There was an attack on a maternity ward inside a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan yesterday. The hospital is operated by Doctor Without Borders. From the information at hand, it would seems that the attackers were intentionally targeting the mothers while they were at the most vulnerable state.
I don’t know if I need to add more detail to it for the reader to see that it is certainly a atrocious act that would make most hearts jerk. It is certainly an evil act. But after reading the news, I feel stuck, don’t know what to do next. My intuition was to just move on to the next piece of news. After all, there is always more information online for me to consume. Why should I hung up with literally yesterday’s news, allowing it to impact my emotion negatively, while there are other news that are more relevant to my life, and far more entertaining things that can make me feel happy? I can’t do anything for them anyway.
But I am not so sure that I should follow my intuition. I don’t want to believe that there is nothing I can do to help, and I don’t want to believe that the goal of my life should be to find my own happiness.
In the Wealth of Nation, Adam Smith stated that “No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” I don’t know if as humans we own each other anything. But I want to believe we share the world together and therefore we are in this together. Given the contemporary news, it is difficult to imagine that the purpose of journalism is to provide context and information for the public to help them making informed decision. There are far too many pieces of news out there reporting numbers and statistics without providing any details regarding how the numbers are collected and how the statistical conclusions were drawn.
I often found myself in a very unhealthy relationship with the news. In a way, I am always desperately pursuing new information. But I rarely verify the news I read, nor do I take the time to process the information to see how it should guide my actions. I want it to change. During my research for the attack, I have also found out about another attack in 2015. On 3 October 2015, U.S. airforce struck a trauma unit in Afghanistan. At least 42 people were killed and over 30 were injured. The statement given was “there may have been collateral damage to a nearby medical facility”. Even though at the end the U.S. military as admitted the damage and attack, it was characterized as a accident, and none were criminal charged.
I want to take a pause here. Let us not just move on. It is wondrous that so many would risk their lives to help others, and it is monstrous that what is threatening them comes from other human beings. I know those news feels distance, and feels unrelated to our daily concern, especially with everything is going on in our own life. But I do think news are not for providing entertainments to us, at least not just. But also news informs us that there are people out there that needs our help, and that we can help. Couple of weeks ago, I have found a chrome add-on call Tab for a Cause. When opening a new tab, it will display couple of ads on the side, and the income from those ads will go to a charity that the user chooses. I think it is a wonderful example that even each of us can not make a big difference, but many of us together can. By choice to help, we are no longer bond by the tragedy of the commons. I also think that we should help. We would like to think that we are not responsible to others’ suffering, therefore we have no obligation to help. But if we can help yet we choose not to, doesn’t it make us responsible? We like to condemn those attacker for they are obviously responsible for the suffering. But the truth is, to blame one group is to exonerate all others, and by extension, ourselves. If we can help, yet choose not to, we are responsible for the suffering.
Let’s not to let yesterday’s news become just yesterday’s news. Take the time to think about what we can do to help. If reader has some spare change, MSF is always in need of donations to operate in the increasingly unstable middle east. Even couple of dollars can make a huge difference in someone’s life. If not, you can always installed the Tab for A Cause add on, it is a very simple way to help. I do believe that humans are at best when we work together.
RhaPsoDySea 