
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Over the last two years, many in Australia and around the world have watched in horror as Sudan, Gaza and other zones of mass violence descend into humanitarian crises of devastating proportions.
And while the cause of each crisis is unique, the consequences tend to share common characteristics — for especially civilians: millions of people are displaced and left without homes to return to; basic social infrastructure, hospitals and schools are reduced to ruins; tens of thousands of men, women and children are targeted for killing or die due to fighting, disease and the lack of food; sexual violence and torture are widespread; and starvation is deliberately employed as a weapon of war.
The scale and sheer desperation of the humanitarian crises in Sudan and Gaza ought to sear the souls of anyone committed to the notion of human dignity and the belief in a common humanity. But the tendency of so many in Australia — though we are by no means unusual in this regard — is to permit humanitarian concern and moral attentiveness to the plight of others to pass in and out of focus.
Is there a moral imperative on citizens to remain attentive, to enlarge their capacity for sympathy, to make democratic “noise” in the policy deliberations of our elected representatives? If so, how might the capacity for that attentiveness be cultivated, and in what ways should it manifest in order to serve the people we are trying to protect?
4.6
3232 ratings
Over the last two years, many in Australia and around the world have watched in horror as Sudan, Gaza and other zones of mass violence descend into humanitarian crises of devastating proportions.
And while the cause of each crisis is unique, the consequences tend to share common characteristics — for especially civilians: millions of people are displaced and left without homes to return to; basic social infrastructure, hospitals and schools are reduced to ruins; tens of thousands of men, women and children are targeted for killing or die due to fighting, disease and the lack of food; sexual violence and torture are widespread; and starvation is deliberately employed as a weapon of war.
The scale and sheer desperation of the humanitarian crises in Sudan and Gaza ought to sear the souls of anyone committed to the notion of human dignity and the belief in a common humanity. But the tendency of so many in Australia — though we are by no means unusual in this regard — is to permit humanitarian concern and moral attentiveness to the plight of others to pass in and out of focus.
Is there a moral imperative on citizens to remain attentive, to enlarge their capacity for sympathy, to make democratic “noise” in the policy deliberations of our elected representatives? If so, how might the capacity for that attentiveness be cultivated, and in what ways should it manifest in order to serve the people we are trying to protect?
121 Listeners
751 Listeners
95 Listeners
133 Listeners
854 Listeners
13 Listeners
78 Listeners
212 Listeners
94 Listeners
71 Listeners
47 Listeners
19 Listeners
1,683 Listeners
113 Listeners
344 Listeners
127 Listeners
305 Listeners
747 Listeners
190 Listeners
55 Listeners
55 Listeners
996 Listeners
43 Listeners