Comparing Beirut and Paris

Analysis: Just as innocent - comparing Beirut and Paris

A Lebanese journalist asks why we categorise Lebanese victims as we mourn French ones.

Habib Battah  

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A few Excerpts ...

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The irony was not lost on some in the Australian press, who noted that there werethree times as many Lebanese Australians as French Australians. And yet, when the country's prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, tweeted "Australians' thoughts, prayers & resolute solidarity with the people of France", there was no mention of Lebanon.

"You'd think if we were able to identify with anyone, it would be with Lebanese Australians - after all, so many of them are among the most beloved in this nation, and have contributed enormously to public life," wrote Chris Graham in New Matilda.

In Washington, meanwhile, US President Barack Obama dubbed the Paris bombings an "attack on all humanity", but once again, as the prominent Lebanese academic Saree Makdisi tweeted, the Beirut bombings were "not worth a mention".

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Diluting the massacres

But what was perhaps even more disturbing than the omission of the Beirut attacks from the international stage of outrage was the number of Western news reports that sought to categorise Lebanese victims rather than mourn them.

The New York Times announced: "Deadly Blasts Hit Hezbollah stronghold in Southern Beirut," while Reuters headlined: "Two Suicide Bombers hit Hezbollah bastion in Lebanon." 

Buried deeper in the body of the stories, a token mention of France's military involvement in Syria briefly appears. By contrast, in stories about Beirut, the military and geopolitical details take centre stage - nearly every paragraph examines Hezbollah's deployment in Syria. There are virtually no quotes from the victims and the word "terrorism" is rarely used.

ake an analysis piece that appeared in the Huffington Post less than 24 hours after the Beirut attacks which flatly suggested that the tragedy was to be expected. "It was a matter of time before residents of Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah-controlled suburb of Beirut Lebanon, were bombed again," a fellow at a Washington think-tank wrote. 

Can one imagine an article a day after the Paris bombings claiming it was just "a matter of time" before Europeans were massacred?

Rather than focus on the cruelty of the suicide bombers, the Huffington Post piece actually interrogates its victims. The focus was not on terrorist cells or their financiers, but rather the "predicament" of "the Shