PERSPECTIVE
From Compassion Fatigue to Indifference, then Despair
As the world grows darker, how do you hold it all?
Last week, I read that a CNN team, led by veteran war reporter Clarissa Ward, was captured in Darfur and held for 48 hours for trying to report on a war that has received little coverage — since reporters aren’t allowed in the country. Yet earlier this year, Le Monde published a UN report describing ‘crimes against humanity in the region. Over three months, 10,000 to 15,000 people killed.
So another story of war and suffering to add to those we already know about. All the familiar details — millions displaced, brutality, lack of medical care, famine. In Gaza and Ukraine, it’s all shown in graphic detail on the nightly news. And if it’s not war, there are other kinds of suffering. Overcrowded boats of migrants (some escaping wars) sinking in the English Channel, women and children among the drowned.
We read or watch and move on.
Back in January, I wrote a piece based on a Guardian series, Gaza Diary, about Ziad, a 35-year old Palestinian who kept a daily account of life in Gaza since the start of the war in October 2023. One day into the war, he wrote:
