We are living in a moment in time where kindness and generosity are essential ethical values in humanity. Treating one another with understanding, compassion and respect are all the more important with the increase in violence and agression faced by millions of people in the world on a daily basis. Work by journalists, activists and organisations have helped to make visible countless violations of fundamental human human rights across the globe and opened up avenues for ordinary people to play an active part in transforming social relations. Further, although war is not something new in humanity's history, modern technology in communications have assisted in bringing its devastating impacts close and immediate. We see pictures of innocent people injured, hurt, losing their homes and loved ones, we hear their stories and we are moved; we feel like we need to do something, it is right that we want to do something.

However, there are still a lot of apathy in our responses, and our frustrations and desires to actively work for change are often left untapped. Mostly, we shake our heads, debate it with our friends during casual chats and feel an anxious sense of relief that Malaysia is mostly peaceful. The distance crossed by images in modern communications at the same moment craft the stories as 'elsewhere', not here, not us.

This leaves us with at least three impressions: one of helplessness, one of disengagement and one of 'charity'. Each has to do with the perception of distance.

When we see representations of violence and suffering on the media, depending on how well it is depicted, we are able to feel something. Vicariously and momentarily, we appreciate the pain. Where we fail in the main however, is to empathise. There is an important difference between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy means to feel only in a detached way, where the self is not implicated in the experience of the person who is under duress. Empathy on the other hand, means an ability to identify oneself in the other person's position. In other words, to imagine being in that situation, having those experiences, emotions and physical state of being. More importantly, it means moving ourselves closer to the other person, to the extent that we can see the connection between us as tangible and real.

The problem is, there are so many instances of violence and abuses that we are exposed to on a daily basis through the media that it becomes hard for us to make time and imagine that each person affected is an actual human being, as much as we each individually are. Stories start to replace each other and sound the same, and we forget the details that make the incidents important. This can evoke a sense of cynical despair. We become overwhelmed by news of torture, warfare, rape, violence that seem to be happening everywhere that we feel that we are helpless to do anything about it. Furthermore, the rapidity of the images fired from so many locations that they create a sense of alienation. We feel secure in our own homes through our insulation, to date, from the atrocities that are happening in another place to someone else. It then becomes easy to think we have our own problems to worry about: money, job, children, mortgage, studies, intimate relationships etc.

Then only when we are comfortable in our own lives, we start to think about how we can help 'others'. Mostly, we try to do so through money. By providing donations, we feel that we have 'done our bit'. Sometimes we do it on a one-off basis, sometimes it is more regular. Sometimes it is even just contributing our unwanted stuff like old clothing, books or toys to others who are 'less fortunate'. This can make us feel morally superior, comfort us in the fact that we are 'good people' without actually challenging any of our beliefs that may have helped created the problem in the first place. Not to say that these economic support are unimportant or unnecessary, but transformation has to come also beyond monetary assistance.

We have to start to question our own engagement. What does it mean when we tell ourselves we are helpless? How are we implicated in the continued violence that occurs 'elsewhere' to 'someone else' when we simply do not care? When we see people suffering and forget their names or what their lives were like, when we allow ourselves to become numb to pain, what sort of a world as we creating day by day? On the other hand, when we think just by giving material things without questioning our own privileges in the capacity to give, does this effectively change anything? Are we being empathetic in our giving, or merely sympathetic?

Much of the violence, injustice and abuses in our world are caused from unequal power relationships. This can be in terms of gender, race, class, caste, nationality, able-bodiedness and so on. The groups or individuals with more power at a particular context are able to abuse that to their advantage through exclusion, denial, violence, neglect, appropriation or exploitation of those who are less powerful. In order to change the 'bad news' we hear, either by the media or through our friends, we need to seriously question ourselves on how we use our own privileges and power. We all have some, we just need to find a transformative way to use it. We need to stop being hesitant of moving closer to pain.

Jaclyn Kee
19 September 2004

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Fortnightly Column by WAO on Sunday Mail