Getting political (and depressed)
Quakerkid, a friend of mind from Earlham and someone who (as you might suspect from her username) cares a lot about peace and justice, wrote a very insightful entry about the killings in Virginia on Monday, and the nearly 200 people who were killed in Iraq on Wednesday.
I realized that like everyone else I had been caught up in the media circus around the deaths of the 32 people at Virginia Tech, but had hardly thought about the bombings in Iraq on Wednesday. No one has. People die all the time in Iraq, we've gotten pretty numb to it. I surfed over the New York Times to see if anyone, anyone among their editorial staff or readers had noticed that the American media was all but ignoring a mass murder six times larger than the one in Virginia. It seems self-evident, I guess, that American would care more about 32 fellow Americans than about 180 Iraqis (or even the entire Iraqi population) but I still felt inspired to write.
I have no expectation of you all seeing my byline in the Times tomorrow, so here is what I wrote and submitted. Just pretend it has the OpEd page of the NY Times all around it.
A geography lesson in tragedy
By Siâned Chivers
On Monday a gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech killed 32 people then took his own life. 32 innocent people with families, with futures, died violent deaths while simply trying to go about their everyday lives. The country has been in mourning. The news media have been filled with memorials, with pictures of the killer and of the victims, with endless rehashing of that day's events, and with debate on how we can prevent this tragedy from happening again.
Two days later, on Wednesday, 183 people were killed by in car bombs, like the one that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City 12 years ago. 183 innocent people with families, with futures, died violent deaths while simply trying to go about their everyday lives. 183 innocent people who were just like the 32 innocent people killed in Virginia on Monday, except, of course, geographically speaking.
Where are their memorials? Where are the lists of their names, the pictures of them in happier times, provided by grieving families? Most importantly, where is the debate on how their deaths could have been prevented? There has been none. In fact, coverage of the violent deaths of these 183 innocent people in Iraq was squeezed into brief, statistical newsflashes, to leave time for more analysis of how one disturbed young man could buy a gun and kill 32 people, right here in the United States.
This is not intended to belittle the tragedy that occurred in Virginia. I feel sorrow for the friends and families, whose loved one were gunned down in their school, a place they should have been safe. However, to date no less than 60,000 innocent people have died in Iraq. This is the entire enrollment of Virginia Tech, times four. Some reports have put the number at ten times that, which is about the same as Virginia's entire college-aged population. These people are not dying in unpredictable and isolated acts of violence, but rather in a steady continual slaughter. It is not at all uncommon for more than 30 people to die each day in Baghdad alone- killed in schools, streets, marketplaces, and their own homes. Places where they should be safe. They are not only shot, or killed by car bombs, often they are kidnapped and brutally tortured before they die.
You have to wonder, what if the dozens of innocent people being shot, blown up, and tortured each day lived in Virginia? Would they still be faceless statistics to be squeezed in around the 'more important' news each day? Would Congress and the President use their continuing tragedy as fodder for campaign speeches and political games? Or would we have put a stop to it long, long before now?
Feedback is welcome, of course.
I realized that like everyone else I had been caught up in the media circus around the deaths of the 32 people at Virginia Tech, but had hardly thought about the bombings in Iraq on Wednesday. No one has. People die all the time in Iraq, we've gotten pretty numb to it. I surfed over the New York Times to see if anyone, anyone among their editorial staff or readers had noticed that the American media was all but ignoring a mass murder six times larger than the one in Virginia. It seems self-evident, I guess, that American would care more about 32 fellow Americans than about 180 Iraqis (or even the entire Iraqi population) but I still felt inspired to write.
I have no expectation of you all seeing my byline in the Times tomorrow, so here is what I wrote and submitted. Just pretend it has the OpEd page of the NY Times all around it.
A geography lesson in tragedy
By Siâned Chivers
On Monday a gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech killed 32 people then took his own life. 32 innocent people with families, with futures, died violent deaths while simply trying to go about their everyday lives. The country has been in mourning. The news media have been filled with memorials, with pictures of the killer and of the victims, with endless rehashing of that day's events, and with debate on how we can prevent this tragedy from happening again.
Two days later, on Wednesday, 183 people were killed by in car bombs, like the one that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City 12 years ago. 183 innocent people with families, with futures, died violent deaths while simply trying to go about their everyday lives. 183 innocent people who were just like the 32 innocent people killed in Virginia on Monday, except, of course, geographically speaking.
Where are their memorials? Where are the lists of their names, the pictures of them in happier times, provided by grieving families? Most importantly, where is the debate on how their deaths could have been prevented? There has been none. In fact, coverage of the violent deaths of these 183 innocent people in Iraq was squeezed into brief, statistical newsflashes, to leave time for more analysis of how one disturbed young man could buy a gun and kill 32 people, right here in the United States.
This is not intended to belittle the tragedy that occurred in Virginia. I feel sorrow for the friends and families, whose loved one were gunned down in their school, a place they should have been safe. However, to date no less than 60,000 innocent people have died in Iraq. This is the entire enrollment of Virginia Tech, times four. Some reports have put the number at ten times that, which is about the same as Virginia's entire college-aged population. These people are not dying in unpredictable and isolated acts of violence, but rather in a steady continual slaughter. It is not at all uncommon for more than 30 people to die each day in Baghdad alone- killed in schools, streets, marketplaces, and their own homes. Places where they should be safe. They are not only shot, or killed by car bombs, often they are kidnapped and brutally tortured before they die.
You have to wonder, what if the dozens of innocent people being shot, blown up, and tortured each day lived in Virginia? Would they still be faceless statistics to be squeezed in around the 'more important' news each day? Would Congress and the President use their continuing tragedy as fodder for campaign speeches and political games? Or would we have put a stop to it long, long before now?
Feedback is welcome, of course.