Boston Bombings Receiving Too Much Attention: Is It Fair?

In the past few days, the world has encountered all sorts of disasters caused by nature and mankind alike. Both the bombings in Boston and Baghdad, as well as the earthquakes in Iran and Pakistan, caused great damage and suffering, and all occurred within 24 hours of each other. The Baghdad bombings and the earthquakes caused the deaths of at least a few dozen people, but the event that has attracted the most attention of all of them is the Boston bombing, which led to the deaths of three people. Every detail of the bombing in Boston has been commented on by the media, and the attention given to the Baghdad bombings and the earthquakes is not even worthy of comparison. As some people say, the lives of Americans are most valuable.

All people are created equal, and most of mankind can agree on this statement. However, the actual level of respect for a human being’s life is specific to a hierarchy, and what the media pays attention to is a very clear indicator of this.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how unfair the world is. Each society has its own rich and poor, and countries, too, are divided into the rich and strong and the poor and weak. Each country struggles to achieve balance between law, economics and morality and tries to do this through various constraints, but even then it is still difficult to remain fair. Even relationships between different countries are anarchic, and promoting fairness between them is extremely difficult.

The unfairness between countries is rooted in the order of the world, which is established through world production, finished goods and personnel, and the world order emphasizes these differences. The United States is at the center of the world in terms of strength and power. If the world were shrunk into one small community, the United States would be the equivalent of top officials and celebrities, and the attention given to them by the media would not be received by any kind of ordinary citizen.

The kind of attention that the Boston attacks received from the rest of the world was not just out of pure interest, but also because the United States’ next actions regarding this case will reflect and set the tone for Obama’s second term’s domestic strategies. However, the United States makes adjustments to its policies; thus, the next period of international politics will be affected.

A nation’s interests are the general domestic political interests, and under international competition, the nation’s interests also reflect its interests internationally. This fact is sometimes not clear to us and has to go through many obstacles to enter into our lives, while other times it is more obvious.

The kind of labels put on people of certain nationalities are usually extremely marginalized parts of the individual’s personality, and these labels only become established through certain social environments and over a long period of time, during which this individual engages in the same activities and work.

For Chinese people, the biggest problem is that the state itself has not yet stabilized. Modern China has a history full of war, and its recent decades have been the most stable period of domestic politics and unprecedented economic prosperity in two centuries, thereby creating the initial conditions for liberalism. But China’s rapid rise has pushed it into the front line of politics of the central and great powers of the world. Uncertainty will thus test China’s national fate. At this level, the fate of the individuals building the environment will suddenly be changed.

After the explosion in Boston, The Washington Post published an article specifically about the written comments of Chinese citizens. This is because China’s national strength has enhanced the importance of the attitudes of ordinary Chinese citizens. The lives of Chinese people are beginning to become a greater part of mainstream media, and this significance goes far beyond the importance of the news itself. The livelihood of China is starting to affect the international community, and the situation of the Chinese people is now becoming a huge part of global welfare.

People, of course, should all be equal, but this has never been the case in the world. The reality is that, in the same kinds of terrorist incidents, the kind of care and attention received by citizens of different countries is very different. The kind of equality within a society and the equality between the relationship of a state and a nation are very difficult to say. The latter equality alone cannot bring about equality, but the support of an equal relationship between a state and a nation can help enforce equality in society. China needs to focus on both these issues in order to bring about success and equality for all.