Paris and the Aftermath #3

Two final observation on  the terrorist attack in Paris. They are not related to each other but both need comment on.

1) It was around 12 years ago that France decide not to participate in Bush's invasion of Iraq. At that time many Americans were outraged that France, a country that had been set free because of the efforts of the American people during WWII ( an exaggeration if there ever was one) would not support  the right of the American government to attack another country. Throughout the USA there were silly attempts to express that anger by deciding that "french" toast or "french" fries needed to be called by some other name so that, one assumes, that Americans would not need to sully their lips with the name of such a terrible people. The French were vilified, accused of being cowards and it seemed that on each of the late night talk shows there was a mandatory joke demeaning the French.

Somehow in the past few years and more specifically in the past week or so, the character of the French has changed. They are no longer cowards refusing to fight but rather they are people who need to be supported and encouraged to continuing to attack the enemy. They are being portrayed as heroic, as being noble, as being world leaders in the fight against terrorism.

 Of course the French have not changed at all. The media are just playing with us - telling us who are the good guys one day and potentially the bad guys the next. It is hard to believe anyone would be that gullible.

2) It is interesting to read some of the more conservative columns in our mainstream press. Immediately after the terrorist attack, writers started to suggest that new Canadian government's plan to with draw our jets from the skies of the Middle East needed to be put on hold. I think the argument is that the terrorist attack is clear proof that we need to bomb them more - that if we keep dropping bombs on them - eventually ISIS will be defeated.

I think the argument could be made that if, after all of the bombs that have been dropped on ISIS  (Yahoo news states that there have been over 8,000 air strikes (Yahoo)), ISIS still has the capacity to engage in terrorist attacks - perhaps the bombing strategy is not working. But then what do I know?

Paris and the Aftermath #2

 I find it rather remarkable that the Western world's media can spends so much energy in reporting on the myriad of details surrounding the attack in Paris. For example, last night it felt as if CBC's National News spent almost a full 30 minutes discussing the attack, who did it, how people felt, who the victims were etc. etc. etc.

 I, in no way, want to diminish the horrendousness of the terrorists attack. What those people did was an anathema to any part of their faith and to any sense of justice. Such attacks are a cowardly and I hope, an ineffective way of seeking attention. There can be no justification for random violence or violence whose only purpose is to cause more violence.  However, if the almost overwhelming news coverage is being provided because the world needs to know what happened, then one also must question why the world doesn't need to know all of the other horrendous events of the last week. It is almost as if someone has decided that the attack in Paris was the worst thing that happened last week and therefore anything else that happened, regardless of how terrible it was for the individual(s), is irrelevant.

Ishmael Beah in speaking about his experiences as a child soldier in the Sudan (A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier) talks about the dangers of making one person's story of trauma to be more significant than someone else's. That while as terrible as it may have been for someone to see their father killed in a war, for someone else, the loss of a grandparent through natural causes can be an equally as traumatic and painful memory. Beah's point is that it is not a competition to see who has the worst life experiences. When the media decides which stories are the most important, it negates the value of those other life stories. There is always the risk that people who have had their stories ignored or devalued will need to increase the stakes to be heard.

In the media's rush to focus of the terrorists' attacks in Paris, they have lost sight of the fact that not only were there other similar attacks in other parts of the world, but that during the same time frame, hundreds and hundreds of people died of preventable illness, that thousands of children went to bed hungry, that the majority of people in the world did not have access to clean water or that far too children (especially girls) did not have access to free primary education. It is not that these stores are more important than the Paris attack, but surely they are equally as important.

By ignoring the larger picture we appear to be incredibly self-centered. We appear to be only worried about our safety and what we can do to insure that we can continue in our present way of life without being inconvenienced. Fair enough. We all want to live safe, comfortable lives. But it should be a right of all humans to live in a world where they feel safe. Those of us fortunate enough to live in Canada do not have exclusive rights to that privilege. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that we can be safe while people in other parts of the world get sucked into the ever present maelstrom of violence that is their lives.

 To paraphrase one of my favourite songs - None of us are safe if one of us is afraid. ( Solomon Burke  None of us are free if one of us is in chains)