In the news

They're welcome to go to Syria and kill civilians as long as it's not here? Right.

People have a natural inclination to be part of a tragedy. This is obviously easier when it's something/somewhere one has some connection to (not matter how tedious - "Oh my god, I visited that place when on holiday two years ago! This really hits home!"). It's both an incredibly humane response, and a incredibly tasteless response. It's best if those who don't feel obliged to intellectually put themselves in the frame of mind of victimhood and tragedy - but obviously still empathize and feel saddened by what has happened - ignore those who do. Nothing good can come from calling out someone for expressing sympathy.

A pretty clever move by IS to have one of the gunmen infiltrate the mediterranean stream of refugees - or at least create the impression that that was how it happened.
You can't build a state if the civilians keep fleeing from it. That one fairly simple move made it that much harder for average Syrians to get out of IS' claws.

And pretty stupid of us to fall for it.

I think we knew it was going to happen but then the alternative was to suspend any humanitarian measures when they were most needed.

Thanks, Graham, that's the answer to my earlier question.

It's not really that tenuous though is it? Paris is closer to my home than large parts of northern Britain and I (and many other Londoners) feel a closer connection to it.

I haven't added it up but the number of people I know who were in Paris at the weekend must be in double figures. I don't think I was being a 'tragedy hipster' to be concerned for them until I knew they were OK, especially as some of them were in the 11th at the time.

It is absolutely understandable to care more about places that are closer to you and with whom you have more connections. This isn't some hierarchy of giving a shit, but as you say a very human response. People aren't an infinite bucket of caring - our emotions are complex, finite and limited.

I'd really like to go to Beirut and I'm sure if I had already been I'd feel a deeper connection to it, that's completely natural.

Do I think there should have been more of a response to the attacks there? Yes.

Do I think that it's natural there was more of a response to the Paris attacks in the UK? Also yes.

Not sure that was some cunning ploy. If you can't travel by legitimate means because you haven't got the paperwork you need to use those kind of routes. There isn't really a third option.

Paris is closer to my home than large parts of northern Britain and I (and many other Londoners) feel a closer connection to it.

data pls.

A lot of it comes down to proportionality.

Lebanon is 'other' - Asian, Muslim, brown, poor. So we get a column on page 6 of the paper.

France is 'people like us' - white, Christian, close, Western. So we get minute silences, tricolor buildings, Facebook hysteria.

The difference between the two reactions perhaps doesn't reflect too well on the reach of our empathy.

So much this.

Also, I am one of those people on FB complaining about people complaining about the tricolour filter. Not because I disagree with the idea that we should empathise with all of humanity, but because quite a bit of the backlash I saw took the form of "YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT PARIS BECAUSE YOU'RE IGNORANT AND YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT LEBANON BECAUSE YOU'RE A MASSIVE RACIST!!!!1111", which is frankly a load of bollocks and should be called out as such.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/serbian-police-arrest-man-with-syrian-passport-matching-paris-attackers

The Serbians have just arrested someone with the same 'passport' as was found in Paris. Same name and numbers AFAICT, just the photo is different. This makes me wonder if the actual Paris passport never went the route that it was tracked, and that its simply one of a large batch.

Of course, the Paris passport may have stamps in it, which I'm not aware of (and no reason why I should know either)

#kony2012

A ruler and Google maps tells me that Paris and London are about 11cm apart. 11cm up north takes me to somewhere north of York but south of Darlington, Middlesborough, Hartlepool, Carlisle, Durham, Newcastle etc. And obviously the whole of Scotland.

Interesting facebook post from a chap wife that was killed.
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-11-16/husband-writes-defiant-and-touching-tribute-to-his-wife-killed-in-bataclan-massacre/

On Friday night you stole away the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hatred. I do not know who you are and I don’t want to know, you are dead souls.

If the God for whom you kill so blindly made us in His image, each bullet in my wife’s body would have been a wound in His heart.

We are only two, my son and I, but we are more powerful than all the world's armies... every day of his life this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom.

