Disaster Strikes Again

Image by The Bay Area’s News Station

This week has been ridden with disasters and terrorism - the Boston explosions and today's gunfight, the explosion at the Texas fertiliser plant, the ricin-laced letters sent to a US senator and Barack Obama, and the earthquake in Iran. Unfortunately, they are the harsh reminders of what a fearsome world we live in. We should not be subject to such worries yet, on a daily basis, many are; anti-terrorism legislation, constant presence of surveillance devices and security announcements on public transport serve to remind us.

This week’s Boston bombings are a horrible event for the hundreds of thousands citizens to endure. Twice this week, ordinary people have been warned to not leave their homes and been left stranded with a continual threat of death, disaster and destruction to their relatively peaceful lives. Causes for celebration became crime scenes and, as is far too common in the United States, a place where people go to learn, became a place where people should avoid for their own safety. It is not a situation that anybody should have to experience.

Hence, it is ludicrous that people should use such time to promote their political message. As support and solidarity was expressed from people across the world, others took the opportunity to attack the media for their coverage of the events in contrast to the coverage of other equally-important events. On Twitter, there were messages along the lines of “the media are forgetting that people die in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria everyday”. But this is a sad argument. Yes, it is true that people do die in these sorry situations, but there is no reason to devalue the deaths and injuries of those affected in other crises. 

Perspective: 3 killed in Boston but in Iraq last month, 271 people were killed in similar attacks m.aljazeera.com/story/20134156…
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 18, 2013

Indeed, media coverage of events in war-struck zones is not as high as it should be and there are areas of the world that the media do prioritise over others. This is wrong and this is unfair, but the death of anyone is a highly important event. It is important to provide coverage to any distressing events, but to capitalise on the coverage of one act of terrorism to protest the lack of coverage of another is disrespectful.

Yes, media coverage of deaths in conflicts (Syria, Iraq) is disgracefully poor. But doesn't lessen the tragedy for injured/dead in Boston.
— Eytan Halon (@eytanhalon) April 15, 2013

The world is a truly dangerous place in which to live. Damage is done to individuals and their environment almost constantly, and the right coverage is never given, and equal coverage will never be possible. We are experiencing a period of complete upheaval of our beliefs and faiths and this is not something that should be ignored. We should not tolerate any threat to life, but to use one horrific event to protest about another is simply petty. Save it for another day.

The Discourse of Terrorism

Image by 9/11 photos

“Terrorist” and “terrorism” are politically motivated words, interchangeable with “clinically insane”, “religious extremists” or “(ideology)-ists”. The Northern Irish Loyalists are causing bomb alerts, and acting in violent manners, and have for many decades, in order to fight against any attempt any change to their nation. Yet, they are called “paramilitaries”, when their aim can, sometimes, to create mass destruction and terror, the very characteristics that make a definition of a terrorist. By definition, Guy Fawkes was a terrorist. By definition, Breivik was a terrorist. By definition, any of those high school and university massacrists in the United States are terrorists. Note, however, how the media changes their portrayal of these people.

Breivik, a far-right Christian, initiated his attacks against the Norweigan Labour Party in order to bring attention to his views of islamophobia, Zionism, anti-feminism, anti-multiculturalism and apartheid. He killed 77 people via bombs and shootings to further his political causes. He stood in court and pleaded guilty. He committed acts of terrorism and whilst the media may use the word terrorism, it appears sly and almost invisible amongst the other adjectives on the page; the media called him a “mass killer” with an “extremist ideology” who committed “acts of political violence” (reported the BBC), while the Telegraph called him a Christian fundamentalist with certain “political traits”. The latter had no mention of “terrorism”.

Meanwhile, the shootings at a Batman screening in the United States earlier this year were carried out by a “former neuroscience student” turned “gunman”, reported the BBC. Don’t the media make him sound a much more innocent person than he was? In fact, some media reports made it sound as if we should pity him – after all, he was probably suffering from some form of mental illness and we shouldn’t take it personally.

In contrast, no member of society would argue that Al-Qaeda are not terrorists. So what makes them different? It seems improbable that we could name anyone of a western nation as a terrorist; after all, their underlying ideals are right – perhaps they have the right religion – they have simply gone insane. Maybe they didn’t receive enough support from their country. Poor them. They were driven to this by, most likely, a chain of distressing events in their life.

Al-Qaeda – how dare they? Those religious extremists will stop at nothing to destroy our civilised western nations. Somebody needs to teach them a lesson – perhaps we should send in our armies for 10 years – maybe longer? That should sort it. We’ll teach them what a good nation looks like. Say hello to democracy via an authoritarian and coercive means – that’s what democracy is all about. The west is best.

Something is wrong here. Language is overly important, and really shapes how we think. The more the media and our leaders associate one word with one image, the more we are to reject any alternative, yet true, images. As Wittgenstein said, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” after all.