What is humanity for?

By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilisations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence,” said the American political scientist Samuel Huntington.

The unconditional support the west grants to the Israeli colonisers, the shameful silence of the rest of the world, and the glaring ineffectiveness of the UN organisations have collectively led to unanimous failure in the humanity test beyond words.  What is the  benefit of impressive technological advances, revolutionary plans for space exploration, relentless fight for diversity, inclusion and equality of minorities  if humanity leaves some poor, armless, trapped people facing genocide without doing the least to save them? In fact,  humanity is letting down itself and shattering all hopes for a moral comeback . What is left then? 

Iconic photo 

Among thousands of horrific photos coming out of Gaza stands the photo of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director  of Kamal Adwan hospital, walking among the rubble of the fully-destroyed northern  Gaza on his way to the Israeli tanks before his detention. The doctor went wearing the medical uniform, the white coat, leaving the last-functioning hospital in northern Gaza in ruins. The hospital was  a healthcare lifeline for refugee camps there  and was under siege and bombardment by Israeli forces for 80 days. It seems that the occupation army is targeting everyone: children, women, the elderly, medical staff, patients, journalists, animals, the habitats, building, facilities, among others. 

A semiotic analysis 

Analyzing the tragic photo, using Kress and van Leeuwen’s theory of visual semiotics would shed more light on loads of meanings created by the visual elements of the photo and their arrangement. The theory suggests that visual texts, like photos, convey  meaning through three simultaneous functions or meanings: representational, interpersonal and compositional. 

Representational meaning

It describes what is there in the photo. In other words, what story the photo tells. In this context, the visual entities or signs which compose the setting and embody the overwhelming tragic drama there include: the Palestinian hospital manager, the hero or the story, the setting, the fully-destroyed surrounding, the Israeli tanks, and the medical uniform, which signifies the doctor’s professional commitment to saving lives to the very last minute. 

The narrative of the photo revolves around an action  and circumstance process; the hospital director struggles to find his way amidst the rubble to the attackers, and the colonisers who have kept bombarding the hospital for months until they put it out of service and the lives of thousands of people at risk. The process here is transactional: the doctor is looking at the tanks and the soldiers via a vector and they gaze back in a bidirectional process where each party is  simultaneously an actor, an initiator and a reactor or a goal of another action (technically termed a conversion process). The narrative also includes the mental process that entails what might have crossed the minds of the participants: the doctor must have thought of  the hospital in ruins, and the people who no longer have access to any kind of healthcare, shelter, water, food, solidarity, or real pressure for an immediate ceasefire.

Interpersonal meaning 

The photographer is employing the “offer” technique. Participants do not look at the viewers. They are depicted as information items, telling us the story of the photo without directly addressing us as viewers. We are supposed to receive such information about the dire situation in Gaza, rush to save innocent lives there and press for an end to this mad war. We are supposed to act mercifully as humans, throwing a lifeline to our trapped, poor, endangered fellow humans.  Furthermore, the angle of photographing is high-vertical, which indicates the massive destruction of the place and the doctor’s inability to navigate his way through a such an appalling situation.

The long shot shows that the participants, namely the doctor and the soldiers on the tanks are strangers or enemies. The distance maintained  between the participants in the photo speaks loudly about the superiority and power of the  armed-to-the-teeth soldiers and the armless, powerless and resilient doctor, who is ordered to walk to the troops among houses and cars reduced to rubble.  

The oblique angle of the photo does not show the faces of the participants. This intensifies the tense, prevailing hostile atmosphere. Moreover, the photo  captures the juxtaposition of the medical uniform with the destroyed city and military presence, which creates a sense of confinement, danger, resilience, sacrifice, and the clash between humanitarian values and military aggression.

Compositional meaning 

It deals with how and why the visual  signs of the photo are arranged or framed.  The photo is a high angle shot, the camera looks down at the scene from above for a wider and higher perspective; it provides an overview of the scene, the setting. The doctor is photographed in a small size, the tanks are bigger and mightier, the destroyed houses are literally and metaphorically the biggest in size, dominating the space, and speaking the loudest about the overwhelming feeling of loneliness, the collapse of power and despair. In addition, the oblique angle of the photo shows that the participants are presented as strangers. 

What information value does the photo project?  First, information is conveyed by the compositional structures of the photographed participants: Dr Abu-Safiya, the tanks, the soldiers, the destroyed houses, etc. The doctor is positioned in the centre of the photo, the tanks and the houses are on the margins. This indicates the predicament of the man in humanitarian duty uniform, who’s left alone facing the military and forced to leave his duty because there is no longer a place nor people, only complete destruction, powerlessness and death hovering around.

Second, most probably, the photo is taken by a local. According to western traditions of image making, the left side illustrates the old, known information, while the right side conveys the new one. Here the tanks, on the left, are by default there to attack, kill, blast and destroy. The houses, on both sides are in ruins as a consequence of intensifying shilling. 

Third, the white coat which symbolises purity, peace, empathy, volunteering and life saving is  engulfed by destruction, lifeless, horrific  setting, no homes, no plants, no animals, no people, nothing but a wasteland. It also symbolises the doctor’s  relentlessness about upholding  professional and moral commitments and duties in the face of adversity. The tragic scene is that hospitals, patients, medical staff must be protected, according to international and humanitarian laws. What a contrast!  No other colours in the photo except for the gloomy, dark gray, only creating a dystopian world! 

In fact, Western civilisation has always presented itself as the ideal model of values and philosophies, the power of science and technology, democracy, freedom, human and animal rights, and environmental awareness. However, it soon turned out that the world had become a victim of the principles of this model. People are ruthlessly exploited, trafficked, abandoned, killed, abused, and deprived of all rights.

History is full of narratives that have dominated literature, culture, education and the media systematically depicting the white Western man as brave, virtuous, enlightened, whereas the others  are dehumanised and perceived as mob or animals, justifying their killing, enslavement and exploitation. Being the victors, the west wrote history according to  their interests and imposed their narrative via soft and rough power. 

The horrific genocidal acts and ethnic cleansing many peoples have been subjected to, including Native Americans, the indigenous peoples of Australia, Africa and Asia and, currently, Gaza, reveal the dark sides of Western civilisation, the  unquenched thirst for bloodshed without conscience. The human predicament in Gaza has violently and ruthlessly rocked humanity like never before. It has never crossed one’s mind that one day in the third  millennia, we watch genocidal acts unfolding, and turning our back to the victims. It’s a nightmare. It’s the law of the jungle.  

It has become crystal clear the inability of Western civilisation  to change its entrenched ideology and world-view which are based on control, exploitation and supremacy. Therefore, it is imperative for the world to seek new paradigms and diverse models of human experience that ensure the respect and protection of all societies, regardless of their lifestyles, ideologies and cultures. 

Let us stand together with and for humanity. Let us give hope to future generations that the world is not that evil , and that good has a place on earth. Let us stand fearlessly with the powerless, the oppressed, and the victims, who are struggling to stay in their ancestral homelands. Let us listen  to their cry and help; they deserve our solidarity and genuine support to end their plight and their suffering. Otherwise, what is humanity for?

By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban

Professor of linguistics

Faculty of Arts 

Kafr el-sheikh University

Email: [email protected]