Sally Hayden, observing mass death!

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2023

Also, our own tribe's moral greatness: Sally Hayden, age 34, is an Irish journalist. The thumbnail looks like this:

Sally Hayden is an Irish journalist and writer. A foreign correspondent, she has reported from Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda. Her book My Fourth Time, We Drowned, an investigation into the migrant crisis, was published in 2022 and awarded The Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2022, the 2022 Michel Déon Prize, and is the Overall Book of the Year at the 2022 Irish Book Awards.

Hayden's guest essay in yesterday's New York Times is worth reading more than twice. It appeared beneath the headline shown below. Also, it offers a bit of perspective concerning the moral greatness of our own blue tribe:

Welcome to Europe, Where Mass Death Has Become Normal

That was the headline on Hayden's guest essay. She was reporting live and direct from the Tunisian coast—and she was providing a bit of perspective on our own nation's current political / journalistic / moral crises.

How has mass death become common in (or near the borders of) Europe? Hayden is referring to the death of migrants—of people trying to get to Europe. As she starts, she sets the scene in the following way:

Welcome to Europe, Where Mass Death Has Become Normal

In the Tunisian port city of Sfax, I sat this month with a group of men in a sandy, windswept park. As the sun went down, one placed the cap of his bottle on the ground, pouring in a precious portion of water for a stray cat who slinked toward him. The men, who were Darfuris, explained that they had escaped what they called a new genocide in Sudan. They saw militants burning homes, sometimes entire villages, and ran for their lives.

There are dozens—maybe hundreds—of Sudanese currently staying in that park in Sfax, and thousands across the city. They sleep on cardboard, or mattresses if they’re lucky. They contemplate their fates, chatting quietly about their experiences and wondering where they can get food. Mostly, they wait: for money from relatives or friends, or for work that might enable them to raise 2,000 Tunisian dinars, or $647, to buy a spot on a boat and a chance at escape. Everyone I met in Sfax,  which is about 80 miles from the Italian island of Lampedusa, wanted to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. They all knew they might die in the attempt.

Even so, people leave every day. Some send jubilant messages from Italy; others wash up dead along the coast. The weekend I sat in the park, as many as three ships sank, leaving more than 80 people dead or missing. Ten bodies were found on beaches nearby. Last week, 41 people were reported to have died after a shipwreck off the Italian coast.

Mass death has long been normalized on Europe’s borders. More than 27,800 people have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014—and that is most likely a large underestimate... 

Hayden is discussing the fate of the wretched of the earth. "This year is shaping up to be especially deadly," she writes. "This is what a crisis of human rights, ethics and, above all, global inequality looks like."

Hayden is discussing the wretched of the earth. Also, she's alleging a moral crisis in the face of global inequality.

That global inequality, and that alleged moral crisis, also involve us in the United States as we confront, or fail to confront, our own immigration policies. Before we consider our own behavior, let's consider a bit more of what Hayden writes:

In recent years, the economic situation across most of Africa has worsened, exacerbated by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Living in northern Uganda during the first lockdowns, I saw how quickly people began to starve as their meager savings evaporated. Last year, in Sierra Leone, I watched the cost of living crisis lead to deadly protests. Climate change makes everything worse. In Niger, it exacerbated malnutrition; in Somalia, it contributed to near famine.

In the face of such suffering, the rich world is hardening its borders. In Britain, the government has passed a draconian bill that prevents refugees from claiming their right to international protection and plans to house asylum seekers on a floating barge. European officials talk about “breaking the business model of smugglers,” but their statements ignore the fact that human smugglers are simply filling a need. Unlike me, a European who flew without a visa from Ireland to Tunisia, there is no safe way for many Africans to travel in the other direction.

In the face of vast human suffering, "the rich world is hardening its borders." That's a tough way to describe what's happening, but Hayden's account is basically applicable to our own situation too.

Despite silly red tribe propaganda, very few people in this country really support "open borders." Very few people are willing to open our golden gates to admit all who would come.

That doesn't make us bad people, but it does make us people people. As a general matter, with respect to the question of surrendering our vast material advantages, us and them the people are only willing to go so far. 

We're only willing to go so far. That's true of us in our own highly moral blue tribe. It's also true of the Others, of the people who reside within our immoral red tribe.

At present, we rarely hear this moral quandary discussed on our own tribe's cable "news channels." Fox News tends to push immigration issues hard, quite often in politicized ways designed to defeat Joe Biden.

On our own channels, our tribal tribunes avoid the topic, and the moral crisis, addressed by Hayden's essay. In truth, our principal channel discusses only one topic, serves only one cable food product:

Trump Trump Trump Trump Jail

When it comes to Donald J. Trump and the prospect of his going to jail, our tribal motto is abundantly clear:

No Legal Minutia Left Behind!

Our tribunes speak almost all day, and then all night, about this one highly tedious topic. Our tribunes speak about little else, and this is the culture we've chosen.

Our tribunes don't discuss mass death. Also, they never discussed the recent claim that a miracle has taken place in one state's low-income public schools.

Also, consider this:

Way back on February 26, the New York Times published a giant Sunday front-page report about teenaged immigrant kids who are forced to work full-time overnight shifts in dangerous manufacturing jobs. 

Hannah Dreier was the author of this remarkable report, and of a follow-up effort. In the wake of this remarkable reporting, Dreier was consigned to the ranks of the disappeared. 

On "cable news," our blue tribe's tribunes kept talking about TrumpTrumpTrumpTrumpJail. They had no time for the danger, or for the suffering, of these local underaged wretched of the earth.

None of this means that we're bad people. It does suggest that we're people people—that we like to be entertained and morally reassured with relentless claims in which we're told that We are the very good people while The Others are very bad.

This doesn't mean that we're bad people. You can judge our multimillionaire tribunes as you will.

For ourselves, we'll suggest that Hayden's guest essay might help us think about climbing down from our blue tribe's moral high horses. 

As a group, we aren't the perfect moral exemplars our cable tribunes help us imagine ourselves to be. This doesn't mean that we're bad people. It does suggest that we should consider cutting back on the frequency with which we name-call everyone else.

By the way:

Has a miracle really occurred in Mississippi's low-income public schools? You've seen none of our stars examine that question!

Why do you think that is?