Divide and Conquer

 In reading my morning news feeds, two stories - thousands of miles apart - struck me as being similar if only because they reflect that age old capitalist strategy of divide and conquer.

CBC reported on a twitter post from Qasim Rashid, a visiting fellow at Harvard University's School of Islamic Studies, wondering why "red blood from brown skin" is less newsworthy/less worthy of international condemnation and sorrow than when terrorist attacks occur in the western world. He, and others who have responded to his tweet accurately note that when there are mass deaths in France or in Florida, there is a public outpouring of grief and sympathy and rage. Social media sites such as Facebook create ways for people to easily express their solidarity with the those who have been terrorized.  Conversely, when there are similar or even worse terror attacks in Iraq, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh there are neither the public expressions of anger or grief, nor does Facebook make any attempt to facilitate world wide outrage.

While there may be many reasons why there is such a disparity in how those of us who live in privileged countries chose what to be angry at and how we express our anger, it is clear that we are less connected (and affected) by those deaths that occur not only half a world away but as well to people with whom we have no cultural affiliation. It is clearly easier to feel less connected to people who appear to be different from "us'.

The second story that I have been following for the past few days has been the Toronto Gay Pride parade on Saturday. At some point during that parade, the Toronto branch of Black Lives Matter, had a "sit-in" and stopped the parade until the organizers of that parade agreed in writing to a number of changes to the policies of that organization, its employment practices and who would be allowed to participate in next year's parade. It was an interesting strategy. Similarly as to when left wing political organizations need to deal with their own employee unions, the Pride organizers had no expertise in dealing with people who were prepared to be more radical than them. The Pride organizers were forced to concede to all of  Black Lives Matter's demands.

There is no doubt that some of the issues were valid. It has long been the history of social movements, that they have initially focused on the needs of the middle class. For example, the Women's Suffragette movement from the turn of the last century was led by, and demanded rights for only a certain class of women. It is only relatively recently that the Women's movement has started to articulate the needs of women from visible minorities or immigrants or those who are poor. Social movements almost by definition are run by those who can afford the time and the risk to protest. It is not surprising that Black Canadians who are part of the LGBTQ community have felt ignored or unsupported by some of their seemingly less marginalized their fellow members.

I think the unifying bit between these two stories is the fact that there is some suggestion that some people's pain and suffering is worth more or less than others. That it somehow seems to be part of the human condition that we need to quantify our personal hurt and to compare it to others'. The members of Black Lives Matter were not saying that the white LGBTQ community had not been discriminated against, but rather that the black LGBTQ has had it worse;  Qasim Rashid was not suggesting that the western outrage at the events at Orlando or in Paris was inappropriate, but rather that we should at least feel equally as outraged at the terrorist attacks in Iraq, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia or Bangladesh. In fact because far more people have died in those countries we should be even more concerned/upset/outraged.

 A few weeks ago I did a blog that mentioned Ismael Beah's book A long Way Gone; Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and his comments that sadness or anguish or any other emotion is relative. One sorrow is not greater or more important than another. Similarly oppression is oppression. Somehow we need as a society of people who believe in justice for all, to stop comparing people's pain or frustrations to see if they are worthy of public support. Somehow we need, while giving validity to the issues that were raised by Black Lives Matter, to recognize that other members of the LGBTQ community have also been affected by harassment, discrimination and a legitimate fear of being hurt or killed by bigots. We all need to work together to ensure that those issues stop being a reality for so many individuals in that community. The only people that are served by such discord are those who would deny any rights to the LGBTQ community.

We need to become equally as outraged when people die in Bangladesh as when people die in Paris. There is no reason, except for our own biases, to ignore lives being taken by terrorist, just because that person's skin is not white. The pain that death in Bangladesh causes for the person's family and friends is just as real as when it happens in Paris. For us to accept anything else only confirms the terrorists' statements that the west does not care.

In the ongoing class struggle for equality, we need to find ways of unifying not separating. Accepting the validity of others' pain, sorrow and anger and then joining them in their outrage might be a good place to start.