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The Political Value of Worthy and Unworthy Victims

(One wounded Ukrainian versus 400 dead Palestinians)

Chronicle Herald: 20 March, 2025

It seems the wounding of a recent Ukrainian immigrant matters more to Canada’s mainstream press than the brutal deaths of over 400 Palestinian civilians in killed in Gaza by Israeli bullets, bombs and artillery since the so-called ceasefire was declared. The number of wounded and maimed is likely higher.

"Oksana Stepanenko fled the war in Ukraine without a scratch...but she was left with physical and emotional scars after she was shot [in the knee] by a pellet gun onboard an OC Transpo bus in an unprovoked attack in July 2024."

While Stepanenko’s wounding is a tragedy, I have to wonder why Post Media offered such extensive and sympathetic coverage of one person’s misfortune when tens of thousands of dead Palestinians are treated as anonymous statistics or dismissed as richly deserving their violent fate. Surely, desperate Gaza residents struggling to survive are not “provoking” anyone, unless of course, their stubborn presence represents a provocation to the callous plans and combined might of the Israeli and the U.S. governments.

Perhaps the concept of worthy versus unworthy victims will help us understand this stark discrepancy. Ukrainians (even the neo-Nazi militias) are resisting Putin, our latest official bogeyman, thereby making them worthy of support and praise. By comparison, Palestinian resistance to Israel, our ally, renders them unworthy and thus, disposable.

The awful cynicism of this time-tested concept in no way justifies its application or excuses the ingrained Orientalism that still animates the foreign policy of Canada and its allies.