Is the world getting accustomed to the carnage and atrocities of terrorism or we simply lack sympathy and commiseration for Turkey? A gang of homicidal thugs had massacred 41 innocent people and injured 239 at Turkey’s Ataturk airport and we are all passive!
The attack in Turkey did not generate the furore and aghast that trailed the terror attacks in Paris, Brussels and that of Orlando. The mainstream news media didn’t deem it fit to give extensively coverage to the attack in Istanbul as it did to the one in Paris, Brussels and Orlando.
Turkey did not receive the global support and solidarity accorded to France, Belgium and the United States in aftermath of the attacks in Paris, Brussels and Orlando respectively. The internet did not went agog with catchy hashtag expression of sadness and commiseration with Turkey.
The world was practically at a stop when the terrorist struck Paris, the intensity was also similar when the incident Brussels and Orlando happened, why is that of Turkey different? Are we saying the 41 people killed at the Ataturk airport don’t matter?
The tepid reaction from world leaders is even more shameful. British Prime Minister David Cameron hoisted the Belgian flag above Downing Street following the Brussels attacks earlier this year. Why didn’t the Paris Eiffel tower lighted in the colours of Turkish flag? Not a single monument in the US sees any reason to show solidarity with the Turks.
All that Turkey received after these mad dogs brutally killed 41 people was just the normal diplomatic speaks. Why is it that when an attack like Paris, Brussels or Orlando happens, the world is forced to mourn (quite rightly) and the West becomes the centre of the world’s gravity yet when the producers of indiscriminate explosions strike in Maiduguri, Beirut or Istanbul, it merits fleeting news coverage at best and half-hearted sympathy?
Turkey has been playing its role in the global fight against terrorism and it’s paying a huge price for it. Turkey even provided the French information about one of the Paris attackers before the Paris attack happened. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s leadership of the Turkish state might not be agreeable to the West but that does not preclude the fact that Turkey global fight against terrorism.
The tutors of our moral indignation, the think-piece merchants and media pundits, have managed to outmanoeuvre our better judgement by inculcating a simple but politicized cognitive bias: we (Westerners) are killed in terrorist attacks, and it’s a tragedy; they (Africans, Arabs, Turks) die in terrorist attacks, and it’s an unfortunate norm in a destabilized region.
The profound expression of solidarity is an important mechanisms for defeating fascism, it is to question why the same demonstrations of grievance are not afforded to Turkey, Nigeria and other places that suffers terrorist attack outside of the West.
We are all citizens of the world, we all have flesh and blood, Whether you are a Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Believer or Atheist or whatever way you choose to describe yourself, we are all human and it will do us all good if we unite to condemn evil and show solidarity with those who suffers from lust for blood of the senseless and evil few among us.
For as long as we remain divided and unsympathetic, it will be increasingly difficult to defeat the fascist pest of ISIS, Boko Haram and other fundamentalist sects. Turkey will heal. Pray for Turkey