The anaesthetic lens of data
Numbed are we by big numbers. 15,000 children die of hunger a day. Still.
Millions starving in Afghanistan, now.
Numbers blurred. We, so desensitised, fail even to register this as human suffering on an epic scale.
We hear the numbers and go back to drinking our coffee.
Yet a single person in Australia gets killed by a shark, and this is front-page news. Children get tragically killed in a school accident, and pages are set up for go-fund support, endless media, and rightly so, collective heartbreak.
During our terrible Australian bushfires two years ago, over 100 lives lost and millions of animals.
This last week in Australia over 200 people died of COVID. Small on the global scale, yet the largest number recorded in Australia since the beginning of the pandemic.
A case of selective empathy kindled on the fire of media that points us to where it wants us to focus for the maximum power and political advantage of its owners.
Behind every one of these deaths is a personal story, a family tragedy,
Behind every hungry child lives a broken system that says in order for someone to win, many must lose. Poverty is the careless side effect of capitalism.
Where is our care? Where is our compassion? Where our collective will to lead change, to scream…ENOUGH!
Photo taken January 14th 2022
