Imlisanen Jamir
The degree of politics in any given tragedy varies, but most tragedies are political to some extent, just as nearly everything that human beings do is political to some extent. That’s because politics is the process by which power and resources are distributed among people, and usually when something horrible happens, the question of who has power and resources will often affect the outcome in some way.
Yet there’s a dangerous temptation one must be wary of. Because so many things are political in some respect or other, it’s tempting to find politics everywhere, to believe that every event must offer some kind of obvious political lesson or message.
Pretending that tragedies occur in a vacuum is irresponsible, and exonerates those whose decisions directly result in events that range from deaths to loss of livelihoods and deprivation of basic rights. But it’s equally irresponsible to see every tragedy through the lens of one’s pre-existing political commitments, and to use people’s suffering and death to attack one’s ideological opponents. There is a misleading and tawdry way of “politicizing” tragedies, which views every event as the confirmation of views one already holds.
One can see how these incidents are used as excuses for dismissing opposing political viewpoints. The emotion of a tragedy is not the proper mindset of rational response. Detached, deliberate consideration with an eye toward solutions with actual benefit is necessary. Yet, it’s seldom what we get…from either side of the political aisle.
All tragedies are political; life is political, people are political and so are the things that happen to them. The best thing we can do is to be cautious, consistent, and fair. Causal speculation is inevitable, but consistent standards have to be applied.
Demands to avoid “politicizing” a tragedy are frequently demands to forgo serious scrutiny of the social, economic, and ideological causes of human misery. Yet we can draw a distinction between two definitions of the term: if “politicizing” means intentionally injecting politics when it isn’t there, and exploiting something horrible for ideological ends, then nobody should politicize.
But if “politicize” means a serious and clear-headed search for political implications, then it is a necessity, for a true assessment of the political causes of tragedy is the only way to prevent their recurrence.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
