The bloodshed in Yemen has been continuing for over a year now. With thousands dead and cities razed, the situation has been described as a humanitarian catastrophe. The conflict has received scant media attention. The coverage of Yemen has battled to secure the interest of international journalists. The story is complex, the actors many and Yemen is not quite safe, even in better times. The horror of the airstrikes has then been received with a collective groan, drowning the realities of the suffering in a story few actually understand.
As human beings continued to be counted as collateral damage civilian casualties are ignored in the media because the perpetrators are US-backed. The litany of crimes committed only reach the levels of Western outrage if the roles are reversed. All of that stands in the starkest contrast to the intense victim focus whenever an American or Westerner is killed by an individual Muslim. The latest example being France.
It is the prevailing tale of most coverage of the subaltern: westerners have names, the rest of us are numbers.
We know the reasons why Yemen will not be told in the West. But aside from the West, remarkable silence has come from within the global Muslim community. This is not a uniquely Muslim problem, which Muslims must now try to solve miraculously, but the question must be asked: where is Muslim outrage and solidarity for the horror unfolding in Yemen?
Azad Essa
Executive Editor
The Daily Vox
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