[CN: All the things]
Dear noodly overlord,
I know that 2016 has already started but you’re as generous as the FSMas season is long.
I know that if you look at it from one way there’s never been a better time to be alive. Last year was the first year child mortality rates fell below 6 million. The overrall deaths from war and conflict are in decline. We might be able to cross polio off the list soon. Global life expectancy is over 70, the highest it’s ever been. Only 0.4% of the world’s population are enslaved which could well be an all-time low. There’s even signs of movement on the climate change front (although it would be a while before the 2015 numbers are crunched properly).
On the other hand, 2015 was excrementally bad. A year best encapsulated by the image of Alan Kurdî’s body washed up on the beach at Bodrum. The world showed its true colours more than before and the degree of our indifference to each other (whether we’re talking about war, genocide, asylum seekers, race, gender, inequality etc) became even harder to deny.
2015 was also the year where it became harder to deny growing momentum of the opinion of ordinary people (or at least the 40% of people who have the internet). I’m not talking about activism which has had a pretty massive year as well. I mean the opinion of us, the “general public”, which can have an effect even in non-democracies. Here’s my 2016 wishlist for how you can enlighten us with your noodly appendage:
- That people knew that the Alan Kurdî story has already repeated itself in 2016 with a two-year-old, and that it repeats itself daily.
- That it was easier to convince people (eg. the Australian voting public) that torture is bad.
- That people knew that if detainees are pleading for assisted suicide, this means things are bad.
- That people knew that in the world’s largest conflict it is the Assad regime that’s causing the vast majority of civilian deaths, that it is conducting starvation-style sieges and making children eat leaves.
- That there were fewer countries people have never heard of. This online game developed by the Guardian is pretty good.
- That more people would have heard of Eritrea and why so many people are fleeing it.
- That more people would understand the horrors faced by Eritreans not just in their country but on their journey to safety, from torture camps in Sinai to horrible imprisonment in Libya to imprisonment/loss of rights Israel to being extorted by their ex-government in Canada.
- That governments would be less empowered to deny asylum seeker claims from Eritreans because that’s something their constituents would have heard of.
- That people would react to the UK’s and Israel’s denial of asylum seeker requests because the applicant failed to prove she was a lesbian or “chose” to become a lesbian like they would to a virginity test by a public official.
- That people knew that appalling treatment of asylum seekers and migrants isn’t limited to countries like Australia that get international coverage for it.
- That people would read A Piece of the Wall, a great piece by Teju Cole about the US situation published on Twitter only.
- That we stopped forgetting things that stop appearing in the newsfeed. That we knew (and acted like we knew) that stories don’t magically get resolved.
- That we knew that last year’s Rohingya boat crisis did not get resolved, that campaigns of violence towards Rohingya are highly organised and genocidal in intent.
- That we paid attention to who we pay attention to.
- That we knew that this must be explicit and that the ideology of colourblindness gets it precisely bass-ackwards.
- That we stop coming up with reasons why it’s reasonable to kill kids.
- That those of us in western democracies that aren’t the US stop comparing ourselves favourably and thinking we’re awesome (eg. Australia, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands etc).
- That we stopped treating ourselves like children by asking for people to be nicer in asking for rights (or even asking them to beg for their lives).
- That we allowed less shit to fly under the radar over Christmas/New Year period.
- That we stopped our voluntary return to the “good old days”, especially from a place of privileged ignorance.
- That we got serious about scientific consensus.
- That everyone who accepts the scientific consensus that global warming is happening accepts the equivalent consensus about the safety of GMOs.
- Speaking of science, that more of us knew what the Dunning Kruger effect is and that we realised it probably applies to our own high-school understanding of biology.
- That more people would be willing to eat a little less meat in exchange for humanity not going extinct. I’m not even talking about animal welfare or climate change here. It’s a pretty fucking modest request if I may say so.
- That we know how unequal things are.
- That those of us who are richer were as generous as those of us who have less.
- That when we choose to be generous that they’re generous towards others (ie. a client-centric model of giving) and not just towards themselves (ie. a donor-centric model of giving).
- That we realise how much misplaced generosity can harm.
- That we stop hampering organisations which do great work with inappropriate tests of misplaced virtue.
- A pony. I also want a magical pony.
2016 could be the make or break year for us all. Maybe some of the modest successes of last year could scale up, but if you can’t help us I’m afraid we’ll just fuck it all up past the point of no return. We’re all in.
Yours faithfully,
Michael
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