An Islamic suicide bomber killed at least 25 people at a soccer stadium south of Baghdad today. Nobody talked about it. It hardly made headlines.
When it happens in Brussels, it’s world news, we wrap ourselves in the Belgian flag, our presidential candidates go off the deep end with carpet bombing threats.
It’s like Belgian lives matter, but Iraqi lives don’t?
All lives matter. Not just French, Belgian and American lives.
This story appeared on page A6 of the New York Times today (Saturday, March 26). But isn’t it logical that a threat to Europe, and the Atlantic alliance or “West” that includes America, is more significant to me, and to the readership of the NYTimes, than the deaths of Iraqi’s?
I am first a Michiganer, a Midwesterner, an American, a citizen of the West; I am a citizen of the globe–assuming such a thing makes any sense–only down the line. And that does not mean that Iraqi lives do not matter.
What it does point out is how powerful the decisions of the media moguls are. They decide how we feel – to a large degree.