Distant Death and the Blood Before Our Eyes

This morning, I woke up to the news of an Israeli diplomat being stabbed in Beijing. I didn’t want to look at the details, nor could I bear to watch the footage.

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter’s school bus was stuck in traffic because a motorcyclist had been in an accident and died. “There were lots of ambulances, but the driver was lying on the road, clearly dead,” my daughter told me, visibly shocked.

For her, death is tangible, and blood is real. The closer a death is to us, the more concrete it feels. The closer the connection to the deceased, the stronger the grief—such is human nature.

I often notice that when we watch scenes in a movie depicting early humans hacking at each other or grandiose Hollywood war spectacles with soldiers and civilians falling amid gunfire, the audience typically feels little. We’ve grown accustomed to it from a young age; those deaths are far removed from us. Whether it’s the Roman conquests or the deaths of World War II, the reasons don’t matter. For Chinese audiences, perhaps scenes of death related to wars with Japan might stir some emotional response.

Then there are the deaths we see in news reports, such as those from the Russia-Ukraine battlefield or videos of casualties. To readers, these deaths are merely numbers. Depending on which side you’re on, you hope the enemy’s death toll is as high as possible.

We’ve grown accustomed to death, to waking up each day to news of all sorts of deaths, as long as they’re unrelated to our own lives. Compared to the inconvenience of bringing an umbrella because it’s raining today, the death of others is inconsequential.

This morning, I also saw a few other posts. One was from a woman on the ground sharing more details about the tragic deaths of Israeli civilians. Another claimed that Israel is now displacing Gaza’s residents to better eliminate Hamas, calling it wise. Yet another argued that Israel must completely eradicate Hamas, or justice cannot be served, and so on.

As long as we’re not at the scene, we’re essentially numb to the lives of others. People react entirely differently to photos of dead Israelis versus dead Palestinians, depending on their emotional leanings. Even when it’s children on both sides, the value of their lives is clearly different. Some people simply choose not to look at photos of distant deaths, or if they do, they don’t care—they’re not our people, not the side we support, so they won’t waste a shred of emotion.

The degree of cruelty in the manner of death also affects how we perceive it. I understand this, but it doesn’t change the fact that innocent children are dying. What’s the difference between civilization and barbarism, between being bombed or stabbed, between fewer or more deaths? I cannot accept any so-called justified reasons for death based on its method—not at all!

We are all human, and we all may die. But if you die unnaturally, at the hands of another, especially if it’s your own child, no matter how “justified” the reason, you could never accept it!

Those who shout for war and killing—if you and your son or daughter were trapped in Gaza right now, among the displaced, facing the risk of being killed by a stray bomb at any moment because, supposedly, there’s a Hamas member nearby—would you still say you support Israel’s eradication of Hamas, that your whole family is willing to sacrifice for it?

In our history, in our world, conquest by power has shown us the cruelty and barbarity of humanity itself. From Caesar’s Rome to the Crusades, Hitler’s Germany, the colonial histories of European and American nations, Putin’s Russia today, and Mao’s China—all these massive, unnecessary deaths were backed by a slew of “just” reasons and stories.

To me, these reasons prove only one thing: the barbarity and stupidity of humanity. Even in the 21st century, if we still operate on the basic survival logic of the animal kingdom, so-called rationality and civilization are just polite words for peacetime. Once there’s a conflict of interest or need, the war machine kicks into gear, and we hear a different set of life-or-death rhetoric. Humanity immediately aligns into battle formations based on the interests of our respective tribes, with cheerleaders on both sides ready to drown the other in verbal assaults.

War drives people mad; the slaughter it brings makes people bloodthirsty. If one dies, the other side must lose ten. Those who could have been friends become mortal enemies the moment they pick up a gun. Whether it’s the death of an invader or a martyr defending their homeland depends entirely on your perspective.

Consider this: World War II ended less than a century ago, and World War I ended just 103 years ago. When wars began, think of those who didn’t yet know the calamity awaiting them, unaware they would soon flee and die. That motorcyclist didn’t know this morning, without time to say goodbye, would be his last day. The stabbed Israeli diplomat didn’t know a stranger would stop at nothing to take his life. And what of the men and women in Palestine, waiting in darkness for their fate?

Who will the Grim Reaper visit today? If it’s not you today, why not tomorrow? What difference is there between us and those who die violently? How do we know that our lives right now aren’t sliding toward the eve of a third world war, that our current commentary from the safety of our homes won’t soon become a statistic in the death tolls of future generations?

Having said all this, truly, I feel chilled by the cruelty and indifference that seem to run through people’s veins. To me, the death of any innocent person pains me, and the death of a child is no different from that of an adult. I hope that all people with reason and compassion will pray for the tragedies that have already occurred and those yet to come. I hope we can take the pain we feel for the loss of loved ones and extend it to grieve for strangers we’ve never met. The rule and oppression of power are rampant everywhere. In this era of mounting crises, the only thing we can do is stand with the weak and say a resolute “No!” for the sake of a future where our children won’t have to live in such a world!