This came up on my Facebook news feed.

arent you a ray of sunshine this morning SR!

It all started with my ill-fitting tyres. Sorry. I promise to post the next funny thing I think or see.

Sadly there is more than bit of truth in that. There was a lot more fuss made about a dead lion than the deaths of 100 odd people a few weeks before.

Yep, very true. Someone in my office suggested a minute silence for Paris this morning, until I pointed out all the other recent events that have gone unnoticed.

Do people in Madagascar, or Ulan Bator, or wherever care that much about events that happen in our world as they do those which occur in or in close proximity to their own?

I think it’s reasonable to have a hierachy of interest, perhaps cantered on family, and then work outwards from there. The above might be a reasonable tragedy map for established members of the globalised West (North?), but everywhere will have their own.

Do people in Madagascar, or Ulan Bator, or wherever care that much about events that happen in our world as they do those which occur in or in close proximity to their own?

That is an excellent point worth considering alongside the image above.

As a related aside, when I lived in Canada, I once hosted a young man from Madagascar who refused to believe that the world was round and that he had travelled far from his home country. He had little to no formal education, but even at that, showed an unbelievable lack of awareness of the world beyond his island home.

lack of awareness is not necessarily something that is unique to your Madagascan friend ..I know people who have gone on holiday to Sharm el Sheaik (sp) and have no idea that it’s in Egypt. How many people who have gone on holidays to Tenerife could point to where it is on a map.

As I posted in the Paris thread, my British colleague in Nigeria says that Nigerians are feeling quite miffed at the outpouring of public sentiment when these kinds of slaughters happen almost every day somewhere in Nigeria. The world is not interested in brown people’s problems.

At the same time he says that religious fatalism is Africa’s worst enemy; Christian or Muslim is just as bad – when there’s a disaster, people merely shrug and say: “It’s the will of God. What can I do about it?” Religious fatalism allows all kinds of things to happen and go un-challenged.

Thomas Jefferson is often quoted as saying “Every man has 2 countries: his own and France” …

I think it comes down to people reflecting on how likely it will impact them – fearing that they or someone they know might be the victim of a terrorist attack. Therefore those attacks that are closer to home will be seen as worse.

If you only ever watch American or European centred news, tragedies in “other” continents need a death toll of 500+ to even get 2 minutes at the end of a bulletin.

This is simply a factor of what the news channels can sell – ultimately they are a business not a service.

these kinds of slaughters happen almost every day somewhere in Nigeria.

This is part of the problem as it isn’t news, its normality.

Nigeria should be a very wealthy country, and it could change, but it needs political will.

It’s kind of understandable.

If my uncle dies, I’ll hear about it and be sad.
If the uncle of someone on here dies, I might hear about it, and may feel a pang of empathy.
If the uncle of someone I’ve never met dies, I’ll never hear about it, so won’t feel anything.

We’re not wired to deal with knowing about every tragedy in the world.

We also couldn’t deal with every tragedy if we acknowledged them all. We’d be traumatised wrecks. Possible some of us already are.

It’s not just where they die, its how.

Millions are spent in the UK on anti-terrorist measures although less than 60 people have been killed by terrorists in the UK over the last 10 years. Over that same time period over a 1000 people (mostly women) have died through domestic violence, something which receives very little interest or funding……………….

yep – also road deaths and pollution too.

And gun deaths in the states.

That chart is very true. It also depends on skin colour and who/what the media decides to focus on 🙁

Got to say, this one feels closer to home, I was at a gig in Glasgow on Friday, and at the same time a colleague of mine was running to the basement in Bataclan. Maybe it’s not right that you personalise some things and not others but that’s just how we’re wired. Like Frank who we saw on Friday says, this is my culture man, this is my home.

Good thread and great map

Glad I’m not the only one who was worried that however bad Paris was there are plenty of other terrible events that we don’t mark in the same way

Its not weird that France feels close to home. But alot of places are closer than Australia and impact less in coverage terms

Of course one factor is access to high quality broadcast footage from developing or closed countries