On Oct. 30, 2006, A CIA strike on a religious school in Pakistan killed 80 civilians. Up to 69 were children.
On Dec. 15, 2010, a U.S. attack on al-Majala in Southern Yemen killed 55 people. Fourteen of these were al-Qaida members. The rest were women and children.
According to a report from the law schools at Stanford and New York universities, the 259 strikes for which the Obama administration is responsible killed between 297 and 569 civilians. At least 64 were children.
On April 15, 2013, three people were killed in a bombing in Massachusetts. One was a child.
The Stanford/NYU report says Pakistani children scream in terror whenever they hear a drone — which, according to the Council on Foreign Affairs, are launched, on average, once every four days.
Children in the United States do not live in such fear. They don’t have to. Sure, there are exceptional circumstances that have rightfully made us reluctant to go to school or the movies for a few days. But these instances are rare, mostly unavoidable and caused by people with serious psychological issues — not governments.
The reason Americans were so shocked by the Boston Marathon bombing was because it had no precedent. The last successful bombing in the U.S. occurred on Sept. 11, 2001 when al-Qaida hijacked four commercial jets and used them as suicide bombs. Three known bombing attempts have been made since then, but each was subdued, according to a history of U.S. bombings by Fox News.
As Americans, we don’t walk down the street fearing a drone attack. We are not at risk of being a civilian casualty of war. On any given day, we probably face a greater chance of death by slipping on a banana peel than being a victim of a bombing. We’re not lucky; we’re privileged.
The Boston Marathon story has dominated media since it began. That’s fine, that’s good; Americans are scared and angry and want to see justice. But I think it’s worth recognizing that far more tragic things have happened, receiving far less attention.
Gary Younge, a British journalist for The Guardian, tweeted the day after the bombing, “I’m up for us ‘All Being Bostonians Today,’ but can we be Yemenis tomorrow and Pakistanis the day after? That’s how empathy works.”
It’s human nature to feel more empathy for things that hit closer to home. It’s hard to relate to the terror occurring in the Middle East every day because it’s so far away. And when American media does so little to perpetuate our empathy, we really can’t be blamed. But maybe we should be.
Should we not hold ourselves responsible for American-caused civilian casualties overseas?
Were the 69 Pakistani school children less important than the one child who died in Boston? Where are their candles? When was the ceremony in remembrance of their lives — lives that we took?
This is not an attempt to downplay the tragedy of the Boston bombing. I realize my rehashing of the event is ridiculously oversimplified. This is simply a request to globalize yourselves, realize how good you have it, and have empathy for all the world’s people, not just the ones with whom you share a residency. Keep running, walking, praying (if that’s your thing), raising money and having empathy for the Boston Marathon victims. And if you have anything leftover, broaden your scope of compassion to reach those victims who go unrecognized.
Tyler Killette is a junior studying mass communications and news editor of the Crow’s Nest. She can be reached at tkillette@mail.usf.edu.
