With over 1000 children currently being held in immigration detention in Australia, the campaigns by organisations like Chilout have raised the alarm again about the plight of young asylum seekers. Hunger strikes, self harm, violence, depression and despair continue to be a part of these children’s lives. When we know so much, why do we do so little? How do we allow ourselves to participate in the isolation and neglect of so many already vulnerable young people? Are we simply suffering a failure of empathy?
We are talking a lot lately about why we do the terrible things we do. We talk about a failure to protect or an absence of free will, we talk about a failure of empathy. We talk about how circumstances can lead to unspeakable acts of cruelty. I think many of us find the explanations for these acts of violence comforting. They put evil into its current accepted cultural place as a scientific question posed to explain human behaviour in its worst form.
The problem with thinking about this kind of cruelty as a neurological or empathic deficit is that in most explorations of the causes of evil, we leave ourselves out of the picture. It is not us, it is others. Those whose brains are wired without proper empathic pathways, or those who are in denial, or those brainwashed by a political circus about the necessity of protecting us from them. These people are the perpetrators, not us. We understandably watch shows like Go Back to Where You Came From with satisfaction, as those misguided ones are finally forced into a better understanding of the journeys of another.
But what of our own failures? If we have passed the empathy quiz with flying colours, if statistically those with so-called disorders that interfere with empathic understanding are in the minority, then how is it that so many children are still sitting behind bars for so long with our consent? Why is it so hard for those of us who do have a capacity for empathy, who do see ourselves as compassionate, to do more than watch the destruction of so many children’s lives? Perhaps it’s more complex and delicate than a failure of empathy. Perhaps we are functioning with an intentionally deaf heart.
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