The Chasm
Our shrinking attention spans and growing indifference in the face of global crises
There are so many things I want to say, but this particular piece has been the hardest to word.
As I write this, the number of innocent lives claimed by all the active armed conflicts raging across the world continues to rise to unimaginable numbers. The tragedy in Gaza has only worsened, unimpeded by the supposed great powers of the world. There are entire countries torn apart by civil wars and coups, insurgencies and atrocities against their own people. People who are just like you and me, who once led ordinary lives that have since been destroyed. And yet the world keeps turning. Those of us privileged enough to wake up and go to bed safe and sound still go about our own lives as usual.
This contrast in itself is nothing new. It has existed for centuries, for decades of Western powers fighting over land and oil while the rest of the world suffered. Despite years of rebuilding after devastating wars and countless summits and groupings for the sake of diplomacy, the disconnect refuses to disappear. Those at the top will act based on their own interests, hidden or otherwise. The problem is what’s happening at the grassroot level.
The Classroom
On February 24, 2022, Russia brought a years-long conflict to its boiling point when it launched an invasion of Ukraine. Twitter (never once known as X) imploded. Other social platforms too were buzzing with discussions, news outlets set up pages for live updates and experts published thousands of analytical articles about what this meant for Ukraine, for Europe, for the world. This war would go on to create the continent’s largest refugee crisis since the Second World War, result in horrendous war crimes and threaten the West’s tenuous era of peace since the end of the Cold War. It was unarguably a turning point in history.
But we didn’t treat it as such. At the time of the invasion, I was a tenth grader due to give her Board exams (the crux of the Indian education system) in two months. In the comfort of our homes, more than five thousand kilometres (approximately three thousand miles) away, our class continued with online revisions as scheduled. No mention of the crisis unfolding before our very eyes, not even in the Social Science periods. The only crises or otherwise we were supposed to care about were the ones prescribed in our course, essential for the 40-mark exam we were slated to write. Just a few months before, when Kabul fell and its internationally recognized government was overthrown, there was only a passing mention in our class. The student who’d been tasked to do the morning presentation was astute enough to include this in the morning news. Our teacher praised him for it, and that was that.
The System
There seems to be some unspoken agreement to build ignorance in the minds of the masses, a wall to hide the sorry state the world is actually in. Our education system, despite numerous attempts at reform, continues to propagate the mindset of marks first. Our students are taught to read books of History every year and then immediately purge their minds of that information the moment they submit their final papers, whose questions focus disproportionately on minute details of who and when instead of the larger implications. We read in ‘Civics’ the outline of our parliamentary republic in theory without venturing into the functioning we see in reality. More often than not, this very politics in practice is responsible for changing the curriculum, with each new regime trying to suit its own agenda.
And what happens after tenth grade? The splitting of streams, where one can give up an entire field of study completely. I chose the Humanities subjects, and was fortunate enough to have a regular Political Science class where we were encouraged to discuss and deliberate on everything happening around us, to enhance our awareness as current citizens and future voters. Most other students did not and do not choose this path. Under the pressure of hypercompetitive entrance exams, only a handful have the time to even glance at a newspaper.
If we truly are training the ‘leaders’ and ‘trailblazers’ of tomorrow, locking them up in a box with a mutually exclusive stream of knowledge at the age of sixteen or so seems counterproductive.
The Media
This crisis of awareness is not unique to my country, nor does it magically disappear with the end of high school. I remember there being a question, in some Social Science chapter, about the media as the fourth pillar of democracy. I don’t recall the answer we were taught to write, but the one screaming at me right now is this: of course not. We receive our news through media outlets of various forms – newspapers, TV channels, websites, the like. In the end, most of these outlets are corporations run by humans who hold certain beliefs, funded by even more powerful people who would like to enforce said beliefs. And be it a political ideology or a desperation to paint a rosy picture over stark reality, they usually do get their way.
Which is why in India, the largest democracy in the world, the news is dominated by politicians flinging accusations at each other in anticipation of the upcoming elections, never mind what happened to Manipur. It’s why the United States, the self-proclaimed champion of freedom and democracy, has chosen to direct both media attention and administrative restraints on its own university students for protesting a genocide instead of the war in question. Which, incidentally, most US media outlets will go out of their way to call anything but a genocide, to the extent of releasing a memo for their journalists.
The World
Despite everything, the unnerving truth is this: All of us live on the same planet. And all of us live in different worlds. While Rafah, the last ‘safe’ zone (currently under heavy Israeli fire) in Gaza, was attacked, the West’s focus remained on the Met Gala. Thousands of people trapped in an open air prison, written off just like that. A dystopia, akin to the fictional ones we like to read about, before our very eyes.
With the most powerful country in the international arena on its side, Israel is not likely to stop ravaging Gaza. Sudan is also currently facing a genocide. Haiti is still suffering. Myanmar’s civil war continues to claim lives. So does a string of coups, coupled with insurgency and the lingering effects of colonization, in multiple African nations. Convoluted commercial interests have wrecked the Congo, while political motives prolong instability in West Asia.
All of this is happening in real time. But most of us live blissfully unaware of these crises. Maybe we are trained to focus solely on some fixed circle centred around us. Or maybe our leaders do the job for us, filtering information as and when required. Hundreds of thousands of lives, discarded as unworthy of attention. Perhaps because of the colour of their skin. Or the language they speak. The religion they practice, the culture they treasure.
One way or another, their voices are silenced. We don’t hear them. We don’t share their concerns. In most cases, we don’t spare them any concern to begin with. Those who do are branded as troublemakers, Ivy League status notwithstanding. Their voices go ignored.
If this were a book, we’d be clamouring for justice. Waiting on edge for the inevitable victory of the protagonist who fought so hard to save the masses. In reality, the story changes on the whims of a handful of men, condemning millions, while the rest of us have the luxury of believing such dire states are found only in fiction.
I’m not sure what the solution is. So many lives are erased every day, in wait for one to work out.
I hope a solution does exist.
Originally published at https://theparacosmicmuse.substack.com
