Nation larger than Humanity
Nation larger than Humanity
I always find it strange when the bourgeois press reports on incidents in areas that are otherwise never covered because Germans have been killed there.
For example, it might say: „German killed in accident in Laos“ or „German tourist dead in Egypt“.
The “German” here is decisive, as we know – it could be the neighbor.
Empathy is then defined by nationality, the same applies after October 7 in Israel; “Hamas terror: Single-digit number of Germans dead” reports ZDF.
Empathy towards others is therefore defined by belonging to the nation, to the same “we”.
Germany, that is “us”; what exactly this ideal “we” defines is another matter, but the fact is – in bourgeois consciousness, the connectedness of people is more driven by the “we” than by actual material conditions like wages, social status in production, and so on.
In Gaza, around 35,000 people have now been killed (since October 7), roughly 400 dead and injured per day.
That’s 16 per hour, one every 4 minutes.
Labeling Israel’s actions as genocidal was unthinkable until just a few weeks ago, even after the ICJ ruling.
So, repression against Palestine has been ongoing in solidarity for decades; accusations of genocide against Israel have been especially taboo since October 7.
However, the Palestine discourse in bourgeois media seems to be changing, not because of the rising hunger of Palestinians, the massacre of patients and healthcare workers at Al-Shifa hospital, or the potential use of AI to identify victims by Israel – no, because of 7 aid workers killed.
On the evening of April 1st of this year, three vehicles of the World Central Kitchen, an international aid organization, traveled along a route coordinated with the Israeli army through Gaza City.
Between 22:30 and 23:00, drone strikes hit the first vehicle; survivors then moved into the second vehicle, which was immediately also attacked.
The third vehicle, which took some of the wounded on the move, was later hit by a third drone strike.
Dramatic, murderous – a war crime.
The roofs of all three vehicles bore the logo of World Central Kitchen, and the route was, as mentioned, coordinated with the IDF.
The brutality of the terror attack cannot be denied, but it also symbolizes the importance of the nation in the context of empathy.
After the attack, there was widespread global outrage, even in the Western world.
Poland and Australia responded not only with outrage over the incident but also with rejection of Netanyahu’s statement, which (paraphrased) said “these things happen in war”.
Even German bourgeois magazines, from Spiegel to Welt, report on the attack and describe it as “killing”, instead of the typical “taking lives” used for Palestinian casualties.
The killed aid workers were Polish, Australian, Canadian, and British, with the exception of one Palestinian from Rafah.
People from the civilized world, in other words, with one exception.
For Western and bourgeois reporting, this means these deaths are real – they are assignable and understandable.
Because 7 Palestinians have been killed or injured in the time it takes to call up and read this article.
The escape from the statistics, the justification for a death with consequences, is only the nationality belonging to a nation that plays a role in the global hegemony.
The birth lottery of this capitalist world system determines not only the misery in which you may live, but also how much dignity you may die with.