Shock and horror quickly gave way to a huge outpouring of support: French flag overlays for profile pictures, and all manner of other supportive photos and memes.
A day or two later more and more people were posting in surprise about the terrorist attack in Beruit only one day prior, that most had not known about (I admit I did not know about it myself until a few hours after the attacks on Paris began--I have been travelling and not watching news and would not have even known about Paris had it not been something everyone was talking about).
Some surprise about the bombing in Ankara, Turkey that killed nearly 100 people in early October but seems to have gotten little coverage in mainstream US media (I had had no idea others were not seeing that!---yet even all the shock and outrage over lack of coverage of attacks outside of Western Europe seems to largely ignore this one, why?).
An outpouring of support for Kenya, by people only just now hearing about an attack on a university 8 months ago---many who seem to think this is a current event.
and so on.
And I am glad to see people waking up to the fact that tragedy and pain matters when it happens anywhere---that terrorists attack more than just Westerners and in fact attack those in the mid east and Africa much more often than the rest of us, that terror groups claiming to operate in the name of one religion are often killing practitioners of that very religion---because this is not really a war between faiths, it is cruelty and meanness pretending to be something it is not.
I like seeing a push to have our mainstream media outlets report more fair, balanced and global stories. I would like to see that push last for more than a handful of days (it certainly has done little to change things thus far, if coverage of yesterday's bombing in Nigeria, or rather a lack thereof, is any indication and yet the furor is already dying down to nearly nothing in my facebook feed). And, in addition to pushing, might I echo the suggestion that my daughter's friend made: the best way to find out the news on a global scale AND to push US media to report it is to change where you get your news from to some site which reports more globally----BBC, NPR and Al Jazeera being top contenders in my book (check those three daily, and you are likely to have a pretty decent idea of current events in a wider perspective).
Here is the part of that recognition of biases in reporting which I did not like: many people, upon seeing that bias, dropped any indication that they were honoring and supporting France and even went so far as to chastise and shame those of us who did not do the same. That was something that made me sad and a little bit angry. First of all, it is not Paris's fault that other places were ignored. Removing support from one group reeling in shock and pain because another was not given that support is not making things better--it is just leaving more people unsupported. The old adage: "two wrongs do not make a right" seems very fitting here.
And secondly, well, life is such that we humans nearly always are touched more deeply and care more strongly about anything that hits close to home. It is how we are wired. We might well care about every person, but we feel it more when our own family suffers than when strangers do. We become more nervous when bad things happen one town over than when the same happens across the country, etc.
For many of us, myself included--Paris hits closer to home. I have never been to Lebanon or Nigeria (I have been to Turkey, and have several friends originally from there--and I have to say that one hit me harder than many others for that reason, though I have not been to Ankara). Paris, on the other hand, is a 4-5 hour drive from my front door. I have been there a few times and can picture the very areas the attacks occurred in my memories. I will be there again next month. I have multiple friends who reside in Paris--this was the first large scale attack which sent me scrambling to be sure people I personally know, people whom i knew to be in the city at the time, were safe, since September 11. And that closer, more personal connection does mean I feel it more deeply and in that light, well, I show support more strongly--support for actual friends as well as the strangers who fill the city. It does not mean I do not care, or am not concerned with the lives lost from a Russian plane being brought down, or a bombing at a peace rally in Turkey, or a market in Kenya--it simply means I have a deeper personal connection to Paris. I suspect many Americans, Germany, Brits, etc posting on facebook have stronger ties to France than to many other places suffering and that this is one reason you see such an outpouring of support.
That's why I am not ashamed to have changed my profile picture in support of Paris--and did not rush to change it back the moment people started to post about Beirut, Turkey, Nigeria, Kenya, Pakistan, Chad, Somalia, etc. The people who should be ashamed are those who would belittle anyone for caring and offering their voice in sympathy or grief, the decision makers who have kept many of these stories out of the mainstream media, and the terrorists who cause the pain in the first place. Those who stand with the cities who are victims of such terror, any city, we are not the bad guys.
--Hadley
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