When I saw news about the carnage in Paris, I could feel my heart and my voice drop to the bottom of my stomach.
My reaction has been shared by many. I've seen many postings and comments mentioning Beirut, which had 2 bombings a few days before Paris that killed 43 people and injured over 200 more. There was more coverage on Paris than Beirut. I believe that both are tragic. Both are claimed by ISIS. Both leave survivors living with fear and no sense of security, which is a basic need for life.
But there are a few reasons why Paris was covered more than Beirut. These reasons do not excuse anything nor does it mean that Paris and its people are more important than Beirut and its people.
We in the US are almost desensitized to hearing and reading about tragedy in the Middle East. It's a shame to say, but we have created an image for the Middle East, not on purpose, but through the stories we hear in media outlets and our conflicts there, that is an image of bombings, terror, and war.
I think that for us, knowing a city like Paris went through a terrible attack, hits closer to our feeling of security than the tragedy in Beirut.
Paris is a vacation spot. It's on everyone's travel list. We imagine lights, lovers, art, and fresh bread. It's a place most of us can picture ourselves in.
This, I believe, is one of the reasons that Americans are so distraught. To know that Paris could be attacked puts a little more fear into us than bombings that seems too far away in the Middle East.
Now, I admit, I am a little sensitive when people blame "The Media" as if it were one big machine. That being said, I do believe that a free media is a reflection of its society and this is one reason why we would see more coverage of Paris than Beirut. Americans identify more with Paris and we are more shocked by that news. It is not right or wrong, it is a reflection of us. There was coverage on Beirut, at least by my main news source, NPR. If it wasn't on your radar, consider expanding your news sources.
I don't pray, but I do believe in energy and love, which I send not just to Paris and Beirut, but to everywhere there is people without a sense of security in the world, people who are left with too much fear and not enough ground to sleep on.
Very valid points and well written. Sometimes we have a short memory span and forget the trouble that France and Paris has experienced in the past and we think of them as intermittent. Whereas, to Americans, the Middle East has been in the news stream so long it seems that we have become calloused to these events and the people who suffer them.
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