Reflected upon Pike River

WARNING: I am incapable of getting to the point don't do 'concise'. I play with my words. Indecently. I'm no longer allowed within 100 yards of a thesaurus.
Don't say I didn't warn you...

I suppose I should open this with an explanation for any readers not native to New Zealand, as this news is pretty inconsequential in regards to the international news cycle ***Edit: Not as inconsequential as I'd suspected, this was picked up by foreign media*** The Pike River Mine disaster is a mining accident described in full by the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. The tl;dr version is "there was an explosion at Pike River Mine that killed 29 men."

Why am I writing about it?
I blame Amy.

A little over a week ago I was chatting to Amy with the awesome hair, and she asked me what I thought about the Pike River mining disaster. And my answer was I didn't. It didn't really register on my radar, and why should it? I'm not trying to be insensitive, quite the opposite in fact, but why does my opinion on it matter as regards the loss of 29 lives? What opinion is there to express here that requires my input? However, the conversation with dear Amy did spark a bit of introspective curiosity, and I figured I'd tease it out into something a little more substantial, based on things I've been reading recently, in case it proves food-for-thought for anyone else.

Firstly, it has to be said, I've been asked about the Pike River Mine disaster quite a lot. It's national news, it's water-cooler discourse, friends and whanau use it as fodder for small talk. When I told one friend I honestly didn't pay it much mind, she informed me "the whole country's in mourning, but anyway"... and she was right. I could tell. Everyone was repeating the CopyPasta Pike River Miners Poem in their Facebook status updates. I haven't seen such an outpouring of grief since the finale of Outrageous Fortune. That wasn't a joke, I've watched with detached cynicism, and my friends mourn as much for television as for strangers... no doubt I'm the same, I'm still bitter HBO pulled the plug on Deadwood.

So what do I think of the Pike River Mine disaster?

I think it's tragic. Each loss of life is tragic, I wouldn't want to be in the position those men were, trapped after an explosion then slain by a second. I feel sorry for those who have lost loved ones. It is, all considered, terrible news. Death always is, no matter the circumstances. Life is precious, and even for those ready to leave, those they leave behind will always feel the loss.

But I don't need to say this.
You already know this.
You already think this.

You're confronted with mortality, and reflect on the loss that death represents. Because you aren't sociopathic, because you're capable of empathy, you understand pain and loss and suffering. And you understand that those around you who are not disturbed or challenged, also understand mortality and loss. You already know how I feel about the death of 29 men in a tragic accident, before you even ask me.

So why do you ask?

This is what makes me curious. Why do we feel compelled to dwell on it?
Why do you ask me?
It's not my tragedy.

I don't know any of the 29 men who died. I don't know the relatives or friends of the men, or anyone that works for the company operating the mine. I don't know anyone from the region, to my knowledge. And I'm unlikely to ever meet anyone involved in this tragedy, whether co-worker, neighbour or widow. And if I ever were to encounter a relative or friend of the untimely deceased, chances are this individual would rather not have their existence defined by a victim status, odds are they would not want their identity subsumed by an instance of tragedy in their past. This is not my tragedy, nor is it yours.

I have yet to see a single personal anecdote about this event, the grief and sadness and introspection I've seen or heard has been from people who are not involved. Collectively we're participating in something we have no part in, performing grief for someone else's tragedy. Replacing our profile photos with pictures of candles, attending candlelit vigils (or rather, claiming we will be attending candlelit vigils, slacktivism inaction... yes, I meant inaction, that was not a typo... you know who you are >.>), remembering after the fact that we were supposed to be observing 2 minutes silence for the departed.

Why?

Again, I'm not trying to be offensive here, but for every action there should be a reason to motivate it, and I wonder how much we really consider our actions. And this one seems to be an ingrained response, because people will assume it's 'the done thing'.

So why are we doing this? Why are we talking about it and making public displays of sympathy for people who will never see them? What purpose does it serve to change your online photo, to post a poem about 29 miners helmets on pickaxes outside the Pearly Gates, to attend a candlelit vigil, and tell each other what we already know? The families and friends grieving for those they've lost aren't going to check out your Facebook/Myspace/Bebo page (especially not your Bebo page, my GAWD what were you thinking?). I really don't think a kitschy poem about mining equipment is going to do much of anything for the grieving families, who have lost fully-realized and multi-faceted people with personal histories and identities, not simply 29 miners. Our connection to this event is that it's a mining disaster in NZ that killed 29 men, whereas their connection with it is personal, they've lost a part of their life. Something tells me a poem praising 29 dead miners means less to the grieving than the memories of their loved ones outside of their profession, however well-intentioned it may be. I don't think they're going to be jumping online to read it, I suspect they'll be talking to real people and distant relatives instead. The candlelit vigils are at least an action, something substantive to show, and a communal activity; these public acts are what create culture and community. But again, unless it shows on the news, or it's local, and unless the grieving are watching the broadcast of any vigils, these acts are ultimately little more than sincere gestures that are for the benefit of those participating in them.

