When we discriminate, but terror does not

When terrorists struck France, Facebook rolled out a filter for profiles pictures of the French flag. When terrorists struck Belgium, the Eiffel Tower, Trevi Fountain and the Burj Khalifa lit up with the Belgian flag’s colors. In the aftermath of both attacks, the media provided ceaseless coverage.

But the attack in Pakistan didn’t get the same attention. Neither did the attacks in Yemen, Turkey, Iraq or Côte d'Ivoire. Where are their Facebook filters, their news coverage, their outpouring of outrage, sympathy and solidarity —and not solely from upset friends whose families and homes are in many of these countries?

At least 30 people were killed and 95 wounded in a suicide bombing at an amateur soccer match near Baghdad on Saturday. At least 22 people were killed in a series of suicide bombings in southern Yemen on the same day. At least 50 were killed and over 100 wounded in an explosion in a crowded park in Lahore, Pakistan on Sunday.

But most Americans are probably unaware of any attack that happened besides the two recent explosions in Brussels. It’s not that we have forgotten about the victims of these other attacks — many of us have chosen not to mourn their victims in the first place.

The tragedy in Brussels remains the subject of headlines. In fact, I still look up to see coverage of the aftermath on every other television at the gym. In stark contrast, baffled, incognizant friends have stopped me mid-sentence when I strike up conversations about the attacks that occurred in Turkey the previous week – 32 people killed and more than 100 wounded in a car bombing in Ankara, and at least five killed and 36 wounded in a bombing at a popular shopping thoroughfare in Istanbul. Students are also blissfully unaware of the 19 people killed in a terrorist shooting in a resort town in Côte d'Ivoire, the — at least —119 people killed in a terrorist airstrike in Yemen and the 24 people who died in a suicide bombing at a mosque in Nigeria.

Frustration at the sight of the televisions at the gym almost threw me off the treadmill.

Everyone mourned for Belgium, using filters on Facebook to emulate the Belgian flag. But very few mourned Ankara or Côte d'Ivoire or Lahore in that manner.

This debate evokes one which erupted around the Paris Charlie Hebdo terror attacks, Boko Haram militant attacks in Nigeria and Beirut suicide bombing in Jan. 2015. Five people were killed in Paris, thousands of miles away from where more than 2,000 people were killed by Boko Haram and 43 people massacred in Beirut. Despite higher death tolls elsewhere, the world’s attention did not waver from France; the world was Charlie, not Baga or Beirut. Similarly, the world is Brussels, and no one is left to be the other targeted, mourning cities.

It’s easy to blame the media for their unbalanced coverage of terrorism around the world. That blame is justifiable. Terrorism may not discriminate based on geographical location, but the mainstream media does.

A dearth of resources and manpower naturally precludes coverage of every terrorism attack, every day. But this deficiency does not exonerate Western newsrooms, particularly Western mainstream media, from failure to provide robust, comprehensive coverage of all attacks.

Ultimately, the media’s coverage of an issue reflects on us as consumers of media. After all, coverage tends to vie for ratings, rather than attempt to leave the greatest tangible impact.

So let us look inward and examine our own inherent biases, particularly on this campus. What are these limits to our solidarity, sympathy and empathy? Some point to our connection with the West as the source of the double standard. But the link is a tenuous one. Turkey is a European country and thus, by definition, a Western country. A popular tourist destination and cosmopolitan society, it is not categorized as just another Middle Eastern country dominated by terrorists, like Iraq or Yemen, two countries whose coverage points to a horrifying desensitization towards, and normalization of, terrorist attacks in the Middle East. Unless they are large in scale, attacks in these countries are misconstrued as a daily part of life, a life on the opposite side of the world – as though physical distance warrants apathy.

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But scale is not always a factor. The attacks in Turkey have taken an inconceivable toll – more than 100 people – and the number of lives lost in the Yemen attack exceeds 100. Admittedly, an attack of larger scale can have a larger impact. We should not, however, have to quantify a terrorist attack to ascribe it significance, when all lives bear the same human dignity and terrorism is a universal threat.

Still, terrorism does not have a single face. The motivations behind the Turkey attacks differ from those behind the Brussels attacks, as Turkey grapples with ongoing sectarian violence and Kurdish rebels struggle for independence. The Ankara attack is attributed to Syrian Kurds fighting near the Turkish-Syrian border; Istanbul, Iraq and Yemen to ISIS; and the Ivory Coast attack to al-Qaeda.

Furthermore, an anachronistic, colonialist conception of “civilized” people applies to how we look at attacks in many parts of Africa. Belgium conjures images of the white, worldly European man, but Ankara and Côte d’Ivoire do not. The first epitomizes a popular conception of civilization, while the latter two have historically clashed with it. This, of course, brings a question of race into the discussion. We know that black lives should matter, but we act as if they don’t.

Ultimately, our biased responses to these international attacks lie in our fears, which the attacks play into and exacerbate. Many people in the West, particularly in the United States, fear the rise of radical Islam. That ISIS can strike so close to the States heightens scrutiny of the attack and thus Islamophobia. And oftentimes, when people draw this harmful connection to Islam, they assert that the United States is the world's policeman and should thwart attacks with military intervention, as though intervention could have prevented such violence, when it has only served to amplify anti-American sentiment and generate tension between the Middle East and U.S.

Sadly, our campus response is a microcosm of the international response. There have been no vigils, no organized discussions, no unified shows of solidarity beyond individual posts on social media. We have ignored our Turkish, Pakistani and African friends and classmates. They are left to grieve alone, incredulous at the low number of students whoare aware of, let alone careabout, these attacks.

I have found myself angry with President Obama, French Prime Minister Francois Hollande, Mark Zuckerberg, the early morning CNN and FOX News television anchors and even other students for not being outraged and outspoken about the less reported attacks. But as justified as my anger is, the answer nowis compassion and solidarity, as any community should show. Our faith communities, cultural and social justice groups should join together to provide open, inclusive spaces to talk and provide support to students, as should our administration.

Sarah Sakha is a sophomore from Scottsdale, Ariz. She can be reached at ssakha@princeton.edu.