Therefore I will not give you the gift of hating you. You have obviously sought it but responding to hatred with anger would be to give in to the same ignorance that that has made you what you are. You want me to be afraid, to cast a mistrustful eye on my fellow citizens, to sacrifice my freedom for security. Lost. Same player, same game.

saw her this morning. Finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as she was when she left on Friday evening, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than 12 years ago.

Of course I'm devasted with grief, I will give you that tiny victory, but this will be a short-term grief. I know that she will join us every day and that we will find each other again in a paradise of free souls which you will never have access to.

We are only two, my son and I, but we are more powerful than all the world's armies. In any case, I have no more time to waste on you, I need to get back to Melvil who is waking up from his afternoon nap. He’s just 17 months old; he’ll eat his snack like every day, and then we’re going to play like we do every day; and every day of his life this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom. Because you don’t have his hatred either.

– ANTOINE LEIRIS

Don't know the order, have been taken from the article.

#kony2012

precisely

I don't know what you think I meant in what wrote, but maybe re-read it.

1) I didn't call it tenuous. 2) I never addressed you or your relationship to anyone in Paris. 3) I never said anything about people who had, or may have had, friends involved. 4) I never said it wasn't understandable. In fact I think I said the opposite - I called it natural. 5) I said nothing, nor did I mean to insinuate, anything about tragedies anywhere else. My point stands for those as well.

Beirut is a very nice city, was there last month. Would go again. Painstakingly conflictive at the core but beautiful all the same. I'd recommend anyone to visit it.

Their reaction is fully understandable.
It's also a them against us situation. Hezbollah backed Shia's vs. Sunni militants.

People changing their Facebook profile pics to the French flag hasn't really got that much to do with the physical proximity of the country, it's more that Facebook (the company) has provided a way to do it in a couple of clicks. It didn't do that for Lebanon, so nobody has changed their profile picture to a Lebanon flag. It's basically just slacktivism writ large with the help of a big Silicon Valley company.

We are social animals who tend to empathise and sympathise with each other. Most of us are removed from having any way to provide practical support, so Facebook presenting us with an easy way to say "hey, I feel sad about this too" is pretty compelling. Solidarity is something that humans want. Questioning people's sympathy credentials on Facebook on the basis of whether they've clicked that button or not is a bit cheap and simplistic, I think.

Is it right for a corporate like Facebook (who already hold a scary amount of data about each of their users) to push any kind of political agenda at all on their customers? Social media is always trying to make everything viral, and it's worked for the Tricolore and it's worked for the Pride rainbows. Ideologically I'm fine with both of these things but I'm not wholly comfortable with the idea that some white dudes in California can just decide what everybody needs to publicly support, and to use a pretty coercive method to ensure homogeneity of public opinion.

Edit: I see that this thread and also the entire internet has already covered all of this. Hey ho.

^ Summed it up well though.

Having made a few Palestine solidarity post publically and have had quite a few people call me a racist and anti semetic.

@bothwell you said it more eloquently than I could have

Charlie Sheen though. Always use a condom, kids m'kay.

Is it definitely bad AIDS?

Edit: Should probably #brasseye that

more on that passport - http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2015/11/17/01001-20151117LIVWWW00018-traque-attentats-de-paris-syrie-daech-enquete.php#102541 @ 09:25

using Google Translate:

Passport found: identity could be that of a Syrian soldier killed
The identity contained on a Syrian passport of a suicide bomber found near the Stade de France could be that of a soldier of Bashar al-Assad killed several months ago, AFP reported citing a source close to the investigation .

This passport is in the name of Mohammad al Ahmad, born September 10, 1990 in Idleb, in north-western Syria. All elements correspond to a soldier troops loyal to Assad. There remain two hypotheses, the source that draws no conclusion that passport was recovered or there is a paper made from a real identity.

It was presented by a registered migrants on the Greek island of Leros, opposite the Turkish coast, on 3 October. Its owner, whose real identity remains in check, has left Greece at an unknown date and was spotted for the last time in Croatia a few days later. This man is one of three suicide bombers who set off their explosive belts at the Stade de France on Friday night.

So I see Prince has now shit out and cancelled his European tour too