Sleepwalking Through Fire: A World of Conflict Consumers
- Frazer Macdonald Hay
- Jun 17
- 4 min read
We are sleepwalking through geopolitical mayhem.
Each morning, we scroll through horror in high definition bullet wounds, collapsed buildings, bloated bodies on parched riverbanks with all the detachment of checking the weather. We shake our heads over breakfast, muttering clichés: “It’s awful,” “It’s complicated,” “The world’s gone mad.” And then we move on. Our coffee cools. Our feeds refresh.
We have become a society of conflict consumers, reactive at best, voyeuristic at worst. War is spectacle. Famine is content. Our empathy lasts until the next notification. Meanwhile, the world burns.
We wear apathy like a second skin, not because we don’t know what’s happening but because we do, and we have chosen detachment. Distraction is the new moral compass. We are guided by baby reins of curated rage, identity algorithms, and aesthetic rebellion. We are no longer citizens of a world in crisis, we are spectators. Influencers. Speculators. Bystanders with opinions, and little else.
Look around.
Sudan is starving.
More than 25 million people — nearly half the country’s population — need humanitarian assistance. Over 8 million are internally displaced. Tens of thousands have died from violence, starvation, and disease in Khartoum state alone. A catastrophic civil war rages in near silence.
Ukraine bleeds daily.
Russia’s military casualties reportedly exceed 790,000. Ukraine’s losses top 400,000. Over 10 million people are displaced. Cities are razed, families shattered, futures lost. And the war grinds on.
Gaza burns.
A genocide is unfolding. Thousands of civilians dead. Whole neighborhoods flattened. Families buried under rubble. Settler land grabs. Blockades. Famine. State impunity. The language of human rights twisted into justification for mass suffering.
And still, the world convulses.
Iran and Israel trade missiles in the skies. The U.S. seethes in internal unrest. Pakistan and India eye one another warily. Myanmar descends deeper into chaos. Conflicts spread across Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, Congo, Syria, Cameroon, Yemen, Haiti, and Mexico.
We are not witnessing a world at war. We are inhabiting it pretending it’s happening somewhere else.
And while this chaos unfolds, the international systems that once held a flicker of moral ambition are being hollowed out. Years of peacebuilding, negotiation, humanitarian architecture, all dismantled at the altar of defense budgets, short-term elections, and national insecurity. Aid is cut to pay for bombs. Diplomacy is mocked as weakness. Goodwill is squandered. Memory erased.
We tell ourselves we are informed. But we are anaesthetised. We think awareness is action. It is not. We think performance is conscience. It is not.
There was a time when we believed in moral navigation. That justice was more than branding. That citizenship meant responsibility, not consumption. That solidarity extended beyond borders.
Now?
We have outsourced truth to trending topics. We wear slogans of justice, but wince at the responsibility they demand.We condemn terror, but excuse apartheid. We cry for hostages, but ignore collective punishment. We denounce genocide until it’s politically inconvenient to name it.
This is a world designed to distract. Sport, fashion, alcohol, celebrity gossip, doom-scrolling, binge-watching, not inherently wrong, but when used to blur reality, they become complicit. Comfort is the new censorship. Distraction is the new denial.
Reclaiming the Everyday Vote
So what do we do?
We stop waiting.
Stop waiting for the next election cycle to grant you the illusion of agency.Mainstream politics is designed to manage your frustration, not resolve it, to give you just enough choice to keep you docile. It’s a rigged calendar of participation.
Instead, vote every day.
Every small act is a ballot:– Shall I speak to the new neighbour? Vote YES.
Shall I welcome the stranger at the school gate? Vote YES.
Shall I rage at the driver who cut me up? Vote NO.
Shall I vent online, feed the algorithm, stir the pot? Vote NO. Vote curiosity. Vote tolerance.
this is where peace begins — in your home, your street, your WhatsApp group, your local café. In the way you choose to show up, or not.
Take ownership. Recognise your manipulation by media, by ministry, by marketing. Resist the pull of polarized thinking. Avoid those who peddle only one perspective while damning all others. They're not leaders, they are merchants of division.
Don’t fear conflict. It is deeply human. What is not human is violence. Learn to deal with conflict at the everyday scale. Practice it. Get uncomfortable. Hold your ground, but stay calm. Be honest. Assume people carry unseen wounds into every encounter. Some baggage is generational. Be mindful, not naive.
There is no absolute. Flaws are teachers. Humility is strength. Certainty is often a costume for fear.
This is not about perfection. It’s about rejecting ignorance — the silent plague of our age — and choosing to be awake.
Because if we don’t take ownership of our own capacity for good, someone else will exploit our capacity for indifference.
Wake up.
Vote every day. Reclaim the future.
