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.

*nods*

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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.

[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...

[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?

[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..?