Why do I care? Why do you?

I was scolded last week for caring more about anonymous strangers on another continent than loved ones closed to home. Never mind by whom or context - not important. I feel it is important to point out that it's not true - I care a great deal about my friends & family, more than I do for "strangers" absolutely. But I don't see a measure of care as some finite resource I can only dole out so far nor does it have a fixed depth or quality. So, I DO care to a point about people I "don't know", and I'm rather engaged in what's going on around the world. I think the accusation came from someone else's own anxieties being projected on where my head was at the time. Like I said, context not that important. But the remark made me think, and led to this post. Why, exactly, do I care? Why do I feel that engagement?

I don't need to reiterate what's going on in Egypt. Turn on the news, open the Twitter feed, just listen - many better qualified than I to report and analyse the facts are doing so. I'm writing about why I feel something about it. On one level, the answer is, I care for the same reason I cared about Tienanmen Square, about Iran last year, about Haiti a year after the earthquake, about the ongoing struggles Afghanistan is having. That, I suppose, is just analogy, not reason. I think I care because I find it horrifying and appalling to think that in a world that should offer some basic securities to everyone that power-hungry abusers masquerading as "government" or fancying themselves some other entitled sort can still assault, abuse, torment and even murder their own citizens. And I find it relieving, exciting, and hopeful to see citizens claiming, reclaiming, reforming and recreating their democracies. So watching those two things happen in rapid alternation in Egypt draws me in to a bit of an emotional yo-yo.

Still, at the risk of sounding like a pesky toddler, my detached self-assessor brain looks back and me and says "Yeah, but WHY?". I think I have a few underlying reasons.

I like to think - hope -I'm at least somewhat empathetic, and I can be imaginative, not always in a good way. Honestly, watching and hearing about other people being hurt in a fight for something they (and I) believe is right, is distressing. It's human to try to put such stories into one's own context, so one absorbs a bit of it. I'm not sure I'd want to NOT be that way. I think it's better than not feeling anything at all over the conditions other humans are in when they're hurting. I'm not sure I'd be a good neighbour or fellow citizen if I didn't feel distressed at someone else's hurt, risk, and struggle for a value I also hold.

It also makes me think a bit about the family culture I grew up in and some awareness I think was ingrained in me from that. Growing up, I was the 3rd of 3 generations which included not-too-far removed relatives who served in military roles. I had great-uncles who served in WWII, my father was a US serviceman during the Vietnam years, an uncle has made a long and distinguished career with the Canadian Armed Forces and NATO. Another uncle travelled overseas to sometimes challenging areas as a foreign service worker. At least two cousins have seen military service in peacekeeping missions, one in Afghanistan. Though I've not had deep conversations with them on their experiences, I think I grew up knowing that my family in general valued democracy and freedom and included people who would travel far to fight for it or foster it. I also absorbed an awareness that those near and dear could still be very far away, and in dangerous places - as are many Canadians, and friends and families of Canadians, in Egypt right now. So it doesn't always feel like I care "about strangers". Someone over there could be someone I went to school with, could be a colleague, could be a friend of a friend or an acquaintance of a relative. Someone over there is fighting for much the same reason that soldiers fought in World Wars, fought Nazis, fought other despots and abusers, and I guess a small part of me feels I want to stand up for those values and feels a little helpless that I can just watch and listen and ... care.

I think a final reason that I care is that watching the collective citizenship of another country rise up to claim or reclaim their democracy makes me wonder, and want to analyze what goes on in my own version of that concept. Please spare me any comments along the lines of Canada has it so good, I should just shut up. I'm living right now with a government the behaviour of which has been concerning in its abuses of some of our processes for the partisan purposes of the minority government rather than the best interest of its citizens. I am privileged that I don't have to worry about the Prime Minister's personal police squad kicking down my door in the night. This does not mean I have no concern when a minority government concentrates police powers and supports them in using anonymity and brutal tools to assault protesters at the G20. This does not mean I have no care when policy decisions are made that are against the best interests of the most disadvantaged citizens. I think to see how far a citizen of another country has to go to claim what a Canadian takes to be a self-evident right makes me care more for the state of our own democracy and more that we do what we can and what we need to assure it is maintained. So, really, caring about "strangers" "far away" comes from caring about the nearest and dearest here at home, as well.