A friend asked me this question today: "Yes, the Paris attacks are horrible, but the daily attacks in the Arab world don't get as much press coverage. Who is more important: my people [Arabs] or those [Western people]?"
My answer is that the two are equally important to me. I find the notion that we should care more about the lives of people living in our countries and regions of birth than others to be tribalistic at best. A human life is a human life. Death doesn't differentiate between people based on their ethnicity, nationality, or place of residence. The implication that friend was making was that caring about the lives of the French people meant that I didn't care as much about the lives of the innocent people in Syria, Iraq, etc. I think that's a false dichotomy that only serves to divide people on an arbitrary basis.
Furthermore, I have strong reasons to sympathize with Western people and grieve for their losses. For one, most of my values are diametrically opposed to those of my society's; instead, they are aligned rather comfortably with Western values. I live in a region where millions of people think that those like me should be killed or at least imprisoned. Of course I would feel more comfortable in a Western country where I would be accepted as a human being with rights.
The second strong reason—and this one is more pertinent than shared values—is that a lot of Western people, mainly from the U.S., England, and Finland, have helped me get through times when I literally had no support whatsoever from anyone. They have been there to listen to me during my very worst times, times when all I was hearing from most of my supposed "brothers and sisters" (compatriots and fellow Arabs) was hostile denigration and rejection of atheists, especially ex-Muslims. I'm not exaggerating when I say that online interactions with Western people have single-handedly gotten me through particularly difficult times, including times when I was just about ready to kill myself.
So no, I'm not going to feel ashamed of sympathizing with Western people, including the people in France, the victims of 9/11, the victims of the London bombings, and the victims of any other terrorist attack that targets innocent people in the "West." My sympathy with them doesn't mean that I don't care as much about the suffering of my fellow Arabs, as some people seem to imply. That's because terrorist attacks on the average Joe and Jane in a Western country are, to me, akin to attacks on allies and friends. I will show solidarity with and support for my allies and friends wherever they are and wherever they happen to come from.
#JeSuisParis
My answer is that the two are equally important to me. I find the notion that we should care more about the lives of people living in our countries and regions of birth than others to be tribalistic at best. A human life is a human life. Death doesn't differentiate between people based on their ethnicity, nationality, or place of residence. The implication that friend was making was that caring about the lives of the French people meant that I didn't care as much about the lives of the innocent people in Syria, Iraq, etc. I think that's a false dichotomy that only serves to divide people on an arbitrary basis.
Furthermore, I have strong reasons to sympathize with Western people and grieve for their losses. For one, most of my values are diametrically opposed to those of my society's; instead, they are aligned rather comfortably with Western values. I live in a region where millions of people think that those like me should be killed or at least imprisoned. Of course I would feel more comfortable in a Western country where I would be accepted as a human being with rights.
The second strong reason—and this one is more pertinent than shared values—is that a lot of Western people, mainly from the U.S., England, and Finland, have helped me get through times when I literally had no support whatsoever from anyone. They have been there to listen to me during my very worst times, times when all I was hearing from most of my supposed "brothers and sisters" (compatriots and fellow Arabs) was hostile denigration and rejection of atheists, especially ex-Muslims. I'm not exaggerating when I say that online interactions with Western people have single-handedly gotten me through particularly difficult times, including times when I was just about ready to kill myself.
So no, I'm not going to feel ashamed of sympathizing with Western people, including the people in France, the victims of 9/11, the victims of the London bombings, and the victims of any other terrorist attack that targets innocent people in the "West." My sympathy with them doesn't mean that I don't care as much about the suffering of my fellow Arabs, as some people seem to imply. That's because terrorist attacks on the average Joe and Jane in a Western country are, to me, akin to attacks on allies and friends. I will show solidarity with and support for my allies and friends wherever they are and wherever they happen to come from.
#JeSuisParis
