I have always found it interesting how some news events become reported almost instantaneously, and are kept on CNN for days; where as others are not found on popular news channels or sites, and I only stumble upon them while scrolling through my Twitter feed. How do some tragedies turn into a hashtag, while others garner only one post out of thousands? Take for example the terrorists attacks in Paris in 2015, instantly there were thousands of #JeSuisParis hashtags all across social media. It was even the most talked-about moment of the year on Twitter (https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/jesuisparis-thedress-twitter-reveals-most-6955021). In the following days, Facebook even created a profile picture filter with the French flag, so people could show solidarity with the victims and Parisians. But where were the hashtags and Facebook filters for the terrorists attacks in 2017 for Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Egypt? All of which suffered horrible attacks, killing hundreds of innocent citizens with the one in Egypt even being it’s deadliest terror attack to date. People will talk about the terror attacks in Paris and London for weeks, even people who do not regularly pay attention to the news will hear about it and talk about it. It will be all over social media for days, with people posting pictures and stories of these places in solidarity. I have always wondered why all terror attacks are not treated on the same playing field in regard to media, and the attention it garners, and reading Judith Butler allowed me to understand why this is the case. I want to make it very clear that I am not saying that the recognition and attention that terror attacks in the ‘West’ is unnecessary or bad. What I am saying is that terror attacks in ‘non-Western’ countries like in the Middle East should receive the same attention and news coverage, and the same reaction from the masses of prayers and solidarity for the victims and people of that city and country.

In the first chapter of her book, “Frames of War: When is Life Grievable”, Judith Butler discusses and introduces the idea of the precariousness and precarity of lives. This is the idea that because bodies exist in societies, they are therefore vulnerable to others around them. Because of this vulnerability, all human lives are precarious, however some lives are more precarious than others. She explains how this is controlled by an “interpretative framework” or “frames of recognizability”, which is the perspective in which we view others: how alike or different are they from us. It is in these interpretations that humans view certain lives as grievable, the ones that our lives depends on and the ones that are recognizable to us. While others are ungrievable, the ones that pose a threat to our lives and therefore “they do not appear as ‘lives'” (Butler, 42), those who’s deaths we respond to with coldness. Perhaps this is why it is so easy to feel for those who suffer from acts of war and terror in countries similar to ours, in my case Western countries. It is much easier to feel a connection with those with similar cultural values, and especially when that connection is on a national level. It is much harder to feel connected to those in countries half-way around the world, in which we have never visited or know no one there–connections on a global level.

Butler’s discourse has helped to answer my questions. This idea of precariousness is likely why tragic events that happen in non-Western countries do not receive the same attention and response to those that do. This is likely why the 311 innocent lives that died in the terror attacks in Egypt did not receive the same media attention and mourning as those in Paris did (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/world/middleeast/egypt-sinai-mosque-attack.html). Because we are all vulnerable in society, we all have a responsibility to those around us, even to those who are not seen as grievable at first. We need to broaden our “frames of recognizability” to allow us to try and see all lives as grievable, and not just those that are similar to our own. Once we work on this, perhaps all tragedies will receive the attention and mourning they deserve.

References

Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?London: Verso, 2010. Print.