WHY would one murder be more important than another? One amongst thousands, with the prospects of millions facing starvation?

I refer to the alleged state-approved murder of Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian journalist and author, a former general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel.

He also served as editor for the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan, and was credited with transforming it into a platform for Saudi Arabian “progressives”.

Any of that, far less all of that, could have been provocation enough in the eyes of the Saudi rulers, but his continued media presence – print, social, TV – and his views and general “challenging” of Saudi politics would appear to have proved fatal.

But why did his murder spark such worldwide outrage? After all, the Middle East is awash with the victims of civil wars, internecine war, wars between one state and another, with or without the intervention from neighbours and world powers from further afield. Could it be that this one injustice, one amongst thousands, just might prove to be that seminal moment when humanity wakes up, looks in the mirror and doesn’t like what it sees?

The death and destruction of World War One didn’t appear to have left a lasting repugnance for war. From the genocide, camps, and the horrors of Word War Two we saw the establishment of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in Paris on December 10 1948 and regarded as a “common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations”.

It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally “protected” and to date has been translated into more than 500  languages.

Europe followed suit with the European Convention on Human Rights, an international treaty to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into force three years later in September 1953.

But we know that Europe has seen its own persecutions from then to now – Srebrenica springs to mind – and elsewhere: Palestine, Rwanda, Syria, the Rohingya.

It could be said atrocities are reported on by the media, but the media move on to something else, something new. So to those left behind, dead, dying broken, what use a Declaration or a Convention? Equally, what protection can we ever be assured of again in a building, any building, meant to offer sanctuary and safety?

The powerful and the strong create their declarations and conventions, then wring their hands and weep at the ongoing suffering of the poor, the marginalised, the unknown and nothing seems to change. So long as you have the so-called strong men, leading supposed democracies, elected under “democratic” processes – the likes of Trump, Orban, Putin, Bolsonaro accompanied by the autocrats of the Middle East – what hope is there?

It may be seen as a small gesture then, our First Minister accompanying schoolchildren to Auschwitz, remembering, trying to understand and comprehend. But if we all stand up today, tomorrow, in support of everyday people and the oppression they suffer, with or without media spotlight, and call it out where ever we find any form of tyranny, from politics to sport, from schools to offices to institutions, then perhaps there will be lasting change.

If not, from the individual to the community to the nation, who is safe?

Selma Rahman
Edinburgh