The other day a friend asked what I knew about the recent elections in Ghana.   Happens often, because I’ve lived in one African country, people think this translates into knowledge about the entire continent.   I told my friend I knew nothing about the elections in Ghana, but commented knowing nothing was potentially a good sign.  Means that the elections didn’t make major headlines.  Wasn’t like in Zimbabwe where CNN and BBC provided around the clock coverage including frequent conversations with Bright Matonga who always had something so outlandish to say that it became entertaining. And the New York Times had above the fold cover stories day after day. Not even knowing an election happened in Ghana probably means it went off peacefully, or at least not unpeacefully enough to make the news.

This got me thinking about how the news is oriented toward reporting on the ills of the world.  The crisis’s, violence, devastation, deaths, scandals, suffering, bombs, murders, angst, corruption, and on it goes.  This is what makes the headlines. The happy stuff is rarely in the headlines.  Zimbabwe is a good example.  All the average consumer of news sees are stories about what a mess things are in Zimbabwe.

I have a folder of 516 ZWNEWS’ dating from late 2006 to the present.  When I did a word search for violence, 324 of the ZWNEWS daily email newsletters had at least one article where the word violence was used.  With arrested the total was 348, death 243, and beaten 192.  A word search on celebration came out to 49. And likely that word was used to describe Mugabe’s lavish birthdays.  Hardly shocking that news out of Zimbabwe is harsh, not celebratory; and I’m not meaning to diminish the importance of covering these realities. Being a reader of harsh news, however, drums up a range of emotions, one of which is empathy for the real people in each of the stories and empathy about the broader context in which they live.

It’s curious the concept of empathy.  To feel it means you are a caring and compassionate person.  You recognize the brave ways people fight against insurmountable odds.  But I wonder too when feeling empathy dangerously limits the power to feel things which are peacefully pure and good.  I started thinking about people I admire.  As the list grew, I was having a hard time identifying admiration that didn’t also involve empathy.  Try it.  Make a list of who you admire and I bet at least half the people on the list you admire because you empathize with their struggle and what they are fighting for.  Can’t help but imagine a better world, one where admiration does not necessarily also involve empathy.

This entry was posted on January 15th, 2009 at 10:06 am by Susan Pietrzyk and is filed under Inspiration, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.