Why should I care?
I got the opportunity to join the NIF and give a workshop combining photography and social dynamics, exploring how our minds work: how we create patterns, form groups, and assign characteristics to them.
The main focus was refugees and other minority groups who have arrived in Berlin and Germany over the past 10–20 years, and the wide range of responses they have triggered. Some of these responses have been quite scary.
Our brains are very good at saving time and energy. We recognise patterns, group things that appear similar, and label them almost automatically. The problem begins when negative characteristics get attached to a group. They stick, and stain the whole group — often for no good reason, and sometimes with serious consequences.
I was lucky enough to find myself in a very good school. How do I know? :-D We could hold the entire workshop in English, which made it much easier for me to connect with the pupils. They were well dressed, thoughtful, and careful and respectful in expressing their opinions. One girl wore a hijab, she had a couple of muslim friends without a hijab and our conversations sailed straight over some explosive clichés and familiar mantras. It was an inspiring day.
On my way home, I kept thinking about these lovely kids, and about how heavy the information we load onto young people can be. These were kids who seemed to have everything they needed, and no immediate reason to worry about these issues.
Then something on the U-Bahn caught my attention.
I took out my phone and made a short video.
The next day, I showed it to the pupils. Before pressing play, I asked them a question that must have seemed as if I were reading their minds:
"WHY SHOULD I CARE?"
They live in a relatively comfortable part of town. They don't necessarily visit the places where things get rough. So why should they care about what happens to other people?
I asked them to watch the video and see if they could figure out what it had to do with my question.
Look at it.
The other carriages are swinging from side to side, while the one I'm sitting in seems relatively stable. From where I stand, it's easy to think that whatever is happening over there has nothing to do with me.
But we're all travelling on the same train.
And that's the point.
I know it might sound cliché, but we are connected. Something can happen to someone else and still affect us, even if we don't experience it directly. The fact that we don't feel the movement doesn't mean it isn't happening.
It's a bit like a fire breaking out at the back of a moving train. You might be sitting comfortably at the front, enjoying your ride, but that doesn't mean you can ignore the fire.
We don't have to give up our lives and dedicate every waking moment to solving the world's problems. We can't help everyone, and we won't always know how to help.
But we can pay attention. We can try to understand what others are going through. And when we can do something, we should.
Perhaps the first step is simply to remember that our own carriage isn't the whole train.
I hope that, every once in a while, when these kids see the other carriages swinging while theirs seems stable, they'll remember the question.
Why should I care?
Not because we should feel guilty for having a good life.
But because recognising how fortunate we are should make us more aware of those who aren't as fortunate — and perhaps a little more willing to do something about it.
That's a huge shift.
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