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.
