Almost a week ago I posted the gruesome picture you see here on my Facebook wall. I knew that I would get some interesting responses since you don't usually have this kind of content in your news feed but the discussion that ensued was far deeper than I thought.
Underneath the picture, I wrote this note:
"NOT for the squeamish. I literally yelled after seeing this. Unfortunately I feel like today's wars and fighting in the world is sugarcoated. All we get is statistics, numbers that keep on running. Force yourself to look at the picture to get a better sense of what war really is like."
If you couldn't handle looking at the picture for long, you aren't alone. Unfortunately, we don't see these kinds of images about conflicts around the world because they display a reality that we don't want to see. This is the picture of a protester in Syria who was, reportedly, shot by Syrian military forces in the lower jaw. As you can see, there isn't much jaw left as his tongue hangs next to his blood stained and flapping inner cheek.
This sugarcoating of struggles and wars isn't more evident than in the United States. Although other issues now transfix the media's attention, 5 -6 years into the war in Iraq almost all major news networks had running stats on the number of dead soldiers.
The numbers are historically low when juxtaposed near other wars that the U.S. is involved in. In the past 30 years, Americans have never been so protected from the effects of war than in any other time in history. All wars up to the Vietnam war, were all ones that directly affected people beyond just the military families; think all wars including and before the World Wars and Vietnam. Today, it is easier than ever to ignore what is going on.
With hundreds of channels on TV overwhelmingly comprised of movie, gossip, and show content, multiple media platforms from your laptops, slates, smart/feature phones, and advanced music players, and social networking that builds small filter bubbles of our own worlds that actively keep everything else out, it is easier than ever to chose not to watch what's going on in any of our wars. The future of the internet seems to be location based social networking and apps will also help to make things worse.
The time of 6 o'clock news is truly over.
Don't get me wrong, these changes are welcome indeed. I think I would die if I could only get my news at one nightly news channel at a time. The problem is, that most other people aren't trying to get more amounts of news because they are trying to avoid it.
This is where the numbers come in. Ten thousand dead here, One hundred thousand troop surge, three thousand plus injured, etc. Combine this number count with the public's ability to be distracted by Snookie's latest fist fight and you have an audience horribly intentionally segregated from reality.
This is why I felt the need to show such a picture. Although not of a U.S. war, the fight for freedom throughout the the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) has been documented by news organizations world wide with terminology such as "Intense fighting" and "military crackdown."
This picture is what they mean by "military crackdown" and a blown off leg from a rebel in Libya is what they mean by "intense fighting." I will never deny the importance of statistics especially in making policy decisions, but we must not let them distract us from the reality and stories behind those numbers. What are the numbers but another list of the dead in a fight? Here we learn the numbers are broken jaws, pierced skulls, and raped bodies. The next time you speak of some conflict in the world, consider this picture.
Don't get me wrong, these changes are welcome indeed. I think I would die if I could only get my news at one nightly news channel at a time. The problem is, that most other people aren't trying to get more amounts of news because they are trying to avoid it.
This is where the numbers come in. Ten thousand dead here, One hundred thousand troop surge, three thousand plus injured, etc. Combine this number count with the public's ability to be distracted by Snookie's latest fist fight and you have an audience horribly intentionally segregated from reality.
This is why I felt the need to show such a picture. Although not of a U.S. war, the fight for freedom throughout the the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) has been documented by news organizations world wide with terminology such as "Intense fighting" and "military crackdown."
This picture is what they mean by "military crackdown" and a blown off leg from a rebel in Libya is what they mean by "intense fighting." I will never deny the importance of statistics especially in making policy decisions, but we must not let them distract us from the reality and stories behind those numbers. What are the numbers but another list of the dead in a fight? Here we learn the numbers are broken jaws, pierced skulls, and raped bodies. The next time you speak of some conflict in the world, consider this picture.
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