//Some Lives Are More Human Than Others
Portrait of Mel Gibson against a coral-red background, alongside a quote attributed to him claiming that children in Japan and Germany did not become terrorists after World War II.
Whose trauma is recognised, and whose violence is labelled terrorism? A quote attributed to Mel Gibson illustrates the premise this article challenges.

Some Lives Are More Human Than Others

In the imperial world, US soldiers who go to foreign lands, kill a lot of people and destroy their homes and lives have PTSD if they display violent behaviour when they return home.

About the author

Portrett av Tebogo Ledwaba

Tebogo Ledwaba

Tebogo Ledwaba is a South African commentator based in Pretoria. Originally from Soshanguve, Gauteng, he studied at Tshwane University of Technology. His political writing focuses on international affairs, Russia and the post-Soviet space, African perspectives on global politics, and questions of minority rights, language and political double standards. His commentary frequently examines Western foreign policy from a South African perspective and asks how political principles applied to Russia and its neighbours would be understood if the same standards were applied in an African context.

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The people who watched their families torn to pieces by US bombs, who lost everything they worked for in that US airstrike cannot have PTSD if he displays violent behaviour. He is a terrorist.

What I witness even in my posts is the detachment of a lot of people in the west from the real world.

My sense is that humans in the global south are not fully human, many sees people in the global south as subjects being born for the purpose of serving them. There is a lack of empathy towards victims of western imperialism.

This is evident in instances where a teary eyed journalist in Ukraine saying “this is not some country in the middle east, it is a country of people with blond hair and blue eyes”.

That journalist whoever she was have singlehandly fixed the world and woke the world from thinking we can have a global community where all people of all colours can be equal.

It is evident when there is zero empathy towards the people of Gaza who are being bombed by their own bombs. They don’t have blond hair and blue eyes.

Or when I watched United security council after Minab school bombing, a UK ambassador to UN condemning Iran for attacking US bases in the Gulf countries on the day USA just bombed children in Iran. Not even a single representative from the west saying “we condemn the attack on a school and we are remorseful for the attack on children, however, Iran has no right to attack the bases we use to attack you”.

UK representative looked at Iranian representatives as if they are the ones who expelled British Petroleum from Iran 47 years ago. We should stop fooling ourselves that the people in the west will reform and see us as humans. They stopped pretending in 2022.

They probably wish Russia had attacked Malawi or Bangladesh.