I wish to draw your attention to a recent article written by Anne Bernard regarding the recent terror attacks in Beirut and Paris. The article discusses the different responses these horrific events recieved and how in the aftermath, Lebenese people were left feeling anguish, as they felt forgotten compared to the global recognition ,response and empathy Pairs recieve .
The title of the article expresses the idea that the people of Lebanon felt forgotten can be found to be remotly ironic with the use of the words "feeling forgotten" as the opening paragraph to the article mentions only one of the three named people actually dying. Further on in the second paragraph when it is said that infact all three people had died, many people including myself were shocked to read that their deaths were also ‘along with 40 others…’ This style of writing made the ’40 others’, who's names were not mention seem as if their lives and the position of their news worthiness were not important and ‘feel forgotten’.
* Since the civil war in 1958 and the continued Israeli invasions of the years 1978/82/85 and 2000, Lebanon has been in the news with its countless conflicts and death toll. For this reason, Beirut is thought to be "synonymous with violence", as well as there being severe apathy towards Arab lives.
A Lebanese doctor who spoke in your article was quoted saying, “When my people died, no country bothered to light up it’s landmarks in the colours of it’s flag.” In reply to this comment, it is believed by many people that countries did not colour their parliament buildings or their profile pictures out of feeling less for the Lebanese people, it was more a mixture of political fear of support due to retribution and Facebook simply hadn’t offered the overlay for the Lebanese flag. Why Facebook had not offered this was not made clear in the article, in fact this would be a question that I would quite like answered. However Facebook did see a high level of social media activity around the Paris attacks and activated, for the first time a ‘Safety Check’ on which a company policy is being developed. Facebooks vice president, Alex Shultz said, they were trying something new in “complex and sensitive times, and for us that was Paris.” If Elie Fares had known that 27.5 million people in France use Facebook as opposed to 4.2 million Lebanese may be what was seen as out of proportion was more to do with population in France and Facebooks company decision.
To most people Europe acts as one large ‘executive club’ with all the 27 member states
making decisions on foreign policy. Within this club the ‘Big Three’: France, Germany and the United Kingdom, take the lead. The ‘Big Three’ are involved in shaping foreign policies across a much wider range than the other states, this also will have influence when a terrorist attack happens in one of those countries as the other 24 states will show degrees of solidarity,
It is incredibly heart warming to see an international outpouring of grief and support for victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris however it does make it all the more upsetting when similar incidents in the Middle Eastern world go relatively unnoticed.
Life in France was not worth more grief and anger than life in the Lebanon. I saw posts on social media of candles and an ask for prayers to be shared.
Both attacks on Paris and Beirut should strengthen the worlds resolve to find a path of peace away from all forms of radicalism.
