People have every right to be upset about a woman dying because legislation hadnt been put into law because it wasnt politically expedient. It’s obscene. The concept (and internet obsession) with comparing misery dicks is equally obscene. That being said a lot of people’s outrage over this whole debacle seems overdone or forced at best. There are lot’s of other preventable deaths taking place in Ireland that no-one talks about, that get no Dail protests, that people just basically dont give a shit about. The cynic in my suggests that its because they dont make for quite as good a news story. I’m not trying to condem or shame anyone, it’s all too easy to simply miss these things. But if you have found yourself stirred to action by this current case than I’d urge you to try and keep abreast of similar issues, dont shame yourself by indulging in “flavour of the week” activism.
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about here’s an example. A week ago a 22 year old woman froze to death on the streets of Tralee. I saw exactly 0 tweets or Facebook posts about. The lifespan of someone living rough on the streets is less than half of someone living in normal accomadation. The Simon community’s annual review shows that on averge 30-40 homeless people who they work with die each year, this figure isnt an accurate figure of the total number of deaths due to homelessness but its already pretty fucking shocking. Of course problems like homelessness have neither an easy enemey to blame nor a readily identifiable “silver bullet”. They’re complex problems which require people to think about them and contribute their time or money. Which is clearly not as attractive as a simple hashtag and some enjoyable moral outrage.
I hope this isnt preachy (but fear it is) and I dont want people to take this as an accusatory “Hey you cant care about that without caring about this!”, I meant it be illuminatory instead ;) (More “Hey you care about that, maybe you werent aware of and would be interested in caring about this?”
If it wasn’t for the last paragraph in which you qualify your motivations, this would come across as preachy and indeed as a case of “Hey you cant care about that without caring about this!” – but I’ll take your word that it is meant to be illuminatory.
But If I can, I’d like to try to explain the reasons behind why certain causes become widespread over others at certain times. In the case of Savita Halappanavar- I completely reject the spurious accusations of it being ‘flavour of the week’ activism – the rage, shock and sadness have been very, very real and for good reason.
Homelessness is a horrific problem that shames us all – but as you correctly said it’s a complex problem which requires a massive amount of thinking about our lives and our society. The Savita Halappanavar case (in my mind) was infinitely simpler – legislation that we have supposed to have enacted for 20 years has been ignored repeatedly and now a woman is dead because of it. (I’m not going to get into an argument about this point further – needless to say that almost everyone including at the highest levels of the medical and legal professions are agreed on this – and whether or not the supposed case could have been prevent under current law is irrelevant – there is/was confusion and this needs to be clarified immediately). This should be legislated for now, and this government turned down such legislation introduced by opposition members already. This is where the seed of outrage came from – that this could have and should have been prevented.
There is a further reason. Whilst we see homelessness everyday, most people do not have a personal connection to it. However, 50% of the population is directly effected by the lack of support for medically necessary abortion – and it strikes fear into them. Furthermore, I reckon everyone in Ireland knows someone who has been affected by either abortion services (or lack there of) or miscarriage – making this a very real issue for a lot of people. And as I said, one that can be simply fixed.
It is to our shame that we also do not feel compelled to act on every injustice that we encounter – and certainly homelessness is one of them, but there are reasons for this and to put it down to flavour of the week activism or to suggest that some causes are less attractive to others is slightly churlish to me and in ignorance of some of the key issues related to it. Certainly there is an element of cause celebre to many ‘social causes’ but in the case of Savita Halappanavar the reaction was very real and not at all “just basically dont give a shit about.” other things.
Some great points, thanks. This was originally an over long Facebook post that I expanded a bit so I might not have included as much justification as I should have. So I’ll try and clarify my viewpoint a little.
I don’t want to do your argument a dis-service here, and I hope I’m not skewing what you say, but to summarise the main thrust of your argument seems to be that it isnt flavour of the week activism because peoples response to it is emotionally real. Secondly the reason that it has become such a big issue is because it a) has a simple solution and b) is directly relevant or relatable to a lot of people.
I’ll adress those in reverse order. To use the example I did above, if the main reasons you (general you) don’t get involved with other social injustice is a) because they arent getting media coverage, b) they dont have easy solutions and c) they arent directly relevant then how is it anything other than “just basically not giving a shit about them”?
If the barrier between you and activism is the fact that you have to think about it even a little (because lets be honest the lowest levels of activism dont requite huge involvement) then the reasons behind that dont seem particularly complex. While many issues of social injustice require a lot of thought at a national level to fully solve the majority require very little thought at a personal level if you want to do some good e.g. donate to your local Simon, a very well regarded charity organisation with verifiable results. Yet the Simon’s donations from both the populace and government have been dropping for years. It’s a fact that homelessness doesnt get much traction in the media or on social networks (e.g. and I feel the need to clarify that neither is “sadder” than the other, compare the coverage over Sativa to the young girl who froze to death in Tralee – both equally avoidable) I know you said it was churlish but I disagree, I think its a reality that a lot of people dont give a shit about this and other issues unless theyre “trendy”.
Regarding my commens about “flavour of the week” activism, I didn’t mean to deny that peoples reactions were real. But as you said yourself this legislation has been an issue for two decades. Two decades full of protests that more or less no-one attended, two decades where lots of people were aware of this issue and did nothing about it, two decades where other women died because they couldnt get an abortion but failed to gain media traction. I’m not saying that people arent genuinely outraged, I’m not even saying that they shouldnt go out and protests – they most certainly should. What I’m saying, and perhaps I was unclear here, is that if you get upset and go out and protest over Sativa (or do the bare minimum and retweet/share posts/click like) and then when this particular issue is resolved/out of the news cycle you never think about it again and dont get involved in other activism, then that to me smacks of flavour of the week activism.
So the try and condense my own points: while “just dont give a shit about” may have been needlessly cynical the barrier to entry in terms of helping fight other social injustices is so low that there is no excuse and as such any excuse given generally boils down to some form of “dont care enough”. By flavour of the week activism I didnt mean that peoples feelings and current actions arent genuine, just that if they dont continue past the current issue it would a) be a shame and b) people might have cause to reflect on how much the media informs their activism.
(A good example of what I’m talking about would be the KONY 2012 thing, people genuinely upset, its everywhere and then nothing – and its not as if child soldiers went away)
I hope that clarifies my stance a bit more, I suppose ultimately this was meant more as an entreaty for further action. It’s impressive how complete and wide ranging the activism over Sativa and Legislate for X has become – I’d love to see that same energy directed at problems which are just as destructive and long running (but which dont have “silver bullet” solutions).
Thanks for the clarification – i still disagree but I see where your point is coming from more.