Brussels suffered the largest terrorist attack last month. The death toll of 35 people is still rising. The disgusting photos of the blood spattered men, women and children will be engraved upon the minds of the citizens of Belgium forever.
Some of the impacts include the shutdown of the airport for two weeks, which is causing a problem for transportation and the economy and tourism projected to be at an all-time low because of the fearful populous.
I feel for the people of Belgium. I am disgusted by the bodies, the blood, and the violence. But I have one problem with this post. I lied to you in the opening paragraph.
I said Brussels was “the largest terrorist attack last month.” 35 deaths are a drop in the bucket. Lahore was attacked with 70 victims. An Iraqi soccer stadium had a death toll of 45. Bombings are occurring in Turkey by the PKK weekly. I doubt half of you heard of the other attacks, but, if I were a betting man, I would bet all of you, or nearly all of you, heard of Belgium’s attacks.
Today in the New York Times there was an opinion article “In Death, Some More Equal Than Others” that focused on this exact issue. Richard Greenberg wrote the question in the article “Why did the N.Y.T. devote so much less coverage to the Ivory Coast terror attack from just last week, in which 16 people were killed, including both Africans and Europeans?” Death is not equal.
We remember Paris, Brussels, and California. But we forget Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan. The New York Times article “Where ISIS has Directed and Inspired Attacks Around the World” updated on March 22, has the death toll from ISIS at around 1000 civilians outside of Syria and Iraq. The three attacks mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph are a mere blip on the aggregate of bombing deaths caused by ONE militant group since January 2015.
In regards to these happenings, I have always thought of media coverage of death from an economical and militaristic sense. The United States supports our friends, trading partners, and military allies. But, with recent events across the world, I find it funny we “forget” to even mention the country we used to occupy (Iraq). I find it funny we forget about the bombings in Ankara, but our President said “I want to be very clear: Turkey is a NATO Ally. Along with our allies, the United States supports Turkey’s right to defend itself and its airspace and its territory. And we’re very much committed to Turkey’s security and its sovereignty. “
The bias of death is overwhelming in the news and our culture. The people of the United States need to wake up and see the atrocities of this world in an equal setting.
One problem to this equality of death idea is the overwhelming time that would need to be dedicated to the coverage of these atrocities, which may ultimately create media sensationalism. Another caveat is the lack of care of Americans for “those people,” “the Muslims,” “towel heads” or the like. Maybe our lack of global empathy needs to be reconsidered. Regardless, the NYT article opens the door to the bias of death omnipresent in our media.
Thoughts?
A final note:
To overcome this bias, I suggest NOT subscribing to American media. I read CNN for business news (coupled with the Wallstreet Journal), but I avoid it on most other topics. I love BBC and Aljazeera due to the reporting of other locations that American media outle
thereisnopeak.com 