More importantly, look at that book cover!
I think this book was set up to make me side with the operator. As someone who worked in a high-pressure work environment, it was obvious that her behaviour was a product of desensitisation from crisis fatigue. She was made to believe that to be emotional is to be ineffective.
So, yes, it was annoying… when they call you fifteen times to repeat exactly what you understood perfectly well the first time and when you’ve repeated exactly the same thing yourself fifteen times to them, but they don’t seem to have understood, you don’t need to be sarcastic about it.
The operator was determined that the world was seeing themselves in her, and that was her only fault. She should have been more empathetic even if it was just for show. She then condemned the public for their performative activism and that all their righteousness were just a self-soothing mechanism.
… to acknowledge an imaginary guilt founded on some judgement based on some moral percept or other, not on an article of law… because it’s not the voice of a monster or a criminal on the tape - it’s the voice of all of us.
Based on a true story, I was appalled to learn that the French actually waited for the dinghy to drift 1km so that the migrants would be beyond their border, and ultimately not their responsibility. Delecroix's writing unnerved me as they were largely disjointed and written in VERY LONG sentences. I was starting to think if the book was too abstract for me, that I cannot truly understand the philosophical purpose of it. Nevertheless, he executed this idea so well by writing it through the perspective of the operator instead of the migrant! Not everyone can ponder on the moral and ethical dilemma through the plight of the migrants, but I think everyone can do so in the standpoint of the operator.
Watch Dua Lipa and Vincent Delacroix talk about moral responsibility and our indifference for asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants alike.
