Let’s stop clutching our pearls at headlines. ‘More than 40 civilians killed in a hospital attack’? Yawn. It will trend for twelve seconds on Western Twitter, punctuate a few stern statements from NGOs, and that’s it—the world shrugs and moves on. But here’s the blood-chilling truth: you, me, and our comfortable societies are accessories to these murders.

We love humanitarian outrage as long as it’s distant, consumable content. Are we really surprised that a hospital—supposedly sacrosanct, protected by international law—gets bombed, burned, and bulldozed in Sudan? This is not an act of unpredictable evil. This is the direct result of a world order built on spectacular hypocrisy. We peddle slogans about humanity while quietly cutting deals, selling arms, and propping up regimes whose atrocities feed our supply chains and data streams.

Consider this: your government probably had a say in who has the power—and the weapons—in Sudan. Your brands cupped their ears when Sudanese activists begged for attention. The UN’s crocodile tears? They dry up the moment oil, minerals, or a more ‘strategic’ crisis needs the next press release.

But Western voters aren’t innocent. We laser-focus on issues that flatter our egos or fit TikTok aesthetics, while hospitals fill with shrapnel-punctured bodies halfway across the globe. We won’t even demand cuts to arms exports from our own economies—not when they provide jobs and stock buybacks. Our best defense is to change the channel, switch tabs, and let the outrage burn out while we wait for the next palatable tragedy.

If you’re outraged, good. You should be. But the fiercest question is not ‘How could they do this?’—it’s ‘Why do we let them?’ And what are you willing to sacrifice beyond rage tweets and hashtag empathy?

Read this before you move on: you cannot wash your hands with the same water Sudanese hospitals need to save lives. So what do you do next?

This article was inspired by the headline: 'WHO says attack on Sudanese hospital killed more than 40 civilians'.