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

[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.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

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.

I don't mean to say that they shouldn't happen. I can understand them as being some kind of focus point if it helps people. But I don't understand them as an organised event for everyone - the whole of Europe taking part for example. I didn't give any more thought to the Madrid bombings than bombings anywhere else in the world.

I don't mean to come across as someone who doesn't care - I've given far more than two minutes of silent thought to the tragic events in London, but I don't need someone telling me to do so, nor a special time for me to do so. Also it's something that sits uneasily with me - I give more thought to it because of the small possibility of it happening to me or someone I know, or because I have been given more graphic information about what happened, and not because it was a worse attack than any of the many others which sadly go on in the world. I feel I can't justify that I or others should spend more time thinking about some tragedies, but not others.

Another issue for me is that I suspect that I would dislike minutes of silence even if I was affected, because that's just not how I deal with things. I like to be alone for silent thought (or at least, not doing as part of some special occasion).

Now of course, that's just me, and I respect other people's need for it. But that's the problem - organised minutes of silences have an implication that you're rude or disrespectful for not taking part, seemingly without consideration that some people might find them uncomfortable or need to deal with things in other ways, nor the fact that not caring about every death in the world is something we all do.