Dear Zarena,
Sorry for writing back a bit late - I had been unwell the last week so it took me a while to recharge my batteries. I am so glad you went to the vigil and wrote to me about it. I could completely I imagine myself being there - you described everything so touchingly. It was indeed a very sad news and I couldn't help but notice the discrepancy in the way media portrayed the news.
I really don't understand why at times media so blatantly plays a biased role. Like you mentioned, what was hurting them to show that there were double the number of people attending the vigil. Just a week before these ruthless killings, there were 3 British soldiers that died in Afghanistan and the media really picked up on the news rightly so. Like you mention it hurts whenever a mother's son is killed in a war that makes no sense. There were interviews of their parents, stories of their times outside of the military and their achievements within military. This also called for the commemoration of every other soldier that unfortunately died in this war in Afghanistan. They called it "the club no one wants to be a part of" (I.e the parents of the soldiers who gave up their lives for their country's war).
It hurt me to watch that news but then it hurt me more when so ruthlessly were innocent civilians, majority of them mothers and children, murdered at the hands of the soldier or perhaps soldiers. We heard enough about the soldier who killed the Afghans, he was portrayed as a Victim of the war! He had already psychologically suffered in Iraq we heard and had seen his friend killed some time ago in Afghanistan. We are meant to sympathise with him and the only question that was raised in media was why the US military allowed him in Afghanistan. This too was portrayed as an "accusation" - I heard this term "accuses US government" so much in the news. Automatically we were made to believe that this is merely an accusation and not necessarily the truest portrayal.
But somewhere along the story we heard nothing about the real victims. Who were these mothers, who were these innocent children? What were they doing? Who were their families thinking? What were their dreams? It was sad to hear recently of a school bus from Switzerland that ran into an accident and scores of little precious lives were lost. We saw hour by hour story of the one British child whose life was lost in this fatal accident. I cried. But do the kids, the precious innocent lives in Afghanistan not deserve my tears. Why? Because its their fault they are worthy of being attacked? It doesn't make sense.
We are meant to sympathise with the enraged soldier who murdered these innocent lives because perhaps he saw his friend die at the hands of the war and it messed his mind up. What about the fathers and brothers of these women and children. Will I be told that their minds were messed up because of this incident when they pick arms up against US soldier or will they merely be portrayed as Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists. The soldier who took up arms legally, can be sympathised with but the common man who took up arms cannot be studied.
I am lost for words. And then we wonder why hatred has increased in this world! We wonder and wonder why we have come to a stage where the Norwegian killings of teenagers happened, why innocent lives of Jews were met with hatred. Why there are radical parties coming up in Europe and America hating Romas and Mexicans and banning, ranging from banning halal meat in French schools to minarets in Switzerland. If media had a soul it would understand what it was doing to aggravate this venom. If all of us played our part in shutting out hatred in an unbiased fashion, cutting it from its roots, we wouldn't be crying over the innocent lives lost in Afghanistan today.
No comments:
Post a Comment