There’s something terrifying about how easily human lives can fade into statistics.
When death becomes frequent and suffering predictable, we begin to treat it like background noise — inconvenient, but ignorable. The worth of a life, it seems, is no longer inherent but contingent: on geography, skin tone, faith, or political convenience.
In war-torn regions, famine zones, and occupied territories, the routine loss of civilian lives has been reduced to footnotes in global discourse. News tickers report death counts as if they’re stock prices — rising, falling, but ultimately, just numbers. And as the reports roll in, day after day, I find myself growing numb. This detachment isn’t just emotional fatigue. It’s the result of an unspoken global hierarchy of life, where the tragedy of one group draws global mourning, while another’s extinction barely warrants mention.
Since the late 1980s, I’ve seen this pattern repeat with chilling consistency. No matter how grotesque the suffering, the response — or lack thereof — speaks volumes. Not about the people dying, but about the world watching.
Until we unlearn this warped system of empathy — one that assigns value based on proximity, politics, or race — the idea that “all lives matter” remains a convenient fiction.
