Horrors carried out in war zones with impunity every year of our lives. But years on end have gone by without any of these atrocities showing as much as a blip on the collective consciousness of Canadians.
In the last 10 years alone:
Yemeni Crisis
377,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 1/10
Tigray War
300,000 - 500,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 0/10
Ethnic cleansing in South Sudan
386,000 - 400,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 1/10 (mostly religious groups)
Syrian Civil War
500,000 to 600,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 2/10
Boko Haram insurgency
358,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 1/10
Ukraine War
20,000 - 30,000 dead and counting
Public outrage in Canada 10/10
Pointing out this disparity doesn’t mean excusing what’s happening in Ukraine. But it does raise troubling questions about how selective our attention is and what sorts of victims elicit our compassion and outrage which we more or less ignore.