Humanitarianism has become a side show to war

Aleppo has entered tragedy

       

           The long battle for Syria’s second city of Aleppo has entered tragedy for entire humanism.  Whatever the causes behind, but biggest losses are Humanitarian. Result showing more then 4 lakh killed (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/staffan-de-mistura-400000-killed-syria-civil-war-160423055735629.html) and an estimated 2,50,000- 3,00,000 civilians have been trapped (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37008100) in rebel-held parts of Aleppo since early July. Indian has the ideology of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam that means “the World is one family”. But the situation says to India is keeping silence. Why is it that no one in India is responding? Don’t lives matter?” Humanitarianism has become a side show to war, a cubbyhole next to it rather than an ethical challenge to war. While war is getting to be technocratically lethal, ethics has taken a deeper downturn. If ethics has not been able to cope with the technocratic and political logic of war then some more valuable duties not being followed by us. A lone voice like Pope Francis is not enough. Humanitarianism has become a side show to war, a cubbyhole next to it rather than an ethical challenge to war. The work that groups like Médecins Sans Frontières did in challenging the passive nature of humanitarianism needs to be deepened and thickened. The logic of war sometimes paints a situation with broad brushes. To paint an entire city as terrorist allows for mass violence, permits one to ignore the innocent living helplessly within it. Even the poignancy of Facebook messages falls on deaf ears, disappearing into the silences of the global world.

Today as Indians read the newspapers celebrating Virat Kohli’s cricketing exploits or discuss the wisdom of demonetisation, I hope they spare a moment for Aleppo and I hope they will act on it. For too long, we have been a passive society, deaf to Rwanda, Somalia, Syria. Our foreign policy is a piece of empty piety. It is time the little creativities of compassion and ethics enter our lives. Maybe Aleppo can be a first step to a more humane India.