This may seem like an out-of-the-ordinary post. Unlike the touristy, humorous posts of the past, this one touches on a far more serious matter. One that, possibly due to being away from friends and family, has really been weighing on my heart lately. So, here are my thoughts. I have always been a true believer in the ensuing good of humanity, in the fact that although there is a muffin top of bad in this world, the good will always prevail. I still am, it’s in my trusting blood. But after a week of endless negative media titles and commentary being thrown at my naïve self, my support of that ideal view started waning. These Paris Attacks have been the absolute cherry on top. And as I sit at my desk, with overflowing paper work – trying to organise my life and decide what to tackle first – I can’t help but type the one thing that I’ve been trying to avoid for some time now into that Google search box: World news.
As the extremely visual, violent and grotesque imagery scrolls over on my PC, one loud voice after the next, shouting, crying, pleading. I can’t help but feel sick to my stomach. I can’t help but wonder what goes on in the minds of people who feel that it is okay to take away the mother of a child or the husband of a wife. When did terrorism get so popular?
One website that popped up was the Global Terrorism Database, go take a peek, I dare you. “Information on more than 140,000 Terrorist Attacks” will be the first thing you read and it doesn’t even include the attacks of this year.
The journalist’s resource shows us that in January alone there were over 2400 innocent people killed in terrorist attacks across the world. The reports look something like this: “Attack on a bus in Cameroon, 15 dead, 10 injured. Attack on military bases - Philippines, 1 dead, 3 injured. Knife attack - Tunisia, 1 dead. Mass massacre – Nigeria, over 2000 people killed, bodies scattered everywhere, number of people injured, uncountable. Bombing – Pakistan, 4 dead, 8 injured. Bombing – Yemen, 6 dead 31 injured. Suicide car bombing – Somalia, 4 dead. Bombing – Egypt, 4 injured. Suicide attack – Saudi Arabia, 3 dead + 2 perpetrators, 2 injured. Suicide car bombing – Afghanistan, 1 dead + 2 perpetrator, 5 injured. Suicide bombings – Iraq, 23 dead + 2 perpetrators, 1 injured. Suicide bombing – Turkey, 1 dead + 1 perpetrator, 1 injured. Car bombing – Yemen, 37 dead, 66 injured. Attack – France, 12 dead, 10 injured. Hostage taking - France, 4 dead + 1 perpetrator, 9 injured. Suicide bombing – Lebanon, 7 dead + 2 perpetrators, 36 injured. Suicide bombing – Nigeria, at least 19 people killed by a 10 year old girl!!! And 20 more people injured. Suicide bombing – Nigeria, 3 dead + 2 perpetrators, 46 injured. Axe attack + attempted bombing – China, 6 dead. Bus attack – Ukraine, 12 dead, 18 injured…”
I am going to stop there. That was a list of known terrorist attacks from the 1st of January 2015 – 13th of January 2015. 13 days and I bet you didn’t know about half of these. I sure as hell know that facebook statuses didn’t change to: #prayingforcameroon. I also know that our profile pictures won’t change to a watermarked picture of the flag of the country in turmoil every time there is an attack, otherwise we would be changing our pictures far more often than we change our undies.
Aside from making it known that the terrorism occuring in these nations is alarming, what are we doing about it? Why are we sitting, idly, waiting, praying that it doesn’t happen to us, to our countries or to our loved ones?
What I am trying to say is that terrorism is an ever-increasing, ever-present threat. There is far more terrorism occurring on a day to day basis than we even have time to comment about on our cherished social media. There are so many more attacks, shootings, murders, bombings, massacres than we can even begin to imagine. The question: Is one form of terrorism worse than another? Do we judge the severity of an attack by the amount of casualties? Is one form of emergency inferior because of the country it occurs in? Do we only react to terrorism when 'higher powers' proclaim that we should? The answer, my friends, is no.
Now, there is something called the global terrorism index rankings. What it aims to do, is provide a systematic standing of nations of the world according to the terrorist activity in that nation. To put some perspective on this, France is only number 56, with 6 attacks, over 280 dead and more than 380 people injured in 2015 alone, not to mention the amount of property damage. Thus, one would think, with all these extraordinarily high numbers, that terrorism is running unbridled. There must be so many extremists out there! So many more ‘evil’ people outnumbering the good. But no, out of the 7.3 billion people in the world, an extremely rough guesstimate of terrorists make up only 0.0025% of that population. With only 7% being Islamic extremists – contrary to popular belief.
So, in other words, while there are a few hundred thousand people in the world planning and plotting to kill, destroy, desolate, mutilate, crush, ruin and attack there are billions more people who are putting their own lives on the line to spite the radicals by rescuing, helping, volunteering, opening their doors, policing, arresting, giving of their own time, money, resources, people who comfort and console, who provide shelter and therapy. People who make a difference. People who still show that there truly is good in the world. People who have the ability to smash the ideology of terrorism like the inferior cockroach it is. What confuses me though, is why we wait for something so tragic to take place to show that humility, that generous side.
We need to take a stand. Take back our world. We need to start standing for the planet. For humanity. Not for one country, or race, not for one type of religion or belief, not for you or for me, but for the human race, for all our brothers and sisters. For all those who have suffered or lost someone or something, and for all those who still will.
(The video above is taken from the Great Dictator (1940) written by Charlie Chaplin and is known as - Charlie Chaplin's most Epic Speech! This speech basically outlines how I feel in words far more profound than I could ever put together. It can be found on Youtube.com)