Seeking the Middle Voices
In a pit of despair I endured another barrage of bad news emanating from the Middle East. The killing of more innocent lives. More blood drenched streets providing fodder for more rage and hate. My Facebook and Twitter accounts came alive, buzzing with vitriol, slogans, sound bites and nasty hash-tags from all sides of this divide. It was all about Islamic dogs killing people, or Jewish Nazis not wanting peace. Sick to my stomach I sat down and wrote these words: "the middle voices have been ignored".
In our sensationalist driven media the extremes tend to get emphasised to such a degree that they become the norm for most. It is always about the extremes - The Jewish settlers, or the suicide bombers, the anti-abortion activists or the secular militants, the big oil moguls or the Eco-warriors. The "middle voices" have been ignored.
We seldom hear the story of the Palestinian Christian whose child has been killed by an IDF rocket's collateral damage. The press never covers the story of the teenage girl who just got pregnant and is thinking of having an abortion because, only being 14 years old, she is really confused and under enormous pressure from family members. We do not read about the CEO who would love to adopt more environmentally-friendly working practices but is facing unrelenting financial pressures in a tough economy and cannot afford to change her working practices just yet.
The middle voices are often the only voices calling for reconciliation, moderation, tolerance and forgiveness. These are the non-fundamentalist voices, the non-extremist majority. The ones who unfortunately bear the brunt of the pain, but who have no power, no choices, no ability to make a difference or to be heard.
Justice demands that we ask ourselves where these middle voices are. I am increasingly challenging myself to hear these middle voices. As a global village we need to find creative ways to "give a voice" to these middle people - the people with no choice.
