The Terrorism Empathy Gap: Why We Still Care More About Paris Than Ankara.
Empathy is defined as “the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.” It is a relative reaction, by which what we empathize with is ultimately governed by what and who we most relate to. From a Western European, or North American standpoint, that means we empathize with Paris more so than Beirut, and today, March 13th, we still empathize with Paris more so than Ankara, Turkey.
After the Paris attacks in November 2015, many took to social media and various press outlets to decry the unequal reaction by the everyman to Paris versus Beirut. The everyman, especially the North American and European friends on your Facebook feed with a French flag filter over their profile, were labeled as being indiffierent to the attacks in Beirut. The capital city of Lebanon was attacked by terrorists the same week as Paris. Facebook was also criticized for not creating a Lebanese flag filter, or a check-in feature similar to the one in Paris for those living in Beirut.
This is deeply misguided social justice.
It is far too easy to point the blame squarely with the individual. However, if empathy is governed by relative familiarity, then we cannot expect people to empathize equally — this is what is known in psychology as the empathy gap. Perspective is critical to understanding any major event and our reaction to it. The Western perspective is one of deeply unequal depictions in coverage between MENA (Middle East/North Africa) countries and countries like France or the US.
Whether it be through popular culture or hard news, Western society would be hard pressed to find positive depictions of MENA culture. For the most part, the coverage that does exist is generally confined to stories about terrorism, war or sectarian violence. In popular culture, the MENA character is usually depicted as a terrorist or political operative. MENA settings are often used in political thrillers or espionage dramas as exotic locales, framing the people living there as third world dwellers alongside our high tech and mainly white heroes. When MENA is presented in a positive light, the story often takes place centuries ago… and still stars White people in the roles of ethnic, non-White natives (Gods of Egypt, Exodus: Gods and Kings).
So when a bomb rips through a crowded transit hub in Ankara, we react as if this is to be expected. Meanwhile, when scores die in Paris due to terrorism, we react with outrage, scorn and deep empathy for the French people. We create homages for months, wondering how this could happen in a mostly White, secular country. Meanwhile Beirut and Turkey fall to page 13 and beyond in our local papers with a few folks left to create their own MENA flag filters in photoshop.
When we are only exposed to negative coverage of a region, the violence becomes normalized. We assume that a bombing in a MENA city is normal versus the exception that it is in a Western city. We have confined the region to “otherhood” instead of personhood.
We react with deep empathy for France because most of our Western coverage of France is positive. We’ve all eaten French food, we’ve likely enjoyed a French film or two and it’s more than likely that if we’ve traveled abroad, we’ve been to Paris or plan to visit one day. We can imagine ourselves in the shoes of those French citizens and travelers there at the time; we can relate to them because we have some understanding of their identity or some form of personal relationship to their culture or country. We as Westerners enjoy a rich history with France that we don’t share with Turkey, despite Turkey also being a NATO member with a rich and brilliant culture of their own.
So if we want to have the discussion about a lack of empathy when these attacks occur in the MENA region we must remember that empathy is not possible without some form of relation to that place or culture. The media must do a better job of depicting MENA culture in a positive light, versus only discussing the region through the lens of turmoil. While it is easy to suggest people do better to educate themselves, with all that goes on in the lives of the everyman, it is not a reasonable expectation for them to do so.
Popular culture should do more to tell the stories of profound MENA natives that people can in turn relate to and admire. Hard news should also show promising developments and feature travel or cultural segments on the region. With the media doing its part, the everyman will be able to better empathize and understand this region. If we continue to ignore positive depictions of this region, then the violence will remain normalized and empathy will remain unequally distributed… and it’s back to our Western flag filters on Facebook we go.
