Wednesday, January 15, 2020 // The Statement
2B
Managing Statement Editor
Magdalena Mihaylova
Deputy Editors
Emily Stillman
Marisa Wright
Associate Editor
Reece Meyhoefer
Designers
Liz Bigham
Kate Glad
Copy Editors
Madison Gagne
Sadia Jiban
Photo Editor
Keemya Esmael
Editor in Chief
Elizabeth Lawrence
Managing Editor
Erin White
statement
THE MICHIGAN DAILY | JANUARY 15, 2020
I thought I’d aged out of this years ago. I’m sitting criss-cross-applesauce in my apartment while my roommate
straightens my hair. The brush catches my hair knots and pulls my head back like the boys in my elementary
school used to do, though it wasn’t because they liked me.
The hair situation isn’t going as planned. My curls are beginning to spring back from stress sweat, either caused
by the fact that I’m going to a dance with a stranger or the fear that I won’t fit in with the crowd. I have less than
20 minutes to figure out how I can turn my curly hair, acne and glasses into something remotely resembling a
D
ue to security reasons, the doors
to this train will not open.”
The loudspeaker on Delhi’s
metro blared the warning message during
the ride I was taking to meet a friend one
night in the south of the city after protests
had settled for the day. I was afraid to step
off the train in the district after dark, not
knowing what I might see from that day’s
unrest. To my dismay, the metro did not
stop where I intended to depart.
As a researcher of international politics,
I spend most of my time in the summer
abroad: consulting archives, conduct-
ing interviews and collecting data. My
research agenda, centered on conflict and
peace, is driven broadly by activist goals
of societal change toward the eradica-
tion of violence. My investment in social
movements has thus multiplied over the
years as my exposure has increased. My
experience witnessing a social movement
closely and intensely is limited, but on my
most recent trip to India, massive mobili-
zations broke out opposing the passage of
the Citizen Amendment Act, catalyzing
what has become a spreading cycle of pro-
tests across the country.
I have only ever read about the way
protests unfold, I haven’t witnessed their
outbreak or navigated their consequences.
While there, friends, researchers and I
gauged how police might respond to vari-
ous districts and to different demograph-
ics on each day of the movement. Risks
of violence were pervasive and caused us
anxiety stomach-deep. We stayed in con-
tact with one another to check in on the
safety of friends scattered across the area
and sprung to action when it was compro-
mised. Police barricades blocked roads
and armed members stood conspicuously,
yelling when passersby strayed from the
path. During the peak of masses taking to
the streets, we lost contact as mobile cell
service was cut off and restrictions were
placed on travel.
After two weeks, I returned to the
United States. The brevity of my visit was
a mere glimpse of a movement’s frontline.
I cannot suggest that I know everything
about the prolonged fear or empowerment
that comes from an individual’s long-term
participation in activism, only that a short
period of time in the midst of its threats
and dangers revealed to
me how much bravery
it requires to stay in the
thick of it.
In
this
increasingly
small, globalized world
we are implicated in car-
ing for those issues which
are not on our frontlines
through
connections
forged by corporations,
bodies
of
governance,
internet communication
and migration. How can
we possibly hope to con-
tribute, when gulfs still
exist between us?
Having returned, I am
becoming aware of how
different my role is for
causes unfolding beyond
my borders. Being away
has granted me freedom
in conducting work for a
cause that is not possible
from the proximate posi-
tion — without worries of
physical survival or safety from the state, I
can speak my opinions more freely, access
unrestricted sources of information and
generate dialogues to grow a network of
the sympathetic. Contributing to collec-
tive memory, applying external pressure,
information spreading and fundraising
are all roles for those who are non-proxi-
mate to this issue. Research, record keep-
ing and contact cannot be conducted amid
internet shutdowns, but can from afar.
Still, those technologies that apparently
bridge the distances between us through
communication and travel can also be
used to entrench distance, as they often do
when used in contemporary conflict.
I have a recurring nightmare where
two young boys are gifted a video game
by an elder member of their family who
is an army general. The game is like any
other in their repertoire, where bloodied
cities are the end goal for players who tote
guns, grenades and girls to accomplish the
mission. The boys play this gifted game
day in and out, sending pixelated bombs
to places they cannot pronounce. In the
dream, however, the simulation is not a
game — it’s reality. The bombs they drop
are not points scored but predetermined
military plans.
The dream mirrors contemporary con-
flict and modern technology, wherein
trained officials use screens in distant
countries to send conflict wherever they
are instructed. I fear the reality of recruit-
ment for children into these conflicts looks
a lot like virtual gaming with promises of
valor and victory, too. My nightmare and
its subsequent reality remind me how the
distance between warring parties — cre-
ated by technology — in interstate wars
have allowed Western nations to out-
source death and violence anywhere they
choose, without ever confronting its dam-
ages. We’ve built technology to plug into,
and become invested in, any global issue
but we retreat from it when the reality it
creates is too painful to face.
I’d like to imagine that it is harder to
commit the violence of war with proxim-
ity between those in conflict. The famous
Christmas Truce of 1914 tells the tale of
a field between World War I’s trenches
where soldiers from across enemy lines
agreed to a temporary ceasefire. In the
field, they shared holiday songs, played
a game of ball and exchanged chocolates
and photos of family members back at
home. Afterward, they found it impossible
to return to war — eventually, the battal-
ions were moved to another frontline in
hopes that they could be convinced again
to fight. They could not.
The moment has been memorialized
in opera and commercials and its depic-
tion illuminates how hard it becomes to
commit violence against those we under-
stand through a shared tradition. The
more we enact violence through computer
screens the more it will seem to us a simu-
lation and not a lived experience. But for
those proximate to the real-life carnage,
there is no shutdown button.
A handful of issues look different up
close than they do from far away, and the
way we approach our contributions might,
too. Climate change will take away coast-
lines some of us have never seen before it
reaches middle America, and economic
inequality can hide from those in too tall
of towers to see it. Still, to tackle these
causes equitably, we’ll need to plug in and
act out — no matter the place we sit. The
doors to the train must open.
The power of proximity
BY EMILY RUSSELL, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SCHOTT