Double the number killed in Nigeria as those murdered in Mumbai, and many more refuges in light of the mayhem, and yet the response to this past week’s events in Nigeria is relatively muted. Why is that?
Could it be that we are fascinated by the attacks in Mumbai because we identify more with those victims? Is it because the victims in the attacks in India appear more innocent and therefore make them more appealing to us? Is it that Mumbai affirms a wide-spread fear about the growing threat of terror, especially terror sponsored by Islamist organizations, while in Africa Christians spilled as much blood as their Muslim neighbors?
Do we simply care less about Africa than we do about India? Is it because Mumbai is a cosmopolitan city, important to the global economy? Perhaps it is because westerners were victimized in India but not in Nigeria.
Perhaps we simply suffer from what the experts call “compassion fatigue”. Perhaps we are simply overloaded by the coincidence of these horrific events and most of us simply cannot find the space in our hearts to carry so much pain.
Whatever the reasons, we need to pay close attention to both tragedies and how they are unfolding. Why? If for no other reason, pure self interest. The events in Nigeria may be the pre-cursor to Mumbai-like terror in Africa as well. Every cause that spawns global terror began with a local conflict to which little attention was paid.
Perhaps by paying real attention to an “unimportant” city like Jos in Nigeria today, we can both heal the suffering of at least as many people as were effected in India and even preclude the kind of organized terror which accomplished 200 murders in Mumbai.