Armed conflict is a worldwidedozens of locationsIt is constantly unfolding in the One in six of the world's population (1.2 billion people) live in conflict-affected areas, and one in 100 people (More than 80 million people) are either refugees or internally displaced persons. In addition, one in ten people (More than 800 million people) are currently experiencing food shortages. Unimaginable humanitarian crises are being caused by armed conflicts in many countries.

In Japan, interest and concern about these conflicts and humanitarian crises by the media, government officials, experts, and public opinion islow (position)It can be said that these issues themselves are relatively rare to even appear in the discourse space of society. However, in February 2022, an event occurred that caused a surge of interest in Japanese society as a whole in a particular armed conflict and its humanitarian crisis. At the time of writing, the media and social networking sites are flooded with topics related to the horror and irrationality of conflict, the importance of peace, refugee measures, humanitarian crises, and humanitarian aid. The cause is Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and most of the attention is currently focused on this single conflict.

With so many armed conflicts and so many victims in the world, why is there such a sudden "humanitarian" concern for this conflict alone, and more specifically, why for the victims of this conflict alone? We will explore this issue primarily from the perspective of the press.

Demonstration in support of Ukraine, USA (Photo: Mike Maguire / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])

Overview of Humanitarian Crises Caused by Armed Conflict

First, focusing on human life, let's look at trends related to recent conflicts and the damage they have caused. The ACLED, a research organization that compiles statistics on political and other violencedataAccording to the "Mere Old Man," nearly 800,000 lives were lost to combat in the five-year period from 2017 to 2021. More than half of these occurred in Afghanistan (about 190,000), Yemen (about 120,000), and Syria (about 110,000). Conflicts with more than 10,000 deaths in the same period occurred in Iraq, Mexico, Nigeria, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Brazil, Myanmar, South Sudan, etc. As for the number of deaths from conflicts in the three months from January to March 2022 (*1), Myanmar (about 4,800) and Yemen (about 4,300), the conflict in Yemen is conspicuously high. The death toll from the current conflict in Ukraine is about half (about 2,300) of those conflicts (as of March 31, 2022).

However, various problems lurk in these ACLED figures. One is the problem related to the difference between the data presented by ACLED and the actual figures. Even though the data is extracted from a large number of data from reports by various news organizations and human rights groups, it is believed that there are actually many deaths that are not reflected in the ACLED data. For example, there are many data omissions from sub-Saharan Africa, where news organizations do not usually try to focus on, and from conflict areas that are physically difficult to accessoccurrenceThe possibility that the ACLED is not a reliable source of data on the number of people killed in armed conflicts is also considered. In addition, ACLED only counts the number of deaths due to combat, and its data do not reflect those who die of hunger or disease arising from armed conflict. Such indirect deaths are particularly common in low-income countries, where food shortages are more likely to occur and humanitarian assistance is inadequate. In conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, the number of indirect deaths is higher than the number of direct deaths.9 timesThe number is estimated to be as high as 1,000.Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire)shows that over the period 1998-2007, when indirect deaths are included, the number of deaths due to conflict was5.4 millionThis is the largest number of people in the world in the 70 years since the Korean War in the 1950s. This conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to this day.

The humanitarian damage caused by conflict cannot be measured only by the number of deaths. As mentioned above, many people have been forcibly displaced from their homes due to conflict and have become refugees and internally displaced persons, many of whom suffer from food shortages and starvation. In the DRC, for example, as of November 2021, the number of people suffering from food insecurity due to conflict will be a quarter of the population.27 millionThe number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Yemen has risen to 17.4 million, more than half of the population. In Yemen, where hunger is also a problem, 17.4 million people, more than half of the population, will be in need of humanitarian assistance in March 2022.

Internally displaced persons camp, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Photo: United Nations / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

Humanitarian" attention to specific conflicts

There are many things that can be done from areas far removed from the armed conflict. There are a variety of ways to "respond," including diplomatic measures such as mediation and sanctions, as well as the cancellation of harmful actions such as the import/export of resources that contribute to the conflict.

As described above, it is easy to imagine that as the damage caused by armed conflicts around the world becomes more devastating, it will be difficult to respond adequately to all of them. With limited budgets allocated by countries around the world for humanitarian and other assistance, priorities must be set in the policy-making process to determine recipients and amounts of aid.

However, in light of the current level of interest in "humanitarian" assistance and communications in Japan, it is clear that such assistance and communications are not based on the humanitarian needs of the recipient country. In Japan, while there has been little action in the form of humanitarian assistance or communications in response to large-scale humanitarian crises in Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other countries, for some reason, interest in Ukraine has been outstanding, and various actions are being taken by the government and citizens of Ukraine. The Japanese government's emergency assistance (for 2022) to Ukraine, by country, as of March 2022amount of supportis outstanding. In addition, the government, which has closed its doors to most refugees in the past, has suddenly taken a proactive stance to accept only Ukrainian refugees.

However, it is not only the central government that is taking a proactive approach. It is deciding to support Ukraine through its own initiatives.municipality, ,business, ,citizen's group, ,news organs, ,religious groupand others are appearing in various parts of Japan. In addition, a variety of localmonumentand ... andcastleand other tourist attractions are lit up in the colors of the Ukrainian flag as a message of support.

Public interest is also extremely strong. As of writing, the social networking site "#nowar"#stopwarHashtags with anti-war messages, such as "I'm a war hero," are popping up all over the place. In addition, a tool called Google Trends, which allows people to find out how much people are searching for certain words in search engines, has shown that "humanitarian aidand "nowarA search for keywords such as "the" shows an unusually high level of interest over the past five years, as shown in the figure below.

From Google Trends

Thus, while little attention has been paid in recent years to victims of conflicts in other parts of the world, there has been an unusually high level of interest in Ukraine.

Conflict and humanitarian reporting

While the central government may have various strategic, economic, and diplomatic agendas in dealing with the conflict, the media may also be behind the major moves by local governments, businesses, and even public opinion. In other words, as a result of the media's extensive coverage of the Ukraine issue and its sympathetic treatment of the victims, the perception of the issue's critical importance will become entrenched in various sectors of society.structureis conceivable.

Perhaps a detailed analysis of the volume of coverage is not necessary to demonstrate the huge imbalance between the current state of the humanitarian problem in the world as a whole and the image created by the actual reporting. As of writing, it is clear that the volume of Ukraine coverage in various newspapers, television (including news, commentary, and wide show programs), and Internet news outlets is an order of magnitude greater than the volume of other conflict-related coverage that has occurred in recent years. Helping to raise funds for Ukrainenews organsSome go beyond objective reporting and actively send out an anti-war message.news programHowever, it is worthwhile to check and compare the amount of coverage of conflicts in other countries. In this context, however, it would be valuable to check and compare the amount of coverage of conflicts in other countries in order to confirm the bias in Japan's coverage of such conflicts.

Therefore, we would like to compare the amount of media coverage of the Ukrainian conflict with that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been experiencing an enormous humanitarian crisis in recent years, and the conflict in Yemen, from several angles. There are similarities between these three conflicts. The latest phase of the Ukrainian conflict began with the sudden invasion of neighboring Russia in February 2022. Similarly, the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo began with the sudden invasion of neighboring Rwanda and Uganda in August 1998. Yemen also experienced a sudden airstrike and invasion by a coalition led by neighboring Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) a few months later in 2015, although the central government was toppled by rebels in 2014.

