The Sumud Flotilla of some 40 boats with 500 people on board from 47 countries, including Pakistan, attempted to get to Gaza in a symbolic gesture to highlight the need to get aid to besieged Palestinians.
“When the world stays silent, we set sail,” states the Global Sumud Flotilla website. The participants were everyday people — organisers, humanitarians, doctors, artists, clergy and lawyers. Sumud is an Arabic term for steadfastness. This was the latest and largest of several flotillas since 2010, during which many have lost their lives, were imprisoned or deported by Israeli authorities.
The heroic nature of sailing fragile boats across the Mediterranean Sea to save a people in impossible conditions is not lost given the legendary history of this sea, traversed by heroes such as Odysseus, Theseus and Jason with his Argonauts. Is this a new generation of the Sea Peoples of 1177 BC that brought down the powerful empires of the Bronze Age?
Fanciful speculation aside, this attempt stands in sharp contrast to the silence of world governments that were once quick to support and protect the people of East Timor, Bosnia and the civilians of many other conflict zones. What is seen today is a cultivated detachment from the sufferings of Palestinian people, despite worldwide public protests.
Emotional, intellectual and moral distance — once seen as a form of self-preservation — now threaten to erase our capacity for empathy and action
There are many degrees of detachment, from emotional numbness — often due to childhood trauma that presents itself as social withdrawal — to intellectual detachment, considered necessary to focus on logic and reason over emotion. Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud came to be known as the three “masters of suspicion”, for adopting a form of intellectual detachment to seek hidden truths.
Soldiers in war zones may ‘switch off’ their emotions to protect themselves from being overwhelmed by horrifying events, allowing them to focus on mission demands. Emotional detachment during combat is linked to an increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), especially in the recent wars of dubious moral standing in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Stories of PTSD experienced by Israel’s soldiers sent on a mission of ghastly genocide are trickling in.
Detachment may be recommended by psychologists as necessary for emotional survival during upheavals — personal or societal. People set boundaries for emotional self-protection when faced with problems they cannot solve, stepping back from harmful situations or relationships.
Sufis attain a specific form of detachment known as zuhd [renunciation] or non-attachment, so that the love of God can replace the love of worldly desires. Doctors cultivate compassionate detachment in order to treat patients, many of whom arrive in great emotional or physical distress. Creative people reflect the duality of feeling deeply while taking a position of detachment, to devise formal poetic structures to express intense emotions.
Detachment is mostly seen as an emotional and physical disconnect and a lack of empathy. The wealthy elite develop a detachment from poverty. Racial detachment can be as extreme as apartheid and segregation, or subconsciously internalised, as when the death of someone we know is shocking and tragic, while that of a stranger is met with apathy and indifference.
The artist Clare Patey created an art event, ‘A Mile in My Shoes’, to encourage empathy, where visitors are invited to walk a mile in the shoes of a stranger while listening to their story.
The greatest irony of the systematic genocide in Palestine is the living memory of the dehumanising of Jews in many European countries, where they were classed as “subhuman”, allowing detachment from the horrific treatment meted out to them. Today, as the same dehumanising of Palestinians takes place in full view of the world, there is no hiding behind the famous post-war excuse, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst [We knew nothing about that].”
Yet many feel compelled to detach from the unending horror in Gaza. An online blogger writes about the genocide: “I cannot cope really. I stopped watching the news because I felt like I cannot really do anything.”
The Indian writer Arundhati Roy, speaking to the broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, says, “We reach for a glass of water while watching Gaza thirsting and facing death. We are forced to lead our daily lives, eat our food, go to school, have some moments of happiness, while we are watching this unfold in front of us.” She also warns that inaction could conversely lead to an attitude of “Hey, if they can do it, why not us?”
Detachment is no longer an option, even if it translates as raising one’s voice, as so many across the world have.
Dr Mahmoud Abu Najaula, who died in an Israeli airstrike on the hospital he worked at in Gaza, wrote on a whiteboard used for planning surgeries: “Whoever stays until the end will tell the story. We did what we could. Remember us.”
Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.
She may be reached at
durriyakazi1918@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, EOS, October 12th, 2025
