When it's dark, we can't call it quits
I struggled until the very last minute to make a final decision on the title of my last article. For this one, it came to me before I wrote a single line. I made a typo in my writing software: “Sunstack - 10. When it's dark”. I noticed it and thought I could do with a “stack of sun” indeed. It made me smile even though inside I felt like I was sinking.
It’s been a difficult week on a personal and collective level; I am feeling it deeply. Like many others, when this happens, I sit down and I write.
The churn started with the criminal handling of the Maui fires which took the lives of hundreds, including many children. The world has no shortage of gut wrenching disasters and human tragedies, but the moment the news about Hawaii hit the media I knew something wasn’t right, above and beyond the obvious. And sometimes you wish you were wrong.
I found out about the BBC Panorama and BBC News investigation uncovering in the UK how the nurse Lucy Letby had murdered seven babies on neonatal unit and attempted murder on many others. The dates of the events are from as far back as 2015 and she has only been found guilty this week, in August 2023. I came close to this horrendous story because my husband knows the journalist behind the investigation. At home we discussed the responsibility held by the hospital management team who for months ignored doctors' warnings and applied themselves to protect the reputation of the hospital over the safety of their patients. None of them has been held responsible. I tried to read and listen further but I could not, the details were unbearable. How can one find peace in this? I don’t know.
This week we binge watched the newly released Netflix series PainKiller based on the opioid crisis in America which shows how Purdue Pharma, a company owned by Richard Sackler and his family, manufactured and heavily marketed the highly addictive and deadly OxyContin which caused the death of an estimated half million people. This happened with the silent endorsement of doctors and pharmacists who knew the damage caused by the drug but chose “money” over people’s lives. The Sackler family have been described as the “most evil family in America” and “the worst drug dealers in history” and among whom to this day not one member has been arrested1.
If any readers watch the series and can’t see the parallel between the OxyContin story and some so-called “safe” vaccines, approved by a corrupt FDA, and promoted (or enforced) by careless country leaders and physicians with deep pockets, I suggest reading something else, somewhere else.
In the last few months I have been researching and reading a lot about a phenomenon in France we call “Feminicide” which designates a hate crime defined as “the intentional killing of women or girls because they are female”. It isn’t a light topic and it’s taxing to delve into it. I started reading the book “125 et des milliers” by Sarah Barukh & Collectif which was published earlier this year. 125 is the average number of women killed each year in France by their partner or ex-partner. In the book, 125 public personalities narrate the story of a deceased woman victim of feminicide. The through line is threefold;
a French government who doesn’t do what it should to educate, protect and punish
a French judiciary system that is fucked and corrupt
all feminicide perpetrators are male and close to the victim
We all have stories that resonate within more than others. All of these stories affected me deeply. All of these have in common that at some higher level of decision making, the importance of human lives has been dismissed, deemed secondary or simply relegated as collateral damage.
Excuse me but what’s more important than life? Be it human, animal or natural lives.
What’s more important than your life, the lives of your family members, the lives of your pets, of your friends, of anyone you love? And what do we do when it becomes obvious that people supposedly “in charge” don’t care about life and the lives of those we care about?
At home, accountability, leadership and AI are topics that have been part of our regular conversations for years due to our work on Epifini and Epifini Substack. Indeed, the world is in desperate need for leaders to be held accountable. Absolutely everywhere. It’s not new but it’s now urgent.
The world is scared shitless about AI but most people fail to understand that the main risk with AI is coming from the people who handle AI, how they train it and for what purpose. If indeed leaders and decision makers who show no care for human lives are left to decide what AI is going to be used for, then we should get worried.
Remember, behind any business, organisation and administration, there are humans and individuals. Behind AI, there are humans and individuals too. Maybe it’s time we care a bit more about who these people are and hold accountable the crooked ones who always favour personal and financial gain over humanity and all forms of life.
Unfortunately, there is no need to prove that some humans have very little regard for others and this is as dark as it can be. But we can’t call it quits. We can’t look away and pretend it’s not there because it’s just denial and a bypass that won’t protect us.
We have to learn to recognise it, to see it for what it is with sharp discernment, accurate perception and no compromise. We must look at them in the eye and say: “I see you, it’s not going to work”.
More than anything, we have to learn to not let the dark in. It’s not easy, I grant us that. But what else can we do?
“We can do hard things”2.
Thank you for reading.
Mahé
https://www.amazon.com/Pain-Killer-Empire-Americas-Epidemic/dp/0525511105
Glennon Doyle