Michael Jackson is dead. So what?

Michael Jackson is dead. Farrah Fawcett, too. And Billy Mays. AND Ed McMahon. I feel deeply for these individuals’ families and friends. Unfortunately, we all know what death brings to those that are left behind. Recovering from the loss of a loved one is usually a lifelong process that overwhelms the heart with sorrow from which it can never fully recover. The incessant media coverage of these high profile figures’ deaths is nothing but shameless and grotesque exploitation of human emotion; it manipulates the pain of the survivors and fragments the humanity of those who have died – to have one’s life defined by death, no matter how famous that life was, is a cruel testament to the nuances of human experience. Besides, there are more important matters playing out on the world stage than the deaths of a few high profile people.

At the top of the list of problematic current events is the so-called election in Iran. For hundreds of years the people of Iran have been suppressed, oppressed, depressed – robbed of both their collective and individual voices by systems of power meant to crush the people’s spirits. The latest incident in the seemingly never-ending string of blows to the Iranian people’s humanity is nothing out of the ordinary; it is emblematic of the country’s pathetic state of affairs.

Honduras is in the midst of a military coup that has ousted its “democratically elected” president. The world is weighing in on the legality, ethicality, and constitutionality of this “threat to democracy,” the main concern revolving around a North American model of democracy that may or may not have ever properly suited the Honduran people.

These empirical events themselves are indeed troubling not only in the destruction they produce in the here and now, but also as reminders of the long-standing political, social, and economic oppression that have become engrained in the structure of these countries histories and people. The frustration only builds when we call into question the media institutions most of us rely upon for information concerning these happenings. Like Iran, state-sponsored media manipulates most of the places where human rights violations occur most problematically. The people are unable to access vital information that has catastrophic consequences for their everyday lives, and the world at large is denied the truth of their global neighbors’ circumstances. Even in countries such as the U.S. that claim to have freedom of the press, corporate media conglomerates control the news we receive in a capitalist version of state-sponsored media.

Iran and Honduras are only two of the countless countries whose people are denied a quality of life required for the dignity of humanity. China, Sudan, El Salvador, Palestine, and Haiti (and the list could go on) pose similar threats to their peoples and global humanity. To say the state of the world that allows for such destructive systems is a bleak one is an offensive understatement. How can anyone couched in the comfort of the first world, with at least the pretence of human rights, help tend to these wounds? The range of emotions anyone who stops for even a moment to consider these injustices can include anger, shame, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, sorrow, and sympathy, among others. Some of us threaten to abandon our obscenely rich country in an act of solidarity with our suffering neighbors. Some of us spew words of contempt for this first world, blaming and hating it (perhaps correctly) for everything lacking in the lives of the suffering. To have any faith in the goodness of humanity and the nature of the systems we create for ourselves often seems like an insurmountable challenge to the heart and mind.

I was recently lamenting such matters with a friend who had just returned from a trip to El Salvador. She had spoken to survivors of the perpetually bloody military and economic wars raging there who gave her perspective on these global problems from personal experience; and talking with my friend in turn gave me a new lens through which to see the world and its problems. Don’t give into the guilt of privilege; be constantly grateful for the opportunities it provides. Don’t leave your country of origin – you have a responsibility to it, and the world at large by extension. The same problems that countries like Iran and Honduras are faced with occur everyday on a smaller scale in every other country of the world, the U.S. included. Because of the education and access to knowledge so many of us are lucky enough to have, we have tools at our disposal that are denied to so many. Use them:

SEARCH actively for a news source you think is credible – you have access to a computer, newspapers, and magazines. READ the news and LEARN the histories of people and places you know nothing about – you are able to read. USE the Internet to support grassroots movements at home and abroad; HELP them by disseminating their causes and messages throughout your own network – you are free to use the Internet and generate your own websites. SPEAK OUT against the terrible things that happen, whether to the local union or student protesters in Iran – you have the power to converse freely with your friends, families, and colleagues. You don’t have to join the Zapatistas in Mexico or incite a coup in the U.S. to be of use to the world, to acknowledge global tragedy. Stop feeling guilty for these unfortunate truths; guilt only perpetuates the binary of the oppressed and the privileged. Accept the gifts you have received as a citizen of the U.S. and take advantage of them by perpetually striving to help others from within the circumference of your life’s small circle. And if nothing else, deny the impulse to revel in scandal and tragedy at the expense of another person, be they celebrity or acquaintance. Michael Jackson is dead, and there is nothing you can do about it. Iranian protestors are dying at the hands of the religious military machine, and you can do something to change that.