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

Hasbeen I know exactly what you mean, and yes we are, as a nation, permitting people incompatible with our way of life, to live here, to I believe, our long term detriment.

I do however believe western people no longer empathise as much as we may have, probably something to do with our culture, particularly the young with their propensity to sit behind a screen and play graphic violent games and TV programs which promote the subjugation and killing of people other than Caucasian.

If Muslims are happy to kill Muslims I guess we can understand why to some degree and as such, we tend not to care overly.

When any violence affects westerners, of course we sit up and listen, this I believe is in our nature and is not racism per se, we are all different, and a simple reason people of different races, religions etc do not always live well together.

Multiculturalism has not served anyone well in any country where it has been policy in some cases, it's simple, we are different, and many people fear this, often for good reason.

Geoff

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

plantagenet, sort of true, but the real issue is that the left wing media DO get ALL that stuff from their international colleagues & CHOOSE not to report it because they don't want us to know how bad islam really is. They don't want us to know how bad the growing islamic threat at home really is.

Geoff of Perth, so true.

Rhian, garbage dear, the left wing media CHOOSE not to report it, in order to keep us ignorant about islam. We became rather inured to the atrocities committed in the Yugoslav wars, for example, because they were inflicted on, and committed by, people “NOT like us”.

Hasbeen, actually you & Geoff of Perth are both right. The 1% ruling, left wing elites encouraged muslims to commit terrorism & imported them as well, so that we could live in 1984 instead of simply deporting them.

Loudmouth, so you admit that left wing multi-CULT-uralism is the cause of terrorism.

Geoff of Perth, we might care IF we knew, but the 1% ruling, left wing elites who control the lame stream media don't report it.

Hi Imamoderatecentrist,

No, I deliberately, explicitly and consciously meant that "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."

When Muslims unequivocally condemn this Islamo-fascism, we must be ready to immediately and strongly support them. They have a heavy cross to bear, and non-Muslims are essentially witnesses, bystanders, including those who are the victims of Islamo-fascism.

I take for granted that the billions of non-Muslims around the world, as bystanders and witnesses, would support any efforts to crush the Islamists like the cockroaches they are.

But I suspect that Islam will throw up (an appropriate phrase) ideologies of this sort for a long time to come, as its adherents struggle to come to terms with the rest of the world, and abandon any notion of dominating it. I firmly believe that one day, perhaps when I'm long gone, the Islamic world will be able to make major contributions for the benefit of the rest of the world, and, of course, vice versa.

Joe

Loudmouth, have you studied any islamic scriptures? The #1 leader of ISIS had 4 or 5 degrees in islamic studies from one of the most prestigious universities in the muslim world.

Q, Who are you to say he is interpreting islamic scriptures wrong? A, the sad, ugly, awkward, inconvenient truth is that islamo-stalinism is actually GOOD islam & ALL muslims not killing us are the bad or lazy muslims.

start with:- http://thestoryofmohammed.blogspot.com.au/ then try reading the Quran in chronological order.

Hi imacentristmoderate,

Yes, of course, I've pointed that out myself on several occasions: ISIS is applying, and not even selectively, the main tenets of Islam.

I'm suggesting that, in order to get out of this quagmire, many Muslims may have to question some of those basic tenets, and I'm privately confident that many are doing just that, that many are questioning whether the beheading and shooting and burning of innocent people, the rape, enslavement and murder of so many others, is what they really want to support, regardless of what some hot-shot kadi or emir or imam with five degrees says.

And when they do that, they deserve our full support. This is a long, ideological dilemma for Muslims to join the modern world, which they fully entitled to do. After all, they are in it: they're not out in the desert in the seventh century, they are here, now, and entitled to hare - and contribute to - the benefits of this booming, buzzing, confusing, maddening, world, with the rest of us.

Joe

Loudmouth, i here where you are coming from but islam cannot be reformed or become enlightened. What muslims need to do is convert to Christianity or Judaism.

Hi Imacentristmoderate,

Perhaps you're right, but I'm an optimist - I'm confident that many Muslims, living as they do one way of life while their book speaks to another, will find ways to 're-interpret' what it prescribes for them in the 21st century.

They live and work in a pragmatic world which, willy-nilly, has few parallels in their metaphysical one, a world in which they, like all of us, have to make practical, realistic choices, judgements and decisions about issues, day to day, for which their book offers little sensible guidance.

As well, whether in Australia or Paris or anywhere else in the West, the spirit of enquiry - really, the imperatives of the modern, post-enlightenment world - must surely encourage people to think for themselves in so many ways. Every day, they are relating to people as people, who reciprocate, people who don't seem particularly concerned about burning in hell-fire while they get on with their lives.

And in an inclusive-multicultural society like Australia's, people not only come from a multitude of national, ethnic and religious backgrounds, but work together, learn from each other, share experiences, develop similar aspirations, socialise and inter-marry.

Certainly there are enclaves, but apart from the outward signs of difference such as dress, relatively trivial differences ultimately, the influences of the surrounding society must influence how people view the world in all sorts of subtle ways. Kids go to school together, people get the bus and train together, shop at the same shops, watch and play similar sports together.

Yes, maybe I'm an optimist. But wait and see :)

Cheers,

Joe

Joshef Wakin is racist, who made a racist slur against white people in this article. He said that "white people assume that black people feel less pain." That is a racist slander aimed squarely at white people. As a white person, I am "offended, humiliated and insulted" by his racist slander, and I think he should be prosecuted under 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

As a racist, my premise is that every race, creed and culture on planet Earth is equal in this respect. Every race, creed and culture are more concerned with the welfare of those with whom they share a common genetic bond, or with whom they feel a cultural kinship, than with those who do not. If this were not so, then how come there are so many racist ethnic and religious organisations in Australia which clearly and unashamedly are only concerned with the welfare of their own race, religion, or culture? Is Joseph going to criticise the aboriginal, Iranian, and Chinese associations in Australia who lobby exclusively for "their" own people? Of course not. Minorities always get judged to a different standard to white people.

Which is racist.

Joseph wrote this article to appeal to the racist prejudices of his own ethnicity. He also wrote it for those in the western world who are always ready to sneer at their own people as some sort of fashion statement. You can almost hear the self loathing trendies crying "Forgive us for our people's racism, Joseph!" All of them are so busy sneering at white people that they are unable to even see the clear contradiction in Joseph's article. They already take it for granted that white people are the world's only racists and that everybody else is the victim of white racism. The idea that anyone but a white person could be racist is an idea which is unable to cause any of their vestigial neurones to synapse.

when Joseph shows as much concern about Jews being killed daily by terrorist we will know that he is concerned about racism. Me thinks his flawed ideology blinds him.

Compassion in these tragedies is inextricably linked with anger at the perps, by which I mean those who actually do it, not just some ideological substitute deemed to have financed it or provoked it (which often goes donkety donk donk all the way back to Adam). It is about the construction of the actual incident in your mind – especially the victim’s perspective. Those outrages that invoke the most horror in me are the deliberate downing of civil airliners and upfront anti-human EXECUTIONS of humans in temporary captivity, like those in Paris, or the machine-gunning of Iraqi and foreign civilians from a helicopter, or the executions of shoppers in a Nairobi supermarket or a Bombay hotel who couldn’t show themselves to be Moslems, or the hunting down and execution of Watutsis by Wahutus in Ruanda, or the Bosnians mass-executed by Serb racists, or the Resistance heroes or Jews or other “Untermenschen” and rounded-up civilians deliberately and personally murdered by the Axis aggressors in Europe and Asia.

Lebanon? Bali? Yes the victims are just as dead as in Paris or in Warsaw but they weren’t captives. It’s the deliberate executions, like the capture and execution of Jean-Charles de Menezes in a railway carriage by British "specials", that add that extra “hang the bastards” revulsion, not race. What a shame the bastards so rarely ARE hanged.