How much Injustice would You allow in Your life?

We are complicit in the very betrayal we condemn, if we don't move beyond momentary outrage. When the disapproval fades and compassion fatigue sets in, that’s when the real work begins.

This Independence Day, the wave of public outrage towards the Kolkata doctor rape case is loud and forceful, but what happens when the noise subsides…?

When the collective compassion fatigue sets in, and the news cycle moves on, what do we do then?

I recently came across this book, "In Bad Faith: Inside a Secret Ultra Orthodox Sect and the Betrayal It Tried to Hide," where the author exposes her lived experience of how institutions? rely on the public’s short-lived attention span, knowing that once the initial outrage fades, the systemic issues that allowed the betrayal to occur will remain unaddressed…—> this pattern is eerily similar to what we see in our own society’s response to violence and injustice, again, and again.

And, Compassion fatigue is real... it sets in when the emotional toll of repeatedly feeling for the injustice, confronting their horror and injustice becomes too great to bear.. It’s a natural human response, but it’s also dangerous. It leads to a collective numbness.. where outrage becomes routine and expected, and our capacity to push for real change falls rapidly…

When compassion fatigue takes hold, we risk doing exactly what the perpetrators of these crimes count on—> moving on. But, moving on means leaving the root causes and the systemic failures unchallenged..

 We need to ask ourselves: What are we doing after the outrage? Are we demanding deeper, systemic change, or are we letting compassion fatigue pass over us as if this incident was nothing to start with?