A bombed residential area, Yemen (Photo: Mr. Ibrahem / Wikimedia [CC BY-SA 4.0])

This time, we analyzed reports related to the above three conflicts in the Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun (*2). (*2) First, we searched for the number of articles in which the name of the country was mentioned. For the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Yemen, the number of articles covering the five-year period from the start of the invasion was counted, while for Ukraine, only articles covering the first month after the invasion were counted. Although the survey periods were different, the difference in the amount of coverage was clear. In particular, the Yomiuri Shimbun's one-month coverage of Ukraine (1,075 articles) was 2.5 times the number of articles on the conflict in Yemen over the past five years (395 articles) and four times the number of articles on the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the past five years (240 articles). To gauge the humanitarian perspective, we then searched for articles containing the country name and the keyword "humanitarian" for the same three countries. For the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Yemen, we took a broad view and looked at news coverage over the past 30 years, and for Ukraine, we looked at news coverage for about three months starting in January 2022. Again, a large difference was found: 140 articles in the three-month Asahi Shimbun coverage included "Ukraine" and "humanitarian," compared to 121 articles for "Yemen" and "humanitarian" and 22 for "Democratic Republic of the Congo" and "humanitarian" in the 30-year coverage.

Past GNV surveys of how underreported the Yemen conflict and the DRC conflict are are also evident from past GNV surveys. For example, a survey of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspapersurveyfound that a year's worth of Ukraine-related coverage in 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine over the Crimean Peninsula, was more than 10 times more than three years' worth of coverage on the Yemen conflict at the time. The report also targeted daily newspaperssurveyfound that the amount of coverage on Saudi Arabia's invasion of Yemen exceeded the amount of coverage on the 2018 Soccer World Cup and Saudi Arabia associated with the Yemeni intervention. for 2017 for the Asahi, Mainichi, and Yomiuri newspapers regarding the Democratic Republic of the Congo.surveyIn the Yomiuri Shimbun, coverage of the DRC was less than half that of the British Royal Family, and in the Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun, there was no significant difference in the amount of coverage of these issues.

However, this disparity in reporting is not limited to Ukraine; other European conflicts such as the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts in the 1990s were also reported from a more humanitarian perspective than conflicts in Africa, which are much larger than those conflicts in terms of scale (*4). Nor is it only reporting on conflicts that is disparate. Europe accounts for only a few percent of the world's total number of refugees and victims of terrorism, respectively,refugeesalso interrorismIn a past GNV article, a study also showed that the amount of coverage linking these issues to Europe is more than half of the total in theintroductionThe "Mere Old Man" was not the only one to do so. Even news reports on racial discrimination are dominated by coverage of issues that arise in the United States and Europe.

Rebel soldiers, Democratic Republic of Congo (Photo: Steve Evans / Flickr [CC BY-NC 2.0])

What is the deciding factor in whether or not to report?

From the above data, the contradiction is clear: human life is not the decisive factor in reporting on the "humanitarian problems" posed by armed conflict. It seems that the key question is not how many human beings are dying, but where and what kind of people are dying. But why is this so? Why is it that of all the world's conflicts, only the Ukrainians are considered worthy of our attention and sympathy?

First, security or political and economic interests would be one major factor. Russia, a party to the Ukrainian conflict, is a nuclear power of sorts and has territorial disputes with Japan. Also, Japan's ally and major power, the United States, is also in Ukraine.interventionThe U.S. itself has a strong responsibility and interest in the current conflict, which we believe has led to a high level of interest for the Japanese media as well.

From the start, the Japanese media has focused heavily on the U.S. and tends to side with the U.S. government. The Japanese media is highly critical of Russia's unilateral invasion of Ukraine, but extremely critical of the U.S. unilateral invasion of the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries.passiveThe first time the company was involved in the project, the company was not only a "good" company but also a "bad" one. Also,conflict reportingMoreover, it is also possible toGeneral International ReportingIn the "Japan's Media" section, we can see the tendency of the Japanese media to follow the priorities of the U.S. government and the U.S. media.

