SOUND OFF: Why a humanitarian crisis is everyone’s business
TWICE IN AS MANY WEEKS, Kamloops city council has heard pleas to support our community members and their families subject to brutal losses and immense risk in Gaza, and to condemn rising antisemitism and Islamophobia. Twice, the mayor and council asked no questions, made no comments, and expressed no sympathy. Emails, phone calls, and letters on the subject have gone unanswered. There’s a resounding silence where community solidarity should be.
This silence isn’t limited to government — local media, too, have been unusually circumspect in reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza, and shockingly mute on the killings of at least 100 of their journalist colleagues in that conflict. What makes this war, and the devastating humanitarian crisis it has ushered in, not worth local attention? Where’s the abundant and sympathetic support we rightly gave to Ukrainian civilians trapped in hostilities? Is this subject somehow too difficult, too complex, or too foreign for our politicians and media to address?
The short, tempting answer is that it’s not really our business. The much more difficult, but also more humane and empowering, answer is that a catastrophe like the one unfolding in Palestine and Gaza is very much our business. Those who are advocating for justice, peace and support for those at risk in the conflict are doing so because it matters to the community: both to Kamloopsians with family members living under siege, and to those who are moved to act when more than 100,000 people have been killed, injured, missing, or arbitrarily detained. That is the city’s business.
Hundreds of Kamloops residents have mobilized in solidarity on a regular basis since October, have engaged in education and activism, and have signed a petition calling on action from our MP, Frank Caputo. Many of those advocating are young people from the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) community. On January 15, the TRU Students Union (TRUSU), representing more than 10,000 students, passed a motion calling for a ceasefire by all parties, urging the federal government to continue efforts to end the crisis and provide humanitarian aid, and to condemn all acts of Islamophobia, antisemitism and racism in Canada. That is the city’s business.