It is frustrating to see the blood being spilled like water but what is more frustrating is the worlds apathy towards it. These days the people of Gaza are being slaughtered by Israel. Pictures of children, women, old and young wounded and martyred make even the stones to cry. In such a situation one wonders about the silence of the so called civilised world. The worlds apathy allows countries like Israel to commit war crimes and genocide of common civilians and get away with it. Be it East Timor, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwandan, Darfur, Sudan and now Palestine perhaps much of the violence in the world could have been prevented if the world had responded timely.
From Bangladesh to Darfur, humanity is still struggling to end what Winston Churchill once called a “crime without a name.”
The question arises, what prevents world from intervention. From political to psychological the reasons are enormous. Lets understand the psychological reasons of such indifference and silence of the world; as such an understanding can make us to intervene in a situation when someone might be desperately in need of our help. Be it roadside accidents or the present Palestinian crises being an apathetic bystander may turn out to be a crime against humanity.
You might have in your lives experienced a situation when you were in hurry and in need of a lift on a busy street and nobody gives a dam. On the other hand on a lonely road even if a single car passes by and you request for a lift chances are more that you will get it. Despite the importance of bystanders intervention and the fact that most people want to do the right thing there is a phenomenon called “bystander apathy”, which may prevent people from not acting and in the context of Palestine it may be called worlds apathy. The solution to health and social justice problems requires the bystanders not to be apathetic but intervene.
The most celebrated line of research in the area of helping behaviour is the work of John Darley and Bibb Latane on bystanders intervention. Darley and Latanes research can help us understand the worlds apathy and silence over Gaza and other massacres worldwide. Darley and Latane in their research found that anyone in an emergency might decide not to help, largely because of factors like social influence and diffusion of responsibility and an overall lack of sense of community (Latané & Nida, 1981; Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2012). Diffusion of responsibility occurs when other people think that another person will intervene and as a result, they feel less responsible. If only one person is present on the scene the whole responsibility falls on his shoulders, will receive hundred percent of the blame, and will feel hundred percent of the guilt for not helping. However if more people are present on the scene the responsibility, blame, guilt gets distributed and we end up assuming that someone else would help. Most, in fact all the nations and leaders of the world today look at each other and assume the other nations to intervene, and in the process the chances of intervention gets delayed.
Social influence refers the influence of the other people present on us. This refers to the mentality that since everyone else is not reacting to the emergency, my personal help is not needed. Seeing other nations keeping mum on the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of Israel, the entire world has turned into a mute spectator. Further the world community is getting more and more individualistic and we no longer feel collectivism. In today’s world the overall culture is individualistic, people and nations are focused on their own, placing emphasis on individual success and responsibility. A world with lack of sense of interdependence, emotional connections, positive influence, fulfilment of needs, and community membership would make it easier to avoid, ignore, or place the responsibility of an emergency on someone else because the situation does not directly affect us or our nation. The world needs to understand that a spark neglected can burn the entire world. We cannot simply close our eyes and say that the fire will not catch us. If today it is Palestine tomorrow it can be us. An understanding of the interdependence of the different nations will help a sense of responsibility to grow, and thus may increase the likelihood of the world to respond. And the first step toward it could be that, with Gaza under attack again, the solidarity of us all committed to a world of equality, democracy, and peace should join the protest against the barbarism of imperialism and its creatures.
Imran Khan
(Freelance Psychologist)
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