And to think two days ago the thing the world cared the most about was Starbucks cups.
Paris
- Thread starter 13thforsworn
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"Guys, guys, jihadists have committed a brutal, highly coordinated terrorist attack against a bunch of civilians!"
"So?"
"No, no, this time the targets were affluent Westerners rather than poor brown Muslims!"
"WHAT? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE VICTIMS, WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END?! #CRYINGRIGHTNOW"
"So?"
"No, no, this time the targets were affluent Westerners rather than poor brown Muslims!"
"WHAT? THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE VICTIMS, WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END?! #CRYINGRIGHTNOW"
There's some truth to that. Mind you, it's also not the first time the unexpectedness of something happening made it all the more shocking. To my recollection, nobody complained that it was big news for a long while when ISIS first started bombing Arabs. On the other hand, it took less than a full day for people to start bitching that we were paying too much attention to French people.
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I am, of course, not trying to minimize the tragedy or imply that people shouldn't care about senseless acts of extreme violence. It just seems that geography matters more than scale in how much people care about the death of innocent noncombatants. As seen by the fact that people are actually comparing this to 9/11, when there have been terrorist attacks this year that have a higher death toll than Paris.
Yes, but you have to admit there's a lot more novelty, at this point in time, to IS bombing a Western nation. We don't notice attacks in the Middle East anymore because so many had already happened over the past (pick a number) years, but an attack on France is news. The eyes of the world were on ISIS when it first started with the looting and pillaging, because back then the news was that "this problem exists. Maybe something should be done." That situation wasn't changed by IS(__) doing exactly what they were expected to do over subsequent attacks, so yes, people adapted to and tuned out reports of further attacks, but this one really isn't just different because (probably) most of the victims were white. It's different because the situation now changes from "this problem exists," to "this problem exists, and it could be our problem too."
France is a bigger deal because, unlike Iraq, Syria, and other places in the Middle East, it's nowhere near the centre of ISIS's power. France is also a lot more secure and militarily powerful than any nation bordering ISIS, making an already-major attack more meaningful because it's a sort of "It could happen to anyone" thing. It pretty well goes without saying that it's easier to massacre civilians in your own territory than it is in other countries, particularly when those other countries are well-defended and lie three thousand kilometres away.
Are you really that surprised that people in the West care more about terrorists killing "us", rather than "poor brown Muslims" killing "each other"?
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The attack might be atypical, but I don't see how that somehow makes it more reprehensible.
It's just spitting in the face of all of the Syrian and Iraqi victims by telling them their suffering doesn't matter as much as that of Parisians because they were unfortunate enough to be born near the walking, talking stain on the Earth that is known as the Islamic State.
I wouldn't say "surprised". Maybe "mildly indignant", though that's still a little too strongly worded. I appreciate that people are outraged about something that isn't completely inane (i.e., coffee cups).
Who's saying it's more reprehensible? That's an implication you attached to the fact that, at this point in time, people are talking about it more. That's's the wrong approach. Activism isn't a competition, and sympathy isn't a zero-sum game. Showing opposition to people getting bombed in Paris doesn't diminish the opposition to people getting bombed in Syria and Iraq.
It's just like what others have said, the western world is reacting more to Paris being attacked because it's part of the western world. Paris is "us" so to speak. I'd really appreciate it if all of the earth was "us" but the truth is that this isn't the case. I don't like it and I want it to change, but it's the way things are as of this moment in time.
I wish we could look at another human being killed and think that it's as if we're being killed, but we're still a few hundred years or more off from that actually being the case.
I wish we could look at another human being killed and think that it's as if we're being killed, but we're still a few hundred years or more off from that actually being the case.
This isn't a criticism, but that's a pretty optimistic perspective. I hope it happens but I'm not sure we'll ever get there.
I was just having an argument about this kind of thing a couple nights ago. I mentioned that I think Europe as a whole should accept the estimated 4 million Syrian refugees and work to suitably disperse them across the EU in particular (because open borders). My right wing extremist, liberal, and moderate conservative coworkers all disagreed with me, arguing that accepting them would increase terrorism. One of them in particular cited a 2008 study showing that a 1% rise in refugee population increases terrorism in the host country by 18%*. I contended that such a statistic is mostly irrelevant, because turning them away would condemn more of them to death than accepting them in would condemn Europeans to death**. Lives are lives, and outside of people I actually know I hold no biases towards the lives of one group or another.
*I looked up this study and it also showed that humanitarian aid from the UNHCR actually reduces this increase in terrorism, which incidentally refuted the other point being made against me of "humanitarian aid organizations don't actually help." Study here if anyone is actually interested. There is still a net increase of terrorism according to the study, but increasing humanitarian aid would further reduce this net increase. The author also basically suggested "Do something about the refugee generating crisis, you dumb ass" which is an almost universally agreed upon thing that no one seems to be able to do.
**Unless you can math that and show that isn't the case. Though the huge resistance to developed countries accepting refugees, who are often of an already discriminated against ethnic group in the host country if they ever do get into the country, likely accounts for a very large chunk of the 18% increase in terrorism, so accepting them less reluctantly (as in accepting them all rather than applying absurd limitations and quotas to them) would likely alter this relationship. And while I'd have to review the data, I seriously doubt any of the data is on that scale, and the correlation of the percentage increase in population to percentage increase in terrorism is not necessarily going to remain linear as that percentage increase in population gets very large. I would expect it to level out somewhere, though I'm not a demographer, statistician, or political scientist.
tl;dr version: I say accept them because lives are lives, my coworkers all said "but terrorism", I said "but we'd save more lives on balance", and my coworkers continued to say "terrorism"
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All great points, as always.
It's a pretty funny juxtaposition with my Facebook page, where I see people literally advocating for the mass deportation of Muslim immigrants. You guys are the best.
It's a pretty funny juxtaposition with my Facebook page, where I see people literally advocating for the mass deportation of Muslim immigrants. You guys are the best.
