Are You Guilty Of Dehumanization?

While death tolls continue to rise and buildings continue to fall, it has become easier for us to blur all the destruction together and to instead focus on lighter events that hold almost zero relevance to real problems that exist in today’s society. In Aleppo, Syria we continue to forget about the innocent people and their struggle. We forget to remember that they are real, living, breathing women, men, and children. They have friends and families and pets, just like us. They used to have houses, and they used to feel human. We forget that they are people too.

In ‘A letter from Aleppo,’ a Syrian Civil Defence Member talks about just this. They wrote, “Journalists ask me how many people died on this day or that day, but Aleppo is not just a death toll.”

Aleppo is not just a death toll, and that is something we continue to forget.

Aleppo is relying on the international community for help. The first step we can take is to remember that they are human. In today’s world compassion has to be asked for, it is not expected. We have to find compassion and empathy. Those not directly affected will never be able to truly understand the extent of suffering in Aleppo, and in many other war-stricken countries.

So are you guilty of dehumanization? If you think you are, actively try to empathize. Change starts with you.