However, if interest in the conflict in Ukraine is simply based on ruthless interest, there is no need for the Japanese media to emphasize and report only on human suffering to draw sympathy for the victims. Why, then, is there so much "humanitarian" coverage? The U.S. government anddefense industryis trying to demonize Russia, which has become a hostile force in the pursuit of its national interests, and its cruelty to the media.appeal (to)This is one possibility. government officials to the media.affectis by no means an uncommon phenomenon. It is possible that such U.S. media coverage has had a significant impact on the agenda-setting of the Japanese media. However, it is not necessarily just the influence of the US government that tells this issue as a simple good/bad story. It is not limited to Japan, but it is also believed that profit-seeking commercial media outlets are adopting this kind of storyline in order to win viewership and subscriber numbers from the competition.

NATO press conference on the Ukraine issue (Photo: NATO / Flickr [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0])

However, this alone does not explain the high level of Japanese media attention to Ukraine. Part of the criteria for media coverage may include skin color, ethnic or religious affiliation, or socioeconomic status. In Western coverage of Ukraine, gaffes that emphasize the seriousness of the issue because the victims in Ukraine "look like" "us" aremultirecordJapan is a country that is historically and culturally very different from the rest of the world. In this regard, Japan is historically and culturally very different from other countries, and many people living in Japan do not share the same historical, ethnic, and religious values that Ukraine has walked through. However, it is believed that, as in the West, implicit priorities based on skin color and socioeconomic status are seen in the Japanese media. This is because the amount of coverage of low-income regions, including sub-Saharan Africa, in Japan's general international reporting isExtremely little.This is evident in light of the fact that In addition, some commentators seem to justify such racism through the media on the topic of this admission of Ukrainian refugees (*4).

Toward True Humanitarianism

In light of the above, it is doubtful that Japan's current actions against Ukraine deserve the term "humanitarian".Red CrossAccording to the "Humanitarian" definition, "Human life must be respected and those who are suffering must be saved regardless of whether they are friend or foe. While the act of helping those in need is naturally "saving" them, can the act of intentionally selecting a specific person or group of people and giving them limited assistance really be called humane?

The attention and sympathy being paid to Ukraine and its people this time around can be seen as the fact that human emotions can be stirred and moved by geographical distance, nationality, ethnic identity, and language used. In other words, interest can be heightened when information comes in about the suffering of people far from home. It is conceivable that the amount of coverage of Yemen and the Democratic Republic of the Congo could also touch the hearts of subscribers and viewers, depending on the amount of coverage and the way it is conveyed. We can only hope that humanitarianism will truly permeate society and the world, regardless of borders and skin color.

1 Due to the data release status, the period covered is from January 1, 2022 to March 25, 2022.

2 The Asahi Shimbun's Monzo II Visual and the Yomiuri Shimbun's Yomidas History Museum databases were used to search the national editions of the morning and evening newspapers.

3 Over the 30-year period from April 1993 to March 2022, there were 474 articles in which "Bosnia" and "humanitarian" were mentioned. The number of articles in which "Kosovo" and "humanitarian" were mentioned was 461.

4 In a program on NTV, In-Depth News (March 23, 2022), Michito Tsuruoka of Keio University made the following statement in response to this current situation. I think it is quite a sensitive issue. In the case of Syria in 2015, there were not only Syrians but also Afghans, and I think that Europeans treated them as people from different cultures. On the other hand, from the Polish point of view, Ukraine is a neighboring country, and from the point of view of Europe as a whole, they are European compatriots, and to put it bluntly, they look like us and are our compatriots. As a result, there is a very welcoming mood, or at least a very (unusual?) positive attitude toward acceptance and solidarity. I think that the result of this is a very welcoming mood, or at least a very (unusual?) positive attitude and show of solidarity in accepting the newcomers. If I just say this, you might ask whether Europeans are racist or not, or whether they would accept Europeans but not Middle Easterners. But the reality is that the number of people coming into the country is a function of how much the people are prepared to accept them. Of course, it is a norm that Syrians and Ukrainians should be treated equally, but when we consider the political reality and the reality of the people, we should not deny the fact that we are showing solidarity with Ukraine, even though this is still a problem. But when we consider the political reality and the reality of the people, I think that while this is a problem, we should not deny that we are showing solidarity with Ukraine.

Writer: Virgil Hawkins

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