To think it's OK to be more affected by stuff closer to home?

[TravellingHopefully12]

Lots of my friends are posting statuses saying things like 'Why do we care so much about Paris when things like this happen in Baghdad, Lebanon all the time and no one changes their status to Baghdad.'

It is true, and I see their point, but at the same time I find some of these posts a little smug. 'It's so much better than posting the French Flag' - etcetera.

I understand that what happens in Baghdad is horrific, and it happens all the time. If someone from Baghdad posted how sad they were, I would not dream of undermining it. If someone here posted how sad they were I also wouldn't undermine it, but it feels like people are saying 'your grief over this attack is not valid' (some of the comments and posts are very like that.)

But isn't it natural to be more affected by stuff closer to home? I have friends in Paris. DP's parents live in France. It doesn't mean I don't care about Baghdad and Syria. It just means I am really fucking sad about this and feel it like a slap in the face, and it feels that a lot of people are sneering at that. 'How dare you be sad when this happens all the time?'

But I am sad. And surely that is OK?

"Sad, cheap, moral high ground one-upmanship" is how one of my friends described it.

There are a lot of people who think it's immoral to care about "well off" westerners when there are so many worse off people in the world.

I've told them they're free to unfriend me if that's their view...

I live in Mexico and, like everyone else was shocked and horrified by the events in Paris, but the fact is that here in Mexico we have massacres all the time. The 43 students who were disappeared by the authorities and are presumed murdered mysteriously did become international news, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. I think it is perfectly understandable for someone in the UK to feel more empathy for their close neighbours, but that does not explain the fact the people in the US also feel more empathy for Paris than they do for Mexico. In the end, the message is that brown lives don't matter.

It's also to do with how newsworthy things are - things further away with fewer western interests are inherently lower on the newsworthiness scale, because people are less likely to identify with those involved etc This is why a suicide bomb in a market place in Iraq doesn't necessarily even get a mention in the news headlines - and war crimes and crimes against humanity most certainly don't, unless on an absolutely enormous scale.

There has been research on the rolling news culture that shows the constant repetition of some items ensures a higher level of identification amongst viewers, and this is something that can only be exacerbated when this effect is repeated by social media: I don't use FB and never have, but wherever I go, I see people glued to it - whilst out with their children, having coffee with friends, walking along the street - so people are also potentially being bombarded by either citizen media or opinions/posts etc.

There's a quote I am desperately trying to find from the Victorian period, which essentially says that in terms of news, one dead white man is worth something like ten dead brown men and a hundred dead black men: the bottom line, like anything, is that we empathise more deeply with something more familiar - it's an inevitable part of evolution, if you think about it. If something is easier to identify with, you will feel it more strongly - and part of that is the whole "people just like us"/could have been here/could have been me etc

FWIW I am really surprised that people have said that the Paris attacks shocked them because they have realised that the UK could be next. You really weren't already aware that the UK is a major target?! (Perhaps it's just that where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise - but seriously!)

Do the people of Lebanon etc grieve the Paris murders? Ie do they change their social media pictures to the French flag? Or would they change it to whichever country is closest to them (either in location or personal dealings)

Most of the Lebanese I know did change their profile pics to the Paris flag and where equally shocked at what happened in Paris. The Lebanese call Beirut the Paris of the Middle East and are fluent French speakers, so feel a kinship with France, so what happened in France did hit them.

Many of them also shared beautiful pictures of both flags or other combined pics.

However, they are also understandably upset about how the media ignored the suicide attacks.

I do find it sad that we seem to value human life more the closer it is to home. I was more shocked and saddened by events in Paris than those in Lebanon and I feel angry that our society is set up in such a way to make us feel like this.

It is the same 'sense of other' that drives hatred against refugees, that you look after your 'own' first. It's driven by deep tribal instincts to protect our 'own' and perpetuated by the media.

Until we somehow lose this sense of other, the 'them and us', the world will continue to be as it is today. In the meantime, I don't think we should 'blame' ourselves but open up more discussions like this where people can explore how they feel and why.

YANBU. Predictably the xenophobes and racists were out in force a day later using the bombings as an excuse to peddle their wares. Equally predictable were the professionally offended who aim to shame the show of solidarity from their own moral highhorse inline with what makes them look cooler on social media and you less intelligent. The poster who wrote why those in non-western countries feel offended did it excellently but the people posting on FB don't always really care about other areas either, just what makes them look better than you. The ones on my newsfeed who I know locally doing it are a bunch of hypocritical NIMBYS who blocked a homeless shelter from being built near there expensive houses, better for it to go down the road on the estate So am just going to feel what I feel when I feel it, fuck you very much

Yanbu. I think people who post this kind of thing are trying to make themselves look better than everyone else and it makes me

I agree with so much of what's been posted here. There is nothing wrong with being sadder about Paris because we are more familiar with it. It doesn't mean we don't care about other places!

It's ok to be affected by Paris - it's not ok to me to draw a line under it and say that's fine. It should make all of us realise a little better how so many millions of people we rarely think much about at all live every day and care more about them also. I disagree with the 'your grief is not valid' posts but i am afraid I think your grief is self centred if you hug it to yourself and continue to by comparison ignore the rest of the world.

It is more than skin colour or being neighbours, the Russian plane crash was not given the same media. The media was focused on stranded Brits and Russia's military action. It is not that a Russian life is less valuable than a Parisian but the geography, history, and similar lifestyles that create the emotional connections. The news and papers who want viewers then portray the news to match these emotional connections.

Scooby - i dont think it is a case of valuing life more closer to home than we do further away.
I feel equally saddened to hear of other places.
It is simply the fact it is closer to home, it is seeming more of a reality for us. This is why im feeling more feelings this time. Its not more feelings of saddness, its more feelings of concern, worry, fear on top of the saddness i felt for the deaths of everyone.

Yanbu

I'm more concerned about terrorism here in Northern Ireland because I have to live here and raise my children here. It doesn't stop me being affected by what else happens around the world and feeling awful for those affected.

But the rubbish going on at home naturally affects me more.

That's not really true bluebolt. The Russian plane crash/bombing was the main story on the news for several days, it was only when flights were grounded that the focus went onto stranded Brits instead.

I didn't realise until yesterday that my DB has seen the Eagles of Death Metal several times here in the UK. That really brings it home to me how these people were doing things that we also enjoy doing. Going to a gig, a football match or just enjoying a nice meal with friends.

I don't think it is necessarily distance, 9/11 affected lots of people and America is further away than Baghdad. I think it is more to do with lack
of understanding of the way of life in the likes of Syria, Baghdad and parts of Africa.

There are also many people who don't give a shit about these places and the people who live there. Look at all the atrocities in Africa. I don't see America rushing to put those right so governments can be just as bad.