Do You Hear That Silence?

I can’t help but notice the difference between the train-crash in North Korea and the train-explosions in Madrid. Every report I read of the North Korean crash has contradictory information, contradictory numbers. Now thousands have been killed, now it’s only 150. They want our help. There are no pictures available. There is no sense of what is really happening. You don’t get the sense that anything actually IS happening. On Yahoo, there is merely a satellite photo of what the railway looks like from above (but the photo dates a year ago). It’s now a day later, and still – all we get is one of those “this just in” maps, telling us where it has happened.

Normally, “this just in” maps signify: More to come, more details to come, hang on, hang on. We’ve had the same “This Just In” map up now for 24 hours.

Now, apparently, North Korea is asking for help. I’m no investigative journalist, I’m just a girl reading the headlines – but if they’re asking for help, then I would imagine that the reality is 10 times worse than what is being reported.

And yet the people of North Korea – what of them?

When the bombs went off in Madrid, we saw the faces of the people in the city, we could share in their emotions, we could relate to them – because we could see them – Who cannot relate to someone who has just lost their son and husband? Who can’t relate to the horror of cell phones going off in body bags? And what that actually means? On a human level?

North Korea is an invisible nation. They are under lock and key. Nothing gets in, and almost nothing gets out.

I guess what I am really aware of right now is an overwhelmingly LOUD silence.

And I remember the chatter-chatter-chatter not too long ago about the catastrophe in Madrid. People putting out information, embassies, consulates, we heard from Spanish bloggers, yap yap yap yap. The country was not closed – we could be with them in their moment of sorrow. There was a sense that we could communicate with the people of Madrid, we were all part of the same world.

Not so now.

Ryzsard Kapucinski has a great essay about the importance of listening to the “silence” in history. I’ll let Kapucinski speak for himself:

People who write history devote too much attention to so-called events heard round the world, while neglecting the periods of silence. This neglect reveals the absence of that infallible intuition that every mother has when her child falls suddenly silent in its room. A mother knows that this silence signifies something bad. That the silence is hiding something. She runs to intervene because she can feel evil hanging in the air. Silence fulfills the same role in history and in politics. Silence is a signal of unhappiness and, often, of crime. It is the same sort of political instrument as the clatter of weapons or a speech at a rally. Silence is necessary to tyrants and occupiers, who take pains to have their actions accompanied by quiet. Look at how colonialism has always fostered silence: at how discreetly the Holy Inquisition functioned; at the way Leonidas Trujillo avoided publicity.

What silence emanates from countries wiht overflowing prisons! In Somoza’s Nicaragua — silence; in Duvalier’s Haiti — silence. Each dictator makes a calculated effort to maintain the ideal state of silence, even though somebody is continually trying to violate it! How many victims of silence there are, and at what cost! Silence has its laws and its demands. Silence demands that concentration camps be built in uninhabited areas. Silence demands an enormous police apparatus with an army of informers. Silence demands that its enemies disappear suddenly and without a trace. Silence prefers that no voice — of complaint or protest or indignation — disturb its calm. And where such a voice is heard, silence strikes with all its might to restore the status quo ante — the state of silence…

Today one hears about noise pollution, but silence pollution is worse. Noise pollution affects the nerves; silence pollution is a matter of human lives. No one defends the maker of a loud noise, whereas those who establish silence in their own states are protected by an apparatus of repression. That is why the battle against silence is so difficult.

It would be interesting to research the media systems of the world to see how many service information and how many service silence and quiet. Is there more of what is said or of what is not said? One could calculate the number of people working in the publicity industry. What if you could calculate the number of people working in the silence industry? Which number would be greater?