Hi Joseph,

You're right, we should be feeling as much in our hearts for the victims of the bombings in Beirut, Kano, Maidugiri, Bamako, Madrid, Baghdad, Istanbul, London, Mogadishu, Kampala, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam (an apt name for an Islamist bombing?), Bali, Bombay, Peshawar, Kabul, Kirkuk, and the other 27,000 atrocities committed by Islamist criminals in the last twenty years, as we do about the 500 victims of the Paris atrocities.

Yes, we should be burning with anger at the loss of al those innocent lives in those 27,000 atrocities, by those vile thugs of Islamists, al Qa'ida, ISIS, al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, Taliban, Abu Sayyaf, Jemaa Islamiya, etc., etc. We must burn with anger at the capture, rape and enslavement of tens of thousands of women by this sadistic trash of the Islamic world.

We must stand together with Muslims around the world when they condemn unequivocally this filthy distortion of their religion, and line up in their thousands, in their tens of thousands, to fight it.

Joe

Compassion differences are also a function of the size of Press Corps in a given country or city. Compare New York, Washington or Paris with Beirut.

One determinant of numbers of Press/Media is where they can operate safely. Beirut isn't safe for Western reporters any time - so there are few in Beirut.

Also, as said, where Aussies holiday, or remember in European history and culture counts. Mass killings in the historical and cultural capitals of London, Paris, Jerusalem or New York rate far higher in the consciousness of most Aussies than the same happenings in Beirut or Baghdad.

You know what they say "birds of a feather"........." in this case it was a large event which western people do not expect to see occurring in there own backyard, primarily because they rely on the MSM for facts and this pushes hubris amongst these populations.

The Paris outflow of emotion was politically driven, with a complicit media to achieve political hegemonic aims which the steeple would not normally allow.

The continued huge death tolls in non western countries do, on the whole, not bother westerners because our mantra has always been might is right and "they" obviously deserved it, or we just don't care.

Likewise, there was little outpouring of grief and sympathy for all those dead plane passengers from Russia, especially now that Putin is actually doing something progressive in Syria rather than playing the U.S. Double game.

Most western people lack empathy, especially now they are becoming poorer and poorer, more debt laden and virtually living in police States (sanctioned by those very governments alluding to protect the citizens) based on false threats of dangers that are not there, or ones which have been created by the very governments and their foreign policies which have caused the problems in the first place.

Fearful people throughout the west are giving up their freedom and rights based on mainly US hegemonic ambitions and their perceived right to cheap energy the world over.

We now just don't really care, but as the author has alluded, the others are noticing this not so friendly western trait.

Region is something to do with it, yes, and also family association, cultural affinity, familiarity, personal connection, and frequency and probability. Violence becomes less shocking if becomes more frequent. We became rather inured to the atrocities committed in the Yugoslav wars, for example, though they were inflicted on, and committed by, people “like us”.

I think the most important thing is to recognise that our personal subjective hierarchies of compassion and care are not objective or absolute. I would certainly rescue my children ahead of yours from a burning building. You would probably do the same for yours. But if we are dealing at a societal or policy level, everyone’s child is equally worth saving. I would not expect the fire brigade, for example, to prioritise my child over someone else’s.

So yes, the dead and wounded of Lebanon and Turkey are objectively no less deserving of compassion and support than those of Paris. If we as individuals don’t feel equally empathetic, it’s a product of the human condition, not necessarily racism. Racism arises when people confuse their subjective affinities with objective reality.

Try the other side of the picture Geoff. Life is more pleasant when you hate the Muslims, rather than yourself.

As for the victims of middle eastern bombings, I did have this thought myself. Why the hell are French mutilated bodies any worse than middle eastern bodies?

Then I realised the answer was in our belief in justice. The middle eastern people have developed their barbaric religion & culture, & allowed it to flourish. Most of us have little or no sympathy for those who are now paying the price of their stupidity.

There is much less sympathy around here for the French, than for other EU countries. They were stupid enough to allow their politicians to grow the largest population of Muslims in the western world. Hell the French bleeding hearts & left leaning multiculturalists even applauded this stupidity.

Now they are desperately trying to avoid the blame for the troubles being laid at their doorstep as it should be.

Joseph Wakim is desperately laying a smokescreen to try to hide our developing problem, due to the same actions, by the same type of people. We sure got a lefty PM just at the wrong time.

Wow. Schadenfreude takes so many forms. There's Geoff jumping for joy from his Perth rooftop, and others wagging a finger at somebody else.

Mr Wakim hypothesises about the Paris bombing victims. My understanding from some of their names is that a high proportion of them were Muslim, or at least Arab, or Jewish, not to mention also people from overseas. Clearly, what the Islamist criminals are pissed off (among other things) about is the cosmopolitanism of ordinary people in Paris.

One inevitable consequence of the Enlightenment, and particularly of the internationalisation and globalisation of capitalist economic activity, is the spreading universally of all of the values underpinning those forces. Another consequence is the blurring of national boundaries, and cultural boundaries. People are moving around, migrating at almost unprecedented rates, not just from Syria to Europe, but in the much more long-term, from Asia and Africa to Europe, here and the Americas too. And, in the process, huge numbers of people are willingly Westernising themselves: that's what they want. Get on a bus here and you will get my drift.

That's the 'cultural drift' that the Islamists are indirectly trying to stop - at least, it's a consequence of the modernising forces that they oppose. From that point of view, they can never win.

Joe