What I'm getting at here is, our public displays of grief are for our benefit, not for those actually involved in the Pike River Mine disaster.

I'm not saying we're bad people for public displays of grief over an event we have nothing to do with, as noted before we're functional human beings capable of empathy, and empathy is damn important for society as a whole. But we have to recognize that what we're doing, whatever good intentions are behind it, has nothing to do with the grief of those who have lost loved ones. We feel sorry for those who are grieving, but our public acts and private reflections will not touch them, they have more important concerns than the thoughts of strangers and it is not our place to intrude on their grief.

The question this raises, perhaps a leading question, is what right do we have to make a public spectacle of their private tragedy?

This question was prompted somewhat by an article shown to me by a most excellent friend of mine (who shall remain nameless until such time as this individual craves public infamy in relation to my soon-to-be-hated blog), of a woman's reflection on the loss of her brother in light of the recent media coverage of the Pike River Accident, titled My Brother was Shot in the Head on a Monday Night. Read it, it is a very thoughtful and thought-provoking piece, and as Julie Starr has experienced the sort of personal tragedy and the media focus that I'm contemplating here, unlike me, she has the anecdotal authority to make these claims without being called into question as a sophist or armchair moraliser. She's involved and experienced where I am an intellectualising fraud.

So I must ask again: What right have we to make this our tragedy?

I must reiterate, I'm not heartless. I understand loss and tragedy, if I dwell on the tragedy I will be upset, if I picture life without my father or my brothers (however distant they may be) it is a painful thought, so I have empathic, emotional access to the kind of tragedy considered here. But I believe all things should be questioned, especially those things we most readily take as true and right. If something is to be sacred, I feel it should be a truth so robust as to stand the challenge of honest and vigorous inquiry.

And I have to wonder what claim we can legitimately make to this tragedy. Because the more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I get professing public involvement in the grieving of those I have never met and have no tie to as if I am important in the narrative of this event. As Emma Woods said of the death of her child, in a public statement referenced in Julie Starr's article, the Pike River Mine disaster, for most all of us, is a headline that is here today, gone tomorrow... bar the odd televised dramatisation in about ten years time when television producers look back on NZ's tepid tragedies where tens of lives are lost.

My problem is, it's not our grief, it's theirs. It's not our loss, it's theirs. And it seems somehow arrogant or self-centred to feel we have some special claim to someone else's private tragedy simply because we're from the same country. A month from now, it'll be part of our review of The Year That Was, while the families and friends of the 29 Who Died will be celebrating New Years without them. Six months from now, we may read a news update on page 12 of the New Zealand Herald about the inquiry into the Pike River accident and think to ourselves "I remember that... that was so sad", while those who've lost their loved ones will be struggling to find answers. A year from now we might mark an anniversary and look back, whereas those involved will have looked back every day since the ordeal began. And after that, we won't recognize those involved, as they move past their loss and put their grief to rest, the sole aspect of their personalities we fixate on in this event will be hidden away at the back of their minds most of the time, and they'll be invisible to us again, as they were before the explosions.

Grief is personal, deeply personal, dictated by what the departed mean to you. The closer you are to someone, the keener the loss. And we are not close to these people, so our grief and public displays are necessarily hollow compared to the utter loss experienced by those who are involved.

And it feels horribly invasive to me to claim a tie to this tragedy, to claim the grief as my own. It feels offensive to me to claim this tragedy is in any way personal to me, like insisting on a public display of regret is an act of vanity on my part. I'll reflect on it privately if I'm so inclined, but it's not my place to make a spectacle of someone else's tragedy, nor to participate in a public spectacle that those involved never asked for.

And that's what it is. The media reported on it, seeking comment, trying to get as close to the tragedy as possible. It sells newspapers, it sells advertising spots, and I'm not trying to claim that news outlets are cynically profiteering here, but sensationalising the news draws attention, and attention draws profit. I overheard snippets of the preparations for the public memorial/'funeral' for the Pike River Miners, and it was at least a little sickening to hear the news crews boasting about their contributions to the event, as if it were some carnival, as if the funeral had a corporate sponsorship deal. I can't speak for those who have lost loved ones (and the sad irony of this post is the more I refer to them as such, the more I reinforce their status as public victims of tragedy rather than as multi-faceted individuals who happen to be grieving), but the beginnings of media sensationalism I'm seeing here are just a little disgusting.

Why do we do it? Why do we sensationalise tragedy with heavy media coverage? Why do we buy and consume death and misfortune? Why do we wish to get closer to this unfortunate event through our public pronouncements and participation in performed grief? Why are we seeking to claim ownership of the grief of others, seeking involvement in something that has nothing to do with us?

