Guns with history

I've been researching 'Empathy' stunts that have sought to forge a deep connection between people and issues.

The best seems to be the immersive ones... the ones that invite us into an uncomfortable yet poignant places.

This one is truly inspired.

Three Months On

(this thought provoking article that I edited is written by a friend who took part in one of the simulations we ran and has come back to do some research on empathy. She's a guest contributor!) 

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Three Months On

by Charlotte Whittaker

‘NO, I don’t care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad….

Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches. They might look a bit ‘Bob Geldof’s Ethiopia circa 1984’, but they are built to survive a nuclear bomb. They are survivors.’

Do these words ring any bells?

On the 17th April Katie Hopkins published them in her column in the Sun under the headline,

‘Rescue boats? I’d use gunships to stop migrants’.

The following night on the 18th April, a ship carrying fleeing migrants sank during a storm off the coast of Libya. Over 800 people lost their lives.

The combination produced a perfect social media storm.

Katie’s comments went viral alongside news of the disaster and the country gave a collective shudder. The story lingered on for a couple of weeks while election focussed immigration rhetoric flooded the media. Then, as quickly as it had come, the issue disappeared beneath the tide of the unrelenting news cycle.

In trying to examine Katie’s massive failure in empathy as symptomatic of the larger empathy deficit in society I have discovered something else in myself and others- our lack in venturing from an indignant reaction to bailing ourselves out of the pandemic empathy bankruptcy.  

Like so many others, my immediate and instinctive response to Katie’s comments was one of disgust.  An overriding tone of many of the criticisms I read too. This response isn’t wrong. What she said was in severe bad taste and this is where I, and so many others’, knees jerked to react. We all found ourselves thinking: “where was her empathy and compassion for the least of these” or “where was her compassion for people choosing to make a perilous journey with their children across a sea”. Our fingers were pointing and wagging. Unfortunately the response, however, was not one of empathy with migrants. Sympathy yes. But not empathy.

There is a temptation to be indignant at her lack of empathy but miss the fact that our response also frequently lacks compassion for the 800 who died and the millions whose future in Europe is uncertain.

Why should I bother removing myself from my screen to place myself in the shoes of terrified, drowning migrants as a truly human and natural response. The mere thought of it is massive. Clearly indignation is much easier than empathy making our empathy debt that much deeper.

So how can we tackle it? There’s certainly no easy answer. All we can hope for is small steps; one person-at-a-time expanding their capacity for empathy and making the painful choice of investing emotionally in others.

Roman Krznaric, one of the influential thinkers of the empathy movement, believes it is possible to learn to empathise more and gives some ideas in his article ‘6 habits of highly empathic people’.

Empathy begins with contact, connection and company. It begins with the migrants, whose suffering most of us cannot begin to imagine but whose experiences we should nevertheless make an effort to understand. One place to start is with Hakim Bello’s personal account of the journey in the Guardian. Another resource is the BBC’s ‘Syrian journey’ simulation which lets you make the decisions of someone fleeing their home as a result of the war. Collective empathy is an essential motivator of policy in this situation, with potentially huge consequences such as the decision to reinstate search and rescue teams in the Mediterranean since the sinking.

Empathy is so desperately needed here with Katie and her thousands of supporters and elsewhere. It is possibly even hard to empathise here because we don’t want to admit that we share some of Katie’s lack of empathy for the migrants. Uncomfortable as it may be, it is important, because empathy might just help us understand, and even possibly influence, the point of view of this politically powerful group. Similarly, empathy with EU decision makers will show us that the migrant crisis is a terrifyingly complicated situation, so that we can understand and support those who are honestly searching for good long term solutions. Looking back to the debate around this story 3 months on reminds us how desperately we need to learn radical empathy.

Circa 1986-7

An old photo with my dada, dadi, brothers and cousin.

We used to jump over that fence! 

The morning Ezra sandwich

"I keep saying to myself I have to take it everywhere. I can't take it out of my sight!"

Caleb has just comeback from the Ridgewaye presentation day.

They had a cage tournament. Teams of three and Caleb won. He WON!

He even scored. His first of the season.

I was proud. I would have been proud wherever he came. He was even more chuffed.

It's 9.30pm. I've just cleared up a spilt tea (my clutz-ness!) and Caleb popped down beaming.

He said: "I just can't sleep" clutching his trophy and then exclaimed.

"I keep saying to myself I have to take it everywhere. I can't take it out of my sight!"

Mummy let him have a choc chip cookie on his way back up. He left with an even bigger smile :)

A family snap