Yesterday’s attack in the French capital seemed to have opened our eyes to reality. People all around the world were so struck by the attack that a good number of us felt the necessity to write “Je suis Charlie” on their Facebook profiles, “I am Charlie”.
Well, it’s a daily routine to hear of homicidal attacks in the Middle East, where they surely have gotten used to the violence by now. Nonetheless, things shifted yesterday as the attacks did not take place in the Middle East, but in Paris, the city that is renowned for romantic holidays and mouth-watering wine…until the romance was halted and the wine transformed into gruesome blood.
Suddenly, everyone became aware of the fact that freedom of expression is one of the most basic fundamental human rights. Few of us recalled the time when, a few years ago, in our very own free country, a few individuals were arraigned in court after having imitated Jesus Christ during the carnival festivities. Our society, which we consider to be democratic, filed charges against such individuals because we felt offended by his actions…“Je suis Liberal!”…Right?
Only a day after the attacks in the French Capital, far right Front National Leader, Marine Le Pen suggested the idea of a referendum regarding the insertion of the death penalty in France. In the same speech, in which she promoted the idea of the death penalty being re-introduced in France, she held that “life and liberty are amongst the most precious value”.
Unfortunately, this is today’s ideology that, in order to protect the citizens, people are threatened with their own lives. According to this far right politician, death can be justified when it has a reasonable cause, but who is anyone to decide whether a death has a cause or not? Coul there have been the possibility that Wednesday’s gunmen at the Charlie Hebdo offices, could have been trying to send some sort of message to the Western World?
I’m not trying to justify this week’s massacre in Paris, but in the eyes of the media, the world we live in is portrayed as a fairy-tale, where Western-Europe and Northern-America are always the virtuous ones and the most vulnerable, as they have to protect themselves from the rest of the world. They are rarely depicted in a negative light and anything they do seems to be for the benefit of the human race. Twelve fatalities in Paris seem to be more tragic than the 2,000 lives lost today Nigeria.
But Nigeria, is not a tourist attraction and hasn’t got a four-legged, steal tower, which is more than 1,000 feet high. The attacks on Paris seem to be much more tragic, even though there are so many dead bodies in Nigeria that according to The Guardian, they are “too many to count”. Too many what? Here, we’re considering human lives and not slaughtered pigs. Similar to the twelve killed in Paris, the ones in Nigeria had parents, families and children.
We should make it a priority to be more sensitive towards other people as the world does not revolve around us. The victims of Paris were innocent, but so were those of Nigeria, the ones about whom there will be no controversy because “Je ne suis pas Nigeria,” “I am not Nigeria”.
