Individual And Corporate Responsibility In Genocidal Times

Over the last three months, we have borne witness to Palestinian men carrying the shredded pieces of their relatives’ bodies with their bare hands, mothers crying over their children’s dead remains, and caught sight of bodies being buried in mass graves. If one was not familiar with the image of a skull crushed under the rubble or had not looked at steel torn through human flesh prior to October 7, it is likely that they have an intimate relationship with such sights today. But this is Gaza. We have not yet spoken of images of 6-year old boys mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo nor have we spoken of images of famine in Sudan. These times of bloodshed are the ultimate test to our ability to resist apathy, to be present to pain, to deny the possibility of an eroding humanity. And, in the grand likelihood that this is the most important call of our times, we must rise to the capacity for morality that it demands of us. 

As we enter 2024, the International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Watchlist presents Gaza as the deadliest place for civilians in the world. On October 7, 2023, Israeli forces began airstrikes and ground operations following a ground incursion and rocket barrage on southern Israel by Palestinian armed groups in resistance to the Occupied Palestinian Territory’s brutal military siege. What ensued has been unrelenting bombardment and attacks. On October 19, Israeli airstrikes damaged part of the Greek Orthodox church of Saint Porphyrius, a church thought to be the third-oldest in the world. Then, on October 31, further airstrikes flattened buildings and devastated parts of the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza. Today, on the 84th day of the Israeli attack on Gaza, the 22,000 air strikes confirmed to have been launched by the Israeli military have killed nearly 30,000 and left over 56,122 others injured, according to reports by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. Entire neighborhoods have been decimated, schools have been targeted, hospitals have been invaded, and cultural heritage sites have been deliberately destroyed. Experts say that, in just over two months of bombardment, Gaza’s destruction surpasses that of Syria’s Aleppo, Ukraine’s Mariupol, and, proportionally, WWII Allied Forces’ bombing of Germany. Robert Pape, a U.S. military historian, refers to Gaza as “one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” which, as poignant as it may be, is a statement that does not even begin to depict the nature of the atrocities going on in Gaza. 

There, there is genocide and the impending threat of the decimation of an entire people. And, in Sudan, there is an escalating war after fighting erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The International Rescue Committee reports that over 5.1 million people have been internally displaced since and 24.8 million others are in need of humanitarian aid, rendering Sudan the world’s largest displacement crisis. The country faces limited prospects for an end to the conflict as human rights groups warn of a risk of genocide in the western Darfur region following mass killings and as the conflict exposes millions to food insecurity. Still, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 24.4 million people are expected to be in humanitarian need in 2024 due to mining expansion, climate shocks, political tensions, and persistent disease outbreaks.  And this is but a few of the world’s regions that are ravaged by conflict, apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and natural disasters.

In the face of such mass tragedy, one may easily be overtaken by apathy or curl up under the weight of despair. The first reaction forgoes the opportunity to be attuned to pain’s lessons and the second forgets that stoicism is no savior, that stillness will not save us. In the end, the moral mandate to intervene means that we cannot afford either one of those options. As author Cole Arthur Wiley expresses, we must protect the part of us that still winces at pain. We must let it move us to action and insist on protecting personhood, livelihood, and human dignity in an aching world. Advocates for liberation have pointed to the fact that individual actions may include donating to on-the ground organizations, educating oneself via trusted outlets, attending protests, and contacting elected officials— all of which directly challenge oppressive systems and none of which succumb to the threat of numbness. 

Yet, we commit a grave mistake when we limit engagement to individual action. In a world where capitalist profit-incentives have ripple effects for stakeholders across the international system, corporations sometimes have both a stake in sustaining oppression and a moral responsibility to remedying its harms. Corporate action that has taken a strong moral stance on human rights issues or resisted oppressive systems has historical precedence. Notably, during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in the United States, companies like Coca-Cola and IBM stood alongside civil rights leaders to oppose racial segregation and discrimination. If we cannot afford either apathy or despair on the part of individuals, we certainly cannot afford our corporations being devoid of a moral conscience during genocidal times. This moral mandate dictates that where businesses have the power to foster a sense of urgency for diplomatic solutions, they have a social responsibility to do so. And, perhaps most importantly, that where they have the power to gather international attention to human rights abuses, they also have a social responsibility to do so. Corporate social responsibility principles remind us that major corporations have a role to play in contributing to a just and equitable world. Arguably chief among businesses that have been vocal about various social and political issues is Ben & Jerry’s, a manufacturer of ice cream which stopped sales in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for ethical reasons. The company’s website reads “we love making ice cream but using our business to make the world a better place gives our work its meaning,”  a statement that encapsulated what it means to be a values-led company.

In such times, corporate engagement is four-pronged. First, corporations must dissolve the idea of business-as-usual because their can be no claim for normalcy when genocide is occurring in real-time in the world. Second, business ties with oppressive parties must cease or be reduced. In the case of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, any financial support to Israeli institutions delays Palestinian liberation. Third, corporations must collectively demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, thus remembering that today’s victims could have been saved by yesterday’s ceasefire. Lastly, corporations’ commitment to ethical principles should be visible, consistent, and unwavering through public shows of solidarity. Ultimately, corporate social responsibility renders socially responsible business desirable not just for its ethical principles, but because it is good business in and of itself. 

Toni Morrison once wrote “this is precisely the time when artists go to work,” adding, “there is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. This is how civilizations heal.” At a time where she could not possibly foresee the extent of the horrors we bear witness to today, she still left us with a powerful suggestion: we must all go on and be artists, architects, artisans of a more humane future— precisely because this is our omnipresent moral responsibility.