A Manifesto that explores the crisis of hope and moral complacency in response to collective violence. Author: Isra Isse

Silence is a hidden threat, it buries sorrows under rubble, it does not shriek or explode. It is what a massacre sounds like, fading sufferings, vanishing every time we do not speak. The desensitisation of global brutality has become as effortlessly as glancing away, holding sufferings in our pockets, doom scrolling to the next affairs; has this detached nature created a sorrow and despair society? Or have we become disconnected and unaware of the hostilities that lie beyond the sanctuaries of our homes, even in this digital age? A recent report conducted by the World Health Organisation, found that the health care system within Gaza was at it’s “breaking point” with half a million people experiencing “catastrophic” levels of hunger, power, and fuel shortages (World 2025).Have we become overpowered by the external exposures and reports of global violence. Are we left experiencing a sense of exhausted morale? Or have we become accustomed with the brutalities of the world. The destruction and fatalities within Gaza are a current depiction of the complacency towards collective violence and our social state of despair. Therefore, we must turn to hope as a power of resistance: a means to challenge societal norms, to sustain the moral frameworks. It acts as a direct and intimate reaction when confronted with conflict.

Despair is neither a personal nor natural emotion that is detached from the reality, rather it stems from historical and political frameworks. Therefore, the unrest that collective violence breeds is a socially constructed state. As outlined by Khalid (2017), who examined the ongoing conflict in Palestine through a historical lens, uncovering how colonial violence produced social despair through the continuous neglect of humanity and justice. This insight signifies how power structures assert authority through prolonged suffering, causing a collective moral fragility. This social production of despair calls for scrutiny; it seeps into our daily lives, intertwining within the fabrics of our daily routines, it constrains our speech, thinking, actions and relations (Das 2007, p.7). This further underscores that ongoing conflicts transform and hinder our lives. Brutalities become part of our ordinary being; sufferings become the inevitable and silence becomes an endurance. Complacency is thus a disease in our midst, condoning genocides and oppression, it wipes out nations. Too often, we associate reposting and liking posts on humanitarian crises as a form of global solidarity, doing our part in society. This however can be performative. Online compassion whilst it might feel reassuring and offers a peace of mind, it does nothing without reshaping structures. This is not hope, rather an illusion, a deception that feels like action. As highlighted by Berlant (2011) our societies are embedded with cruel optimisms, an attachment to idealisations, that withhold us, keeping us in vicious cycles.

Whereas despair is a socially produced condition that functions through ongoing historical structures of power, that reinforce the dehumanisation and neutrality of society, hope must become its defiance, it must be reawakened. This hope requires actions, it shifts away from the conventional hope of blind optimism and belief without productivity. It demands presence and alertness in the face of danger, listening and watching whilst the world turns its back. Characterised as “worldly hope” (Back 2021, p.8), it is an ethical and collective practice, that perseveres moral vigilance amid social despair. Hope rooted in the attentiveness of humane acts, involves a moral devotion and act of political persistence that work closely to rebuild social bonds and withstand adversities. This stamina grounded in hope makes it crucial in times of crisis; it has the ability to persist when confronted with calamities and the possible unknown. Cuervo and Cook (2019), outline this practice of hope as a “psychosocial resource” (p.2) and a “constitutive agency” (p.3), driven by its focus on the current, and not the promising future, it operates as a last resort in critical environments.

The sufferings and turmoil in Gaza uncover a tragedy of injustice, an imbedded routine of despair and impartiality that enables the conflict and unrest as ordinary life. This disregard of humanity is not of a natural occurrence or unawareness, rather its nurtured through the dominance of   political and historical frameworks (Khalidi 2017). The sole reason these structures have endured over time is that they have infected our perception of the ordinary; in doing so they have not only weakened our sense of morality but have also allowed despair to become our only answer (Das 2007).

Through sociological imagination we find a path to challenge this inevitability of despair. Hope is not rooted in the prospects of the future or in blind faith, it functions through the continuous attentiveness of ethical and moral practises (Back 2021). We must however take great consideration, whilst emotions of compassion and empathy are crucial in upholding our moral principles, they can be tokenistic acts, ineffective of transforming or creating change (Berlant, 2011).

Knowing violence is wrong is not enough. We must work together to transform our structures. To rebuild and restore our morality into our everyday life, inhabiting a collective political framework rooted on hope. In doing so, we do not deny the pain and sufferings of collective violence; we instil responsibility, not only by seeing but by acting. Offering a clear and decisive response; the refusal of complicity in the face of brutality and the dehumanisation of violence. The reframing of hope as a collective practice allows us to be committed, involved and proactive in our approach, detaching from optimism and passivity.

It calls for justice, to reimagine, to work, to reclaim our thoughts of being, to challenge the norms. To see despair as a social condition that infects us all. To reject this, is to be complicit, not as a neutral stance, but in enabling systems of violence.

References

Back, L. 2021. Hope’s Work. Antipode 53(1), pp. 3–20. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12644[Accessed: 19 October 2025].

Berlant, L. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.

Cuervo, H. and Cook, J. 2019. In Defence of Hope: Towards a sociology of hope in crisis times. The Sociological Review Magazine. Available at: https://thesociologicalreview.org/collections/guest-essays/in-defence-of-hope/  [Accessed: 21 October 2025].

Khalidi, R.I. 2017. Historical Landmarks in the Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Journal of Palestine Studies 47(1), pp. 6–17. Available at: https://www-tandfonline-com.cardiff.idm.oclc.org/doi/abs/10.1525/jps.2017.47.1.6 [Accessed: 26 October 2025].

Veena Das. 2007. Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. Berkeley: University of California Press.

World. 2025. Health system at breaking point as hostilities further intensify in Gaza, WHO warns. Available at: https://www.who.int/news/item/22-05-2025-health-system-at-breaking-point-as-hostilities-further-intensify–who-warns [Accessed: 17 October 2025].