Two weeks ago on January 3rd, there was an attack on two villages in northern Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram.  While the Nigerian government has claimed the death toll was around 150 including killed militants, some Western news sources have estimated that over 2, 000 Nigerian civilians were slaughtered.  While it is impossible to confirm the total number of dead due to the region being in control of hostile militants, satellite imaging has shown huge amounts of damage done to the infrastructure and buildings of the towns of Baga and Doron Baga (BBC).  This event, of course, was a tragedy and an absolutely reprehensible act of barbarism perpetrated on innocent civilians.  Despite the staggering scale of the violence, however, this event has largely been eclipsed by an equally senseless yet remarkable smaller terrorist attack which occurred in Paris on January 7th, which left twelve dead.

Why is one massacre given the front page of newspapers, countless editorials and rally of solidarity of over one million, while the other is given a few articles? The answer of course is that one occurred in an affluent first world metropolis, while the other occurred in a rural village of a developing nation.  Instances such as these, wherein one act of violence in a Western nation overshadows much greater acts of violence from other parts of the world, are not uncommon.  Most terrorist attacks do not take place on European or American soil, but in rural Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other impoverished nations.  Despite this, the most iconic and influential terrorist attack in modern history is 9/11.  Even if the death toll from Nigeria is revealed to be over five thousand, its impact on the world will only be a fraction of that of 9/11.  History will not be labelled “pre- and post- Baga”.  International geopolitics will feel almost no effect at all.

I would never claim that one group of victims somehow is more deserving of memorialization than another, or that it is not entirely natural for a nation to feel more empathy for their own dead than for those who die overseas.  I will not attempt to quantify levels of suffering based on death tolls, but it must be noted that massacres had been and continue to be perpetrated around the world with greater numbers of dead.  When I asked myself why (besides the fact it took place in a wealthy and powerful nation as opposed to a poor nation) 9/11 was seen as such a pivotal event in world with a long history of violent attacks, I came to the conclusion that it was not the death toll.  Indeed, if on September 11th 2001 the World Trade Center had been empty for one reason or another (perhaps for fumigation or remodeling) when it was attacked, it would have had an almost identical impact on the American public.  Those who lost friends and family in the attack would have not suffered nearly as greatly of course, and their stories are without a doubt some of the emotionally traumatizing details that came out of it.  But the overwhelming majority of Americans were not personally effected in this way, and were still incredibly shaken.  When approaching 9/11, it must be understood that will was an attack not on two towers but on the Western illusion of safety against acts of barbarianism.

Works Cited:

“Images ‘show Boko Haram Destruction'” BBC News. BBC, 15 Jan. 2015. Web. 16 Jan. 2015. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30826582>.

Since the beginning of the year in my Arts Studies course we have examined three pieces of literature: Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde and Joy Kagawa’s Obasan. While at a glance these three works may appear entirely unrelated, we have examined as a class how they are sometimes actually very similar and how the themes of memory, trauma and remembering are woven through all of them. All three of the stories are very personal and seemingly endemic to their specific place and time in history, yet at the same they tackle very similar human experiences.

In Persepolis we have the story of a young girl, fraught with large political movements and moments of trauma. In Safe Area Sacco tells his personal story of visiting Gorazde, as well as the stories of those he meets there. Their stories are recount the racial discrimination which ultimately led to genocide over eight thousand innocents. Finally there is Obasan, narrative which stands in the middle of Safe Area and Persepolis. Like the story of Marji, Obasan is from the perspective of a little girl being swept up in large, often traumatic political events. From Safe Area it touches the themes of racial discrimination and the violent splintering of heterogeneous communities. While all three works are heavily related, I see Obasan as a sort of thematic bridge between the two other pieces. While Naomi’s personality is considerably more withdrawn than Marji’s and the manifestation of prejudice against the Japanese was different than that of the Bosnians, Obasan is thematically extremely reminiscent of both works. Considering that all three pieces were written about entirely separate events and for entirely separate purposes, I find it amazing that they are in ways so similar.

Ignoring the cliché that has arisen around the phrase, “history repeats itself” seems very fitting to describe this phenomenon. Rather, humans all encounter similar circumstances, issues and conflicts that arise from our very nature; no matter where you are located in the world you must face humanity with all its flaws and vices. This is what enables our three authors to write vastly different yet intensely similar stories, what allows to relate to people no matter their creed and ultimately allows to understand ourselves.

In the Global Citizens stream of the Coordinated Arts program, we have begun to analyze the graphical autobiography “Persepolis”, by Marjane Satrapi.  The story is about the author’s experiences as a young girl living during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Iranian-Iraqi War.  Satrapi has written “Persepolis” as neither a purely personal or historical tale; instead she chose to play with the duality of the two elements to demonstrate their inseparability.  As proven by the article we had previously read by educational scholar Farhat Shahzad, our environment and community play an enormous role in the way we learn and digest the world around us.  It is therefor no surprise that someone growing up in such a tumultuous environment as the Islamic Revolution would have a complex view of their national history and its relation to their personal growth.  Satrapi makes it very clear from the beginning of “Persepolis” that the events going on in her childhood are monumental, and brought about huge social change throughout an entire country.  As a child, she had to navigate through these social changes and digest the numerous ideological influences constantly surrounding her, including but not limited to her parents, relatives, school teachers and national leaders.  Taking this into account, it immediately becomes clear that it would be impossible to examine Satrapi’s personal growth without also examining the social or political factors present during her upbringing,

This has lead me to some fascinating questions about how we understand history.  Since the history of Iran has had such a profound and direct influence on the very character of Satrapi, how could she ever examine it objectively?  For her, history and memory are one in the same.  In my psychology 101 class, we learned how our minds do not preserve memories perfectly and slightly alter them every time they are remembered.  How is it possible then to accurately moments in history we have witnessed?  Can history only be objectively examined once memories of the events have been wiped from our collective consciousness?  If so, perhaps my generation will never grasp the full picture of the War on Terror and its ensuing conflicts with ISIS.  But at the same time, how is it possible to fully understand events you did not take part in? Wouldn’t those who stormed Juno Beach on D-Day be the most reliable sources on how it felt to be there?  I’m afraid I have not been able to come up with satisfying answers to these questions.  I have, however, gained a deeper appreciation for the juxtaposition Satrapi has presented in “Persepolis” between memory and history, and I am looking forward to further examining it with my classmates.

I doubt there are very many people that would describe educational scholar Farhat Shahzad’s article on interpretive communities as groundbreaking material.  Going into the article, I was expecting a new insightful take on the way which students are influenced by their environment and how it models their learning.  While it was well written and efficiently made its point, I came out of it underwhelmed and doubted whether Shahzad said anything noteworthy at all.  That said, the article has led me to rethink certain subjects such as the role of emotions in remembering history.

When the attack on the World Trade Center transpired I was only five years old, and  due to my young age I was obviously unable to grasp the magnitude or severity of the event.  My mother was from up-state New York and had friends living in Manhattan during the attack.  During the days following the attack I recall my mother being extremely worried talking about how scared her friends must be living in New York City.  The shock of the attacks on 9/11 has ensured that it is an event that will be remembered into the far future.

In high school I was fortunate to have been the student of some truly exceptional teachers.  My favorite was a history teacher, who had a wealth of knowledge and approached his material very methodically.  When discussing 9/11, he placed a heavy importance on logical analysis of the event and warned not to be swayed by over emotional sources.  I found this to be very intelligent, and began to more or less disregard emotion when analyzing history.  I failed to acknowledge that emotions play a crucial role in remembering and recording.  Our desire to record events comes from our emotional attachment to them.   Without emotional attachment, no one would bother to record.

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