It seemed clear how the Arab reaction to the Beirut port explosion disaster on August 4, 2020, which resulted in 190 dead, 6,500 injured, and losses exceeding $15 billion, differed from the lackluster reaction that accompanied Sudan’s floods that occurred in early September 2020, resulting in more than 100 people losing their lives, the destruction of nearly 100,000 homes, and damage to half a million citizens..
Two Arab catastrophes separated by less than one month, leaving behind dozens of victims and billions of losses, but there is a difference between dealing with them, whether in terms of the media momentum and continuous coverage of their details, locally, Arably and internationally, or in terms of the international response and support provided by all international and regional powers..
Selective empathy
Tweeters on social media criticized what they called the phenomenon of “selective sympathy” towards the catastrophic conditions in Sudan due to the deadly floods, which reached the point where the Sudan Security and Defense Council, the highest security body in the country, declared Sudan a natural disaster area, and declared a state of emergency throughout the country for a period of 3 months..
Since the incident, Sudanese activists have tried desperately to mobilize sympathy by publishing pictures and video clips documenting the suffering of the Sudanese due to the floods, but they have had little resonance, despite the death of about 100 people, the displacement of more than half a million others, and the collapse of more than 100,000 homes as a result of the floods and rains whose rates exceeded the records recorded during the years 1946 and 1988..
However, one month before the floods in Sudan, users of social media platforms, from all countries, races and backgrounds, held a major funeral that was characterized by sympathy for Lebanon against the backdrop of the Beirut port explosion last August 4. Sympathy is still filling social networks to this point.
Commentators said that the Sudan disaster is a vivid example of selective empathy, stressing that some disasters have a charisma that deserves attention, such as the Beirut explosion, and others are poor and unattractive, such as the floods in Sudan, according to the words of some of them who circulated pictures and video clips from Sudan, which they described as “painful and cruel.””.
Commentators said that “selective sympathy is a type of racism,” while others considered that “selective sympathy is the best evidence of Arab and international hypocrisy in its filthiest form.” Others explained that the reason was the injustice that Sudan was exposed to in the media..
Deliberate ignoring
As for the Arab world, the neglect of the floods in Sudan has raised many questions that have reached the level of accusations directed at media outlets of all types and nationalities due to the clear contradiction between coverage here and there. Although what happened in Sudan is the most serious disaster in many decades, and the victims and losses are constantly increasing, with the repercussions of this crisis expected to continue for long periods, which makes it on the list of media concerns from a professional and objective standpoint, this did not resonate with the majority of Arab media platforms..
On the other hand, the speed of the international and regional reaction to what happened in Beirut, and the political momentum that accompanied this bombing, cannot be compared in any way with the state of semi-ignorance that has prevailed over the Sudanese scene, except for some urgent humanitarian aid provided by the State of Qatar..
A profound phenomenon
Empathy, as Emma Melquine, CEO of Elbe Digital, describes it, is an unconscious reaction in the brain that is controlled by a person’s past experiences. Melquine points out that Facebook and Twitter have helped create a generation that is more empathetic than others. But empathy does not extend to everyone.
A few years ago, the Mexican website “Comic Sarcasm” published a map that showed differences in dealing with disasters and attacks that countries around the world are exposed to, in terms of sympathy and media and popular attention. On the map, the United States and Western European countries occupied first place, followed by Latin American countries or the Eastern European region, and finally the Middle East and Africa..
These gaps in media coverage arise from a long history of racism, as Africans, and other black people around the world, are not usually surprised that the media, especially Western ones, do not cover their tragedies, according to what Christina Sharp, a professor at Tufts University, stated in her book “On the Wake: On Blackness and Existence” that black people in the United States and around the world live as if they do not exist, and that the specter of slavery has made the pain and death of black people fundamentally incomprehensible to the world..
Sharpe’s analysis indicates that black people do not gain sympathy easily, regardless of how they die. She believes that racist myths challenge basic beliefs of human compassion. For some time now, black people around the world have been engaged in intense debates to change the world’s view of their issues.
