Intentional Ignorance

2015 is a year of many tragedies. With a recent attack on Paris on December 13th, people are now aware that terrorists are still performing their cruel acts. The issue is that while there were many other bloody events, such as bombings, suicidal attacks, and mass shootings across different countries, only the attack on Paris was able to raise awareness about the terrorists’ actions. The current situation is that some lives matter more than others when it comes to the media coverage, and so some events are known and helped more than others.

Let’s consider a recent bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268, the plane that was meant to fly to Pulkovo Airport, St. Petersburg, Russia from Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport, Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, but exploded in Sinai, Egypt on October 31st. 224 people were killed in this case, which, at first, was thought to be an accident, but later was found out to be a directed bombing by ISIS (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/egypt-plane-crash-bomb-jet-russia-security-service).

The number of victims in this attack was greater that that of the Paris case (approximated as 128+ by CNN), but yet this incident is far less known than Paris attack. So what defies the coverage of an event by media if not the number of casualties?

One of the reasons for such an ignorance is pure politics. After the Russian-Ukranian crisis of 2014, US and some of the European countries imposed many sanctions on the Russian Federation. Not only that, but they portrayed Russia as an invader in the news and articles. If the incident with the bombing of the flight was broadly covered in the media, people would sympathize with Russia, which would shatter the created image of “usurper Russia”. Instead, the Russians would be seen as yet another victim of the ISIS.

But do those political interactions between countries matter when it comes down to the people’s lives? While countries play their own hidden political games, there is a real war happening in the world. Each day more people become victims of terrorist attacks, but we, the citizens of the First World countries, do not know about it, because the media do not cover those attacks, unless they happen to us or unless the governments decide to uncover the information about them.

Instead of the governments restricting our access to the information about what is going on in the world, the media should tell us about every incident of terrorist actions. This will raise people’s awareness of how bad the situation is in African and Middle Eastern, as well as many other countries. And we, having this information, will be able to deal with this issue together as one united and global society.