I wonder if it's to make us feel connected somehow. Here we are, most of us working away at jobs with awkward hours, or tending to growing families, or travelling off to somewhere new to take advantage of the greener grass encountered on the other side. We sit down at our computers to see what updates our Friend List provides, we fire off hundreds of text messages, absorbed in our flash phones and completely oblivious to the living, breathing humans around us. Our connections are fleeting, and frequently digital, we parrot catch-phrases and memes... there's probably no more than five of you devoted readers who bothered to make it this far through my introspective rambling. Grief, loss, tragedy... it's raw and emotional, death and birth are the two things we will all have in common. So it's something we share, something we can relate to, even if we aren't directly involved in a particular instance... and the event itself is notable enough to distract us from the mundane events of our daily lives long enough to contemplate mortality and loss and what it means to know people, to relate, to connect, to be human. I really can't fault this. Anything that gets people to relate genuine sentiment is a good thing. But I wonder how far this has actually touched people, and how far it's just performed by rote?

Perhaps it is informed by a desperate need to experience something genuine. We live in a degree of comfort and ease probably unimaginable in much of the world beyond Aotearoa's sandy borders, we have it so easy in our Pavlova Paradise. But we all die. It's easy to put that thought from your mind most days, living in ease, with abundant distractions. But there's nothing more genuine than mortality, we will all die and thus we can all relate. Perhaps we need to experience death and tragedy vicariously in order to feel alive, in our comfortable little life with our innumerable fictions and gadgets and cultural practices and vocations offering us largely inconsequential distractions. In Fight Club the unnamed narrator tours support groups to find genuine people and genuine experiences, vicariously experiencing tragedy in order to find release from a numbing, empty consumer existence devoid of direction and meaning, envious of those who are dying because "dying people are so alive". In Ruth Quiney's essay "Mr. Xerox," the Domestic Terrorist, and the Victim-Citizen, Quiney acknowledges "the revelation of vulnerability as foundational of the identity of the subject, and as necessary to "self-knowledge," has increasingly become a means for men as well as women to achieve public presence or collective acceptance." Roger Luckhurst explores concepts of a 'traumaculture', defined by absence and dislocation as regards a singular moment of utter tragedy that is unquestionably authentic. Our shared fascination with tragedy, from a good safe distance, may be the way in which we access something undeniably authentic in what is, in the delightfully secular and commercial world bereft of defining struggles and strong national identities, a largely meaningless existence. Rather than be Nietzsche's hated utilitarian herd, we vacation in the mortal tragedy that defines what Nietzsche instead appreciates about the religious: the existential sting of mortality.

NZ mourned the loss of Outrageous Fortune, we're probably busying ourselves with preparations for Christmas, there's always that work that needs doing on the car, or that next mission to beat on that computer game we just bought, and no doubt we're looking forward to getting completely obliterated every weekend for the next two months. And then 29 died in an explosion in a mine and we're suddenly given access to something far more significant and genuine than the meaningless crap we concern ourselves with on a daily basis. Momentarily things are put in perspective and we're conscious beings, snapped out of our daily condition. Maybe it makes us feel more alive. Maybe it reminds us to appreciate the world around us and the life we have. Maybe, if we have a partner, we hold them closer and see them better. Perhaps we're thankful that we're far away from the dangers of a mine (or the raging gunfights in the Middle East, in Africa, South America, and elsewhere) and that our grief is merely sympathetic, a token gesture our of respect for those who'll never see it.

I'm not passing judgement, because I understand that we're all expressing sympathy for those who are suffering, because we can empathise, even if we can't realistically say "I know how you feel" as grief is private and every loss is individual. Even though I'm not comfortable making public spectacle of grief for something I am not a party to, I know that none of us are being self-centred in our displays, we're not cynically seeking attention. Even the media is reporting something of national interest, even if they are veering closer and closer to entertainment rather than public service.

And as distasteful as public spectacle and intrusion on the grief of others can be, at least we are not appropriating the grief and tragedy of others to shamelessly promote political goals and stoke hatred, as in the case of the Cordoba House YMMA in New York, portrayed by ignorant xenophobes as a 'victory mosque at Ground Zero'. Politicians and xenophobes making an issue of something New Yorkers had little or no problem with, invoking the names of the families of those lost in the 9/11 attacks to attack the plans to build a YMMA several blocks from Ground Zero, plans supported or at least unchallenged by almost all of the families of those lost in the attack *EPIC FACEPALM*

I know this has been rambling, and I know it's lead nowhere. I know I've presented no answers nor any conclusive proof to back anything up. I've commented on a current event, poked sticks at the issue, and hopefully given cause to think about things.

No offence was intended, though I do not doubt a great deal was given. I feel it's probably best that I start this blog with something that may come across as controversial, because over the course of my writing, I'll be questioning many of the things held sacred. This is what interests me, to question everything, especially those things we most hold dear.

Ka kite, friends and whanau

Don't be strangers =)

Post-Script
In regards to the reason we seek to involve ourselves in 'national' tragedies, it could simply be a shibboleth, the way we affirm national identity is through appeal to nationally 'owned' events. Just a further thought that cropped up after the fact.