I’ve been thinking for three days about what to write this week, and I’m stuck on my first idea. I don’t want to write about things like this again, but it seems that I need to. Last November, after the Paris attacks, I wrote a Facebook post that is similar to what I write about now. This time, I’ll be using a few more words.
There was another attack this week. And by attack, I mean there were many attacks, as there are every week. But this week, there was another one that caught our attention for longer than 5 minutes. The attacks in Istanbul were the biggest since Brussels. Not biggest as in total deaths, but biggest as in relative importance of the area attacked.
We all know that Paris and Brussels got global media coverage because they’re western cities. They represent the western power that ISIS and all radical Islam is fighting against. Those attacks made us pause and realize remember that we’re not untouchable. The world collectively mourned for France and Belgium in ways that no other countries have received thus far.
And of course I understand why. We all understand why. 32 dead in Brussels – not counting the perpetrators because it’s not right to immortalize them with their victims – will matter more than the 22 people killed on Friday in Dhaka, again not including the perpetrators. 130 killed in Paris will matter exponentially more than the 143 (at least) killed in Baghdad on Saturday.
What I could do is sit here and preach that every attack is equal because lives lost are lives lost. But I won’t. Because that isn’t how the world works. You know that, and so do I.
The attacks in France and Belgium threaten western hegemony. Attacks in Afghanistan or Bangladesh or Kenya or Nigeria don’t do that. But attacks in Turkey do, or so I thought.
Now, those of you that read my stuff weekly know that I’m very critical of Turkey and what’s going on there right now. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re basically European. Turkey exists as the border between Europe and Asia, specifically the Middle East. It’s a really tough spot to be in. And I thought that an attack in Europe’s backyard would get their attention. But it didn’t.
Before Istanbul, there was a strict dichotomy between European attacks and Middle Eastern/Asian/African attacks. There was a disconnect that allowed us Westerners to continue with our daily lives while barely noticing that people were dead somewhere else.
The attacks in Istanbul presented an opportunity for the western hegemony to at least appear to care about someone who wasn’t clearly the same as them. And we dropped the ball.
If you think of Western Europe and the US as a boys’ club, then Turkey is the neighbor next door trying to feel included. Well, his house just burned down and we didn’t give him a spot in the clubhouse.
One message here is to pay more attention to the things that matter, and in all honesty the Istanbul story will be long gone by the time this is published. So that won’t stick.
Instead, the bigger and more resounding message is that we just told the world if you don’t look, act, and live exactly like we do, we don’t care.
