Wednesday, February 22, 2017

The Inequal Value Of Life

There is so much inequality in the world, the value of a life varies. I just read a number that stunned me 5082. 5082 migrants lost their lives last year trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. 272 have died so far in 2017 trying to make the same journey. All those people died, and are dying on a daily basis yet we hear almost nothing about it. Many of those dead are children. Where has our compassion and our understanding of our shared humanity gone?

Desperate people, looking for a better life, die and are quickly forgotten, why? Because they are Africans?, Syrians? Are they human beings of less value? Are their lives, dreams, futures less important than ours?

When the 9/11 happened 2985 people died, and 16 years later it is all we talk about in the West. In the States it is one of those ground breaking Pearl Harbor moments, the Pearl Harbor of our generation. Yet over 5000 people died last year trying to get to a better life in Europe and they are not spoken of, not remembered and basically forgotten. Their lives are only statistics in an article. What the fuck is that? Why does only some life seen to have value?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/21/africa/libya-migrant-deaths/index.html

Migrant bodies being collected, photos by Ifro Mena/Twitter