A Small Insight #2

On the Verge of a World War III

     As I was skimming through a news articles on Internet in my free time, my eyes were attracted to a particular article. "Brutality of Syrian Rebels Posing Dilemma in the West". Intrigued by the title, and my curiosity aroused by the picture beside (showing men kneeling and bent to the floor), I clicked on the link and read the article.

      You may have already read this article, and therefore know what I am talking about. In summary, around a year ago, Syrian rebels had captured a handful of military men and had mutilated them. A video had been released on the web showing the entire scene, the inhumanity and cruelty of the act, as the soldiers were stripped of their clothes to expose their bare backs to the bullets, as these helpless men were executed and dumped in an unmarked grave. The release of this video caused much outrage around the globe, and the US were forced to reconsider their decision of helping the rebels. 

       As outsiders, our observations are subject to shifts. Depending on the information that are disclosed to the public regarding the events, positions regarding the conflict shift. When the public reads an article claiming that the government committed acts violating human rights, it condemns the malevolent authorities and pities the defenseless people. On the other hand, when the public sees a video that reveals the violent uprisings of the rebels, it decries the people it had pitied. This is the scenario that is reflected in the present situation of Syria. The big nations, such as the US, are uncertain of the positions they have to adopt, and the protests and reactions of the people, the public, do not help taking decisions easier. As outsiders, we do not have much right to say anything. We do not understand the depths of the conflict, of the issues. We do not grasp completely the passion of these people, the rigor of their anger. As outsiders, we do not have the right to decide, or enforce, what is best to do in this conflict, in this fight, in this rebellion. And the fundamental reason is because our knowledge of the situation depends on the information that is available to us.

       We may be on the verge of World War III. (Alright, actually, I do not think it will really happen, if we did learn from history and know a little better than we did before.) It is important that world leaders keep in mind that what they know comes to them through various filters, that their knowledge is controlled by so many factors, that it is difficult to determine what is right and what is wrong, what is accurate and what is fraud. With the media nowadays, it is easy to get swept in mob mentality. With technology nowadays, we are at the mercy of creative genius. With the big organizations such as the UN, influential and powerful countries often take matter in their hands and decide things based on what they think is right. 

       Throughout history, events have been shaped by the decisions of the big player countries. In this case, this distribution of roles is apparent once more. Big countries are in the dilemma of helping rebels in Syria or not, of putting in their impact or not. And people are forgetting that they are at the mercy of mob mentality, of the media, of shifting positions based on what they are able to hear and see.

I thought I might share these thoughts because our TOK classes revolve around these topics. We talked about how our knowledge is influenced by biases, and how it is impossible to acquire purely neutral stories without any tint of bias. The situation in Syria, and other nations' reactions to the occurrences, reflect these ideas.