We've seen it all happen. The global outpouring of international support and sympathy following many tragedies in the past year itself, including the Paris Terror Attacks from November last year and the Brussels Attacks in March of this year. But, you may have more trouble recalling the attacks that also occurred those same few days in Lebanon, Syria or Palestine, which have unfortunately become a smudge of irrelevance on the international news cycle at the time. Like many, you may remember the many profile pictures tinted with the French flag tricolor, a dedication of remembrance not granted for the Lebanese flag. As well, Facebook even had the Safety Check feature, reserved for natural disasters that allows people to alert loved ones they are safe. However, that was not activated during the incident in Beirut. This is a serious empathy gap.
An empathy gap is defined as a cognitive bias in which people underestimate the influences of instinctive drives on their own attitudes, preferences and behaviors. The central idea is that human understanding is "state-dependent."
This implicates that Arab lives matter less. Their countries are seen as a place where gore is the norm, whereas Paris isn't under siege like all of these other predominantly Muslim nations. Paris was shocking; Beirut was just another. However, it is important to point out that these issues are so common there, we've become emotionally immune to them. When there's another bombing in one of these nations, currently such as the attacks in Istanbul, instead of getting the same reaction that Paris got, it is usually is followed by "that is nothing new." I'm sure it's exhausting for people to react with the same energy each time when it's happening so often in these countries, but it does not seem fair that we stop feeling for the people who are dying, being tortured and becoming orphans, just because it is so common.
In November, I did not choose to change my profile picture to an filter of France's flag. I stood in solidarity with the victims, but I also stood with those attacked in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. In my eyes, changing my profile picture to an overlay of the French flag only would've shown my support for the media to continue glorifying Western attacks and ignoring all others. We cannot mourn certain deaths just because we are realizing the attacks are becoming a threat to us now. It was always humanity's problem. We just chose to ignore it until it had something to do with us, or our allies. All organized attacks should be protested against, not just the ones that happen in more developed countries, nations geographically closer to us or the ones we've built alliances with. It's not just about any particular country, it's about every innocent human being around the world who has been killed or injured by these tragedies.
People have the tendency to divide themselves between countries and religion, trying to prove which country was more affected or which country had less killing rates in comparison. Every life should matter, whether it's Paris or Istanbul. It is upsetting that we do not get the power of being united at a time when the world needs it most. All of these barriers are distracting from the main issue: These attacks need to stop everywhere.
Monuments all over the world lit up in the colors of the French flag. Yet again, there was noticeable silence in response to the deadly terror attack in a predominantly Muslim country. Just a handful of cities paid tribute to the terror tragedy by lighting up their buildings and monuments in Turkish flag colors, such as Melbourne, Mexico City and Berlin. Yet, our very own Empire State Building stayed colorless the night after the attacks, and alike the World Trade Center, which lit up for both Belgium and France. This sifting of particular world tragedies that matter versus those that do not is both a concern and consequential in how society views these attacks. They transfix themselves on the "important" ones, but decidedly against those that deem to be alike.
Facebook did happen to turn on their safety check feature during this crisis, but there is still no filter with the Turkish flag colors or symbols, yet again. Reiterating my point above, I still do not believe that posting a picture of a flag means anything until we understand the cause and effect of such destruction. But, I do believe this focus on certain ones is problematic with how we deal with these issues. We need a leveled amount of sympathy for each attack because all lives matter equally.
Author James Taylor summed it all up perfectly in his emotional Facebook post after the Ankara attack.
These people are no different. They just happen to be Turkish. It is very easy to look at terror attacks that happen in London, in New York, in Paris and feel pain and sadness for those victims, so why is it not the same for Ankara? Is it because you just don’t [realize] that Ankara is no different from any of these cities? Is it because you think that Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, like Syria, like Iraq, like countries that are in a state of civil war, so therefore it must be the same and because you don’t care about those ones, then why should you care about Turkey?
“We are Paris, we are Ankara, we are Syria, we are Ivory Coast,” Taylor added. “But above all, we are Human.”
