Here’s one of many examples. In Denmark, an artist created an image of a shadow cast by the largest airplane in the world, the Ukrainian AN-225. The plane was destroyed by the Russians in the first days of the war.
It’s just an airplane but it’s already been commemorated on every continent and in every possible way. People are inspired by the story of the plane. It’s entered the imaginary of speakers of many languages.
In the meantime, 53 immigrants from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador died in an abandoned trailer near San Antonio in July. These are people from 4 countries whose cumulative population is more than 4 times that of Ukraine. And yet, they are unable (or unwilling) to make anybody care about these or any other of their deaths. Why don’t the presidents of these countries do a Zelensky and start making the rounds, telling the world about what the US efforts to squeeze the American blacks out of the labor market are costing them? Why isn’t the entire region rising up and looking for a solution instead of navel-gazing about its new round of socialist fantasies? Nobody is going to care unless you explain to them why they should.
It’s like when people go, “why does everybody care about the Holocaust and not much larger genocides of other peoples?” The answer is simple: because Jews put in the work and you didn’t. Nobody is obligated to care. If you can’t be assed to explain why your issue matters, don’t blame others for not bothering to find out.
I’m writing all this because I love Latin America and want it to do better. This incredible passivity is making a gigantic region a footnote in history.
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