Remembering

April 19, 2007

I think it's interesting how we view the world through America's own perverted glasses.  The recent  slaughter at the US university campus by a South Korean student stunned Filipinos more than the atrocities that occurred throughout the world. It even got banner treatment by the Inquirer.

Let's see…after the hail of bullets, 33 people were killed including the gunman. 

Elsewhere in the world…

1. Car bombs in Iraq killed 190 people, mostly Shiites and Kurds. The attacks came in the wake of a truck bomb in Baghdad market last February killing 130 people. Since the United States invaded (there's no other word for it) Iraq, nearly a million Iraqis have been rendered homeless and thousands killed.

2 . There's an ongoing genocide in Darfur in West Sudan and more than 200,000 have been killed since 2003 and more than two million people displaced. The political and ethnic violence has now spilled over to Chad and Central African Republic, Reuters reported. 

3. Insurgency in Muslim-dominated provinces in south Thailand has so far killed more than 2,000 people. Targetting Buddhists and Christians, most of the deaths were downright murders.  The junta, hoping to quell the attacks, hired militias and mercenaries. Bad move since it resulted to more abuses with minimum accountability. 

4. Nearly 500 people, including 135 school children, in China were hospitalized after a fertilizer plant leaked a huge amount of sulfur dioxide. The colorless gas, which can cause respiratory problems, remained in the air due to heavy fog in the area, the AFP report said.

5. According to the UN, the percentage of people aged 15 to 49 who are HIV positive is 24 percent in Botswana, 23 percent in Lesotho, 20 percent in Namibia and Zimbabwe, 19 percent in South Africa, 17 percent in Zambia and a whopping 33 percent - one person in three - in Swaziland. Okay, if that's too abstract for you, consider this: the life expectancy in Swaziland land is 31, 35 in Botswana and Lesotho, 47 in South Africa and Namibia, 38 in Zambia and 37 in Zimbabwe. 

6. Spring floods along with the melting winter snow drenched Afghanistan for about a month now. In the Afghan capital of Kabul city alone, more than 500 homes were damaged, 900 families displaced and a further 1,700 might be forced to flee. Its vice president declared 13 of the country's 34 provinces as disaster areas.

7.  In 2000-2002, the total number of hungry people worldwide had risen to 852 million: 815 in developing countries, 28 million in countries in transition and nine million in industrialized countries.Today, according to the World Food Programme, one in nearly seven people are not fed right. In the Philippines, said the Philippine Daily Inquirer report, 15 million people are living less than US$1 a day.(of course, the report used was old data, the World Bank actually praised the Philippines for curbing poverty and the number of hungry stomachs).

The Virginia Tech massacre when taken into this context pales in comparison; 33 students killed seemed tame.  

If I'm going to ask you just what single  shocking thing that occurred throughout the world that you remember over the past decade and I most guarantee you that the world trade center bombings would be on top of your list.  Do you remember Abu Ghraib? The genocide of Somalis in Mogadishu? How about Bosnia?

Exactly. 

I'm not gloating here. I know it's easy to be envious of the United States being the most powerful country in the world. It's also easy to withhold our sympathy. Who pities the richest kid on the block who bullies everybody around on account of his status? 

But nobody should have to die like that. Somebody once said that the most tragic thing to see is a parent burying his/her child and I agree.  The memories of the victims should not be left to their families alone. A single murder should raise an upheaval and a thousand anguished cries to the heavens. Empathy makes us human even if murder cuts into our humanity like hot knife on butter, the scars left are never clean-cut.  

I'm not saying that we should dismiss the university murders as trivial. Just be wary about looking at the crime through the myopic glasses that the United States, who does tend to overreact and throw its weight around, may hand to us. Sure, we commiserate but that doesn't take away our right to disagree. There are 100,000 South Koreans studying in the US right now and there could be racial backlash. We shouldn't allow that to happen.  

I'm not saying here that we shouldn't remember. I'm saying we don't forget.