Was it only Paris?

Have you heard about the attacks which took place in Paris on Friday (credited to Islamic State)? Well, yes, unless you have spent the last two days in a cave, you can’t fail to have heard about them, or to have witnessed the deluge of “support” on social networks, of people “standing with France” and overlaying their Facebook profile pictures with the French flag, so conveniently provided by the company to help users easily “show their solidarity”. It’s great to be able to do so without taking too much time away from important things like the latest Kardashian pregnancy, or who got voted off” Dancing with the Stars”.

How about the terrorist attack (also credited to Islamic State) which took place in Beirut the day before, in which at least 41 people died? Didn’t catch that one? I’m sure there was a similar deluge of people “standing with Lebanon”. Strangely I didn’t notice it on Facebook, but I’m sure it was there. I’m sure I just missed the application allowing users to overlay their profile pictures with the Lebanese flag.

Remember the airplane crash in Egypt a couple of weeks ago? 224 (Russian and Ukrainian) people died in that incident (also credited to Islamic State).  You probably heard about that, but the coverage was somewhat less than extensive. Remember seeing your friends “standing with Russia” and overlaying their Facebook profile picture with the Russian flag?  No? Surely they did, but your attention must have been distracted.

Heard about the scores who die every day in Mexico’s ongoing and unwinnable “war on drugs” (actually the USA’s “war on drugs”, being fought on Mexican territory)? Where’s the world’s solidarity with Mexico?

To all those in Mexico, and elsewhere in the developing world who are so generously “standing with France” and displaying the French flag in their social network profiles, I ask the question: What would happen if the shoe was on the other foot? What if the attack had taken place in Monterrey? Asuncion? Gaborone? Dhaka? Would the developed world be standing with you? Would Facebook users in Europe be overlaying their profile picture with the Paraguayan flag?

Of course we denounce the attacks in Paris, as we do the attacks in Beirut, and the (likely) bombing of the Russian airliner. The answer to the question of why are these attacks occurring requires a detailed analysis of the developed world’s meddling in the Middle East over the last 60 plus years.

The world’s reaction (or lack thereof) to these events over the last couple of weeks has only served to reinforce the notion that Western European or North American lives are somehow worth more than those of people in other parts of the world. And isn’t that exactly what started all of this?