Are we all guilty?

I opened the Facebook app and there it was. Probably the most disturbing photo I have ever seen. Oh how ironic to be hit by it by the most futile of time-wasters of our age.

Whoever’s post it was, I couldn’t see. By then, my vision was blurred by tears, my body was overcome with an uncontainable sadness, pain, grief.

I’m a mum of two amazing children and it’s them I saw in the picture. Anyone who loves their kids like I do will know what I mean.

A child — like mine, like their friends, like all the toddlers in the world — strong-willed but still so dependent, uniquely funny as they build an understanding of the universe, cute and sobering as they teach us to once again see the world without all the acquired narrow mindedness we too often confuse with wisdom.

An innocent child, washing up dead on a beach. How could we let that happen?

What disturbs me so much is that it is not the result of a natural disaster. There was no earthquake, tsunami or volcanic eruption. This is a purely man made tragedy. It’s murder, with such diffuse guilt it’s untraceable.

The massive refugee migration that is happening today and the deaths of the people who don’t survive it are the ‘waste product’ of an engineered situation.

At risk of sounding simplistic here’s one of the ‘engineered situations’ that result in dead toddlers washing up on beaches: The world is hungry for oil. The world fights for oil. The ‘West’ (for lack of a better word) in particular has been meddling with the leadership and politics of oil producing countries from its WW II ‘victory’ moral high ground. That high ground was easily turned to economic interest, especially as there was a world war to recover from. So what better way to ensure competition to sell oil when in fact the demand grows higher than the supply, than by creating conflict between the producers?

So after decades of meddling in more or less subtle ways with the regions of the world that produce oil, the situation has become so full of intricate and deep grievances that conflicts are bound to erupt. Wars, civil or cross border, it doesn’t matter, always create lawlessness and cost civilians the most. That’s what we’re seeing. The meltdown of one region and its people fleeing to survive. It’s kind of ironic that they come to Europe; it’s probably the first time Europe gets the human bill for its participation in reckless capitalism.

The rhetoric among the EU ruling class is telling: ‘migrants’ not refugees, ‘crisis’ as if it was something new that only deserves the name crisis when it’s at Europe’s doorstep. Try asking the surviving Syrian refugees if Europe has any idea whatsoever what crisis really means…

So if I’m going to call out murder, who is guilty? The human traffickers? Sure, they’re a despicable bunch but they’re also ‘just’ seizing a business opportunity. The armies and terrorists making the refugees flee in the first place? Sure, them too. But they’re fighting for something they believe in and most of the foot soldiers have been ideologically brainwashed. So their leaders? Sure. They’re also guilty. But how are they any different from our own celebrated leaders who have fought two world wars with genocide and decades of ‘cold war’ over ideology? So maybe the people sponsoring their weapons? Sure, them too — the damage wouldn’t be as bad if they had to pay from their pocket for every missile or bullet. But then again the weapon sponsors are just making sure the good guys win because the other side would be so much worse for their interests, er democracy, assuming that enforcing a fast transition to democracy is worth it. The weapons manufacturers? Sure them too, because after all they’re the ones who close their eyes to what their weapons will be used for. But it’s a bit late to complain about that. Nowadays they employ so many people. Imagine if all the employees of the weapons manufacturing sector were out of work, and the loss of business for those upstream (raw materials) and downstream (all direct business support and injections into the local economies). Why should the lady who makes a living with her little bakery have to pay for this just because she happens to be next to a weapons factory where most of her customers work? And so on. The network of guilt keeps expanding and for every additional step the guilt is diluted and very quickly nobody, no individual, no organization can be expected to feel any of that guilt, let alone bear it. It’s like an absolution ponzi scheme.

Are we all somewhat guilty? Sure, and no juridiction in the world is capable of taking it on, so it is up to us and to our collective conscience. Can we hide behind ignorance, true or fake? No. Because even Facebook can’t hide the dead children washing up on beaches with internet kittens anymore.

So what can we do? I don’t have a solution. But inasmuch as capitalist economic globalization is to blame it may help. For the first time the victims have a lot in common with the privileged. They wear western clothes (made in Asia but so do we), speak English, know Spiderman and Frozen, in short, we can’t not identify with them. No more ‘ethnic’ people’s demise that we can distance ourselves from with segregatory preconceptions.

These people look like us, they are like us and we are just like them, nothing more, nothing less. Of course this was always the case but until now there was always something that could be used as an excuse for the privileged to distance themselves from the people in need. Not anymore, thanks to globalization…

The effect this has is massive. Thousands of people are reaching out, offering shelter, welcome and help to the refugees . That’s our humanity speaking and it gives me hope. But a reaction from the heart alone is not sustainable in the long term.

So what else can we do? What if everyone who takes part in the economy contributed a symbolic 1%, it would add up to a lot. Enough to give new lives to hundreds of thousands of refugees! A sort of voluntary self-taxation on privilege that both individuals and companies would contribute to? That’s starting to sound like a TED talk parody… this 1% concept sounds like all the refugees in the world are only worth a discomfort of 1% of the privileged’s wealth, the itch of guilt would be scratched and business as usual can resume? No way.

As long as we are not prepared to question the fundamentals of how we practice capitalism, children are going to keep washing up drowned on beaches.

So what am I going to do other than rationalise my pain and helplessness on the internet with a rant on Medium.com you might ask?

I will continuously question the fundamentals of how I partake in a capitalist system.

I will live more humbly in respect for the life of that innocent child. He was one of too many victims of a system that I culturally belong to. I will not be distracted from what really matters and do my best to avoid stuff that comes too cheap to be true. I will measure what I ‘need’ against a better scale. I will resist the dulling of the shock I felt when my smartphone teleported me into someone’s unbearable loss.

Perhaps most importantly, I will carry my love for my children on my sleeve with all the vulnerability it comes with, and I promise I will never lay eyes on that photo without feeling the pain I feel right now.