A Warped Sense of Peace: The Ever-Present Nature of Conflict

Opinion by Donggeon Kim, Grade 11

Today, we seem to look back at conflict-ridden eras of history, a notable and recent one being the Cold War, with a certain detachment, as if those oftentimes violent and destructive struggles are somehow confined to the times of the past. However, I believe that many of us fail to see that our current world is not so much different from these seemingly dystopian time periods, and that conflicts are occurring every day. But why is this so? If these conflicts were so important, why aren’t more people aware?

To this extent, I believe that the reason for this detachment stems from a lack of knowledge, but more importantly,  this ignorance stems from media biases and our remoteness from these conflicts. 

Firstly, I am sure that all of us are aware of the two major conflicts occurring right now. While both the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Gaza War are major focuses globally, I think media coverage has made us underestimate the severity and nuance of these conflicts. 

Take the Russo-Ukrainian War, for instance. I believe this conflict is a good example of how what we know about conflicts is dependent on media outlets. Although many of us came to know this conflict from social media reporting the Russian-led invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, it may be a surprise to some that this conflict has been brewing for many decades, starting from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Ever since then, Ukraine has been in a state of political turmoil, with Russian influence trying to reinstate control, resulting in large political clashes such as the Orange Revolution (2004-2005), where hundreds of thousands of protestors protested in Kyiv against Russian intervention in the 2004 election, and the Euromaidan protests (2013-2014), which resulted in the death of over 100 people. Following these mass demonstrations, Russia would annex Crimea in 2014, leading to smaller, intermittent conflicts in the Donbas region, killing over 13,000 people, leading up to the 2022 invasion. 

It was surprising to me that I had not heard of these events despite their importance to the conflict, which I believe stems from the lack of visibility given to these events by the media. Even though some regional media outlets were covering the conflict following the 2014 annexation of Crimea, it did not reach anywhere close to the same level of global awareness it does now. To me, it was especially surprising that the 2014 annexation was not widely covered despite Russia’s large presence in global affairs and politics. I believe that this is due to a lot of media outlets and news articles shifting to covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine solely due to its ability to draw a high amount of media attention and views, highlighting the ulterior motives of many news outlets and the basis for their decisions to cover certain conflicts. This example of the Russo-Ukrainian War displays how truly dependent our knowledge of conflicts is on media coverage and how the media’s decision to cover certain conflicts limits and influences our knowledge of important global affairs. 

On the other hand, take the other well-known ongoing conflict, the Gaza War. In a similar vein to the Russo-Ukrainian War, many of us came to familiarize ourselves with the conflict between Israel and Palestine with the Hamas-led invasion of Israel in October of 2023, but the conflict started over a century ago.

Tensions first started in the Zionist movement in the late 1800s, and as Jews began to migrate to Palestine and sympathy for them increased following the holocaust, the UN proposed a partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Despite the proposal being contested by the Arab nations living there, it still led to the establishment of Israel, resulting in the Arab-Israeli War that displaced thousands of Palestinians. Throughout the late 1900s and early 2000s, multiple skirmishes occurred, specifically in the Gaza region, until Hamas eventually took control of Gaza in 2007, significantly escalating the situation until the 2023 invasion of Israel. Ever since 2023, over 60,000 people have died, and over 150,000 people have been injured. 

Although this example further bolsters the fact that our perceptions of conflict are shaped by the media’s choice of coverage, I think the bigger issue that this example elucidates is the dependence of our understanding of conflicts and global affairs on the media coverage, and how the media’s fallibility has limited our ability to understand the Gaza War.

As our own history teacher, Malcolm Lamprecht, puts it, “People have awareness only from the media outlets that they have, which informs them of a partial truth.” Unlike the Russo-Ukrainian War, in which the media has framed Russia as the enemy, the Gaza War shows the influence of political beliefs within media, exacerbated by the inability of international journalists to enter the conflict zone.

The sheer number of contestations on the conflict and the media’s seemingly divided and contradictory statements has fragmented public perception and created disunity and uncertainty in the public. For example, many have called this a genocide, yet Israel maintains the notion that its actions are in self-defense. With more countries taking sides in the war and tensions ramping up as South Africa filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice, it is imperative that we stay informed and cautious of media biases and prevent our global perception from being hindered. 

Although media biases and the fallibility of their coverage are a large factor in the limitation of our awareness, I believe another big factor is the detachment we feel towards conflicts in countries that are physically distant from us and considered unimportant to the region. For example, a lot of people are unaware of the multitude of destructive and violent conflicts occurring in Africa and the Middle East, not only due to the lack of media coverage, but also due to their seemingly unimportant nature to us living in Taiwan. The Tigray War and the Yemen Civil War are good examples of this. 

From 1991 to 2018, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front(TPLF) was the dominant party within Ethiopia until Abiy Ahmed became Prime Minister in 2018 and began a series of reforms aimed at reducing the TPLF’s influence in Ethiopia. As tensions between the government and the TPLF rose, clashes erupted in 2020, sparking war as the TPLF attacked several military bases. This conflict, now dubbed the Tigray War, which killed around 300,000-600,000 people, lasted until 2022, when a peace treaty was signed, yet tensions still remain today as small clashes and humanitarian crises occur. 

Meanwhile, the Yemen Civil War’s roots come from the Arab Spring movement in 2011. During this movement, Yemen’s longtime president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, was replaced by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, whose new government was deemed unpopular by the public. Rebels from Northern Yemen, dissatisfied with Hadi’s government, founded the Houthi movement, hoping to expand their influence and take control of Yemen. In 2014, the Houthis seized the capital, Sana’a, allowing them to topple the government and take over. Backed by Iran, the Houthis then came into conflict with a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, the United States, and others, leading to the Yemen Civil War that has still not concluded to this day. 

The fact that not many of us are aware of the Tigray War and Yemen Civil War despite death tolls of 300,000-600,000 and 400,000 respectively, more than that of the Gaza War, illustrates how not only is our awareness once again bound to media coverage, but as we feel not only physical detachment but also political and cultural detachment from these regions, we seem to stray closer and closer to ignorance.

An interesting anecdote I have to share is that when I was living in Saudi Arabia, the topic of the Yemen Civil War was ever-present and very well known, yet in Taiwan, it seems to have gone under the rug. Our history teacher, Malcolm Lamprecht, sums up this idea of awareness and ignorance nicely: “People don’t know because they’re self-absorbed in this little microcosm that they have and they don't have any awareness, and I think it's because of a lack of empathy and bias in media.”

Despite the fact that these events occurring in Ethiopia and Yemen may not affect us back home in Taiwan, I firmly believe that we still have a responsibility to resist this sentiment of detachment and ensure that conflicts like the Tigray War and the Yemen Civil War do not simply fade into the background. We should strive to fight against the idea that only certain lives and struggles are worth our attention, and avoid the risk of selective empathy. 

Overall, by looking at these four conflicts, I believe the reason for our lack of awareness is clear: Biases in media coverage and our own feelings of detachment hinder our ability to not only fully understand these conflicts, but also to empathize with the struggling everyday people affected by them.

In a world where news is only covered for attention and distance removes our understanding and awareness, it is easy to remain indifferent to conflicts that do not directly impact our lives. Yet, as these examples show, violence, suffering, and political struggles are not only confined to history or distant lands. They are everywhere.  By acknowledging the influence of media biases and recognizing our own detachment, we can take the first step toward a more informed and empathetic global perspective. Critical engagement with media outlets and a willingness to look beyond our immediate surroundings are essential if we hope to understand, respond to, and ultimately prevent the cycles of conflict that continue to shape the world today.