“The Israeli occupation forces demolished a school while it was in session and students were inside,” the head of Masafer Yatta’s local council, Nidal Younis, told Al Jazeera.
“They used sound bombs to scare the children and get them out of the school,” he added.
“This occupation targets everything – it targets our homes, education, our water, solar panels,” said Younis, the council head. “They think this will pressure people to leave so that they can displace them, so that they can ethnically cleanse Masafer Yatta.”
It is worth noting that not all problems are 100% socially constructed, and therefore this conception of justice is not always an option.
For example, you can strive to reduce disability stigma, and you can give the disabled better healthcare, but people with incurable denegenerative diseases who experience chronic pain and deteriorating health are still going to experience unfair suffering, and the only way to truly fully “remove the cause of the inequality” is to literally invent a miracle cure.
I’m reminded of that post talking about how X-Men is the perfect metaphor for leftist infighting, like that scene from the movie (was it X2? X3?) where Storm says “we don’t need a cure; there’s nothing wrong with us” to Rogue, the girl who literally can’t touch people without killing them.
I’m concerned people will look at this graphic and leave with the takeaway that pursuing equity is a waste of time, and the only thing that really matters is eradicating the root cause.
Because as important as it is to, for example, fund scientific research to find a cure chronic fatigue syndrome, it is just as important, perhaps more important, to make sure that, until such time as we are able to discover that cure, we ensure people with chronic fatigue syndrome are getting as much support as it is possible to give them.
My point is, it’s not a matter of equity vs. justice. Pursuing justice is not better and more ethical than pursuing equity.
We need to work towards solving the root problem, but that can take a really long time, time people who are suffering don’t necessarily have, so we also need to improve quality of life for people who can’t afford to wait that long.
We need equity AND justice. We need to strive for BOTH.
