Two minute silence

[ciphergoth]

At 12:00 BST today, London and many around the world observed a two minute silence for the 48 people who died in the terrorist attacks on London on 7 July.

During those two minutes, approximately 42 children worldwide died due to poverty.

We are not going to let terrorists cause us to lose perspective.

Comments

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

You're so sane!

[simm42.livejournal.com]

Thankyou for raising this.

There are far worse things being perpectuated around the world that people forget about.

People so often use such silences as this to reflect on things that have closely touched themselves and then give themselves a little pat on the back for giving up their time to think, then forget about everything and go back to their starbucks and their SUVs.

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

I think I'd say "other" rather than "far worse".

[simm42.livejournal.com]

Really? You dont think its worse that 42 children died because we in the west couldn't be bothered to give them the money instead of spending it on an over priced coffee of a fuel guzzling lump of metal? That we ignore that fact?

I think that is far worse. What happened in london atleast had a reason behind it, a message they were trying to convey. The reasoning was insane, the message stupid and the delivery barbaric, but to let children die because we as a whole just cant be bothered to fix it?

No there are far worse things that can and do happen in this world and our hands are dirty from them.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I've enjoyed the discussion in this entry, and agreed with a lot of contrasting things people have said. I've got to say, I think it reflects very poorly on you that you've disabled comments in the entry in your journal that it inspired. There are people on my friends list who have the courage of their convictions enough to do things like go to Uganda to try and make a difference. I can't match that, but at least I have enough courage in my convictions to allow people to challenge them here.

[simm42.livejournal.com]

I dont normnally disallow comments, in this case I was going for shock and the thought it creates (I know for one I dont score close to perfectly against the metrics I list there, but in writing it I've had to confront those issues in myself)

The main problem with this kind of discussion on LJ is that you are preaching to the choir, the people already doing something and that what you say doesnt reach those that really need to hear it, but then would they listen?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

It's probably just as well that they did disable comments or I might well have torn them an new arsehole.

*nods*

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

About 500 were born, to give that 42 a scale. It's a disturbing percentage.

Re: *nods*

[redcountess]

Poverty is tied in with Population Control. They all need to be addressed. A good way to start is for the U.S. to start giving its annual funding to UNFPA again, so that people in developing countries have access to family planning, and HIV treatment and education.

And of course Poverty is also tied in with Terrorism - look at the Sudan etc.

[painted-bird.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the perspective. Also, re world reaction to London, similar numbers of violent deaths elsewhere in the world get nowhere near the press.

Hell, similar numbers of violent terrorism inflicted deaths get nowhere near the press.

:sigh: which doesn't, though, make the London attacks any less bad . . . just that yeah, here's another vote for people thinking in more general terms.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Surely it's acceptable - and only human nature - to focus more on what happens close to home? I for one would never be able to get out of bed in the morning if I was forced to feel as much pain over every single death in the world as I have felt over the past week for those who died in the London bombs. I would feel permanently depressed, as if nothing was worth living for.

I'm not suggesting we should forget atrocities carried out elsewhere (on the contrary I feel we should make an effort to educate ourselves about the world); I just don't think we should feel guilty about not feeling them as much.

[booklectica]

I for one would never be able to get out of bed in the morning if I was forced to feel as much pain over every single death in the world as I have felt over the past week for those who died in the London bombs. I would feel permanently depressed, as if nothing was worth living for.

Yes - I've been getting exactly this feeling since Holly was born, over the number of children in the world who are abused, starving or neglected. It makes me miserable to agonise about it and it doesn't really help either me or them.

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

Perspective and sanity good. But I am entirely in favour of the provision of such vigils, to allow people to publicly express what they're feeling. I don't know about all of Europe standing still, but all of London. Yup. Sorry.

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

Also, in my job particularly, I get heartily sick of people saying 'how can you fight x when y is going on?'. But that's an aside, I know it's not what you're saying

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm not against the vigils or the silence. And I also agree that having a 100% level sense of perspective would drive you mad very quickly - I don't apologise for feeling it more strongly when they bomb my city, and kill friends of friends, than when people thousands of miles away with no connection to me die.

But when we move from expressing what we're feeling and how we're affected, to what we're going to do about it as a matter of public policy, I want it recognised that compared even to road deaths, never mind global poverty, terrorism is barely a blip on the scale of problems government should be thinking about and spending money on.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Not against vigils etc and dont think P is either.

[latexiron.livejournal.com]

A good point...

[deeply-spurious.livejournal.com]

Very important and well made point... One of the things which depressed me most about what happened last week was that it did so much damage to the momentum of the Make Poverty History campaign. Having said that, I thought it admirable that Blair - for all his faults - insisted that the summit continue with it's original agenda with the result that real and genuine progress was made on the Africa issue... The danger is that because the media agenda has been diverted from that issue, leaders (and the public) may now regard the Africa issue as somehow 'dealt with'...

Incidentally, you'll I'm sure be aware that there were a number of other tragic events in recent days which also have received virtually no attention across the world. A train crash in Pakistan killed 120 people... and something like 60 Iraqis have been killed in a number of attacks - including over 20 children yesterday.... 'Today we are all Iraqis'? Can't see it somehow...

[redcountess]

The death of those 20 Iraqi children was indeed evil and wicked - but could have been avoided if the U.S Military hadn't been performing a public relations exercise by giving out sweets to them.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I'm going to put this in my LJ - I hope you don't mind?

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Well said.

For various reasons, I can understand that 48 people dying in London due to terrorism gets more attention than the same number dying from poverty worldwide, whether in the sense of media coverage or reactions from people. But I don't understand the idea of mourning or feeling personal loss for people you don't know - if it's a person I don't know, I feel no difference whether they die from a bomb in London, Iraq or elsewhere.

I don't really understand the point of silence in this situation, for people who weren't affected. There's no reason to mourn those deaths over others; it doesn't achieve anything useful; there's no point considering the risks of terrorism over more likely ways to die. I wonder when we'll start having three minute silences?

[ajva.livejournal.com]

I don't really understand the point of silence in this situation, for people who weren't affected.

I find this rather sad. But I also hope, even if you don't understand it, that you can respect others' need for it. Knowing you, I expect you can.

[cillygirl.livejournal.com]

Definitely.

The terrorist attacks and the possibility of sequels did not make me very afraid at all.

The continuing hysterical media response terrifies me, literally, and to the bottom of my soul.

[squarecat.livejournal.com]

How many children died of wealth?

Or is that the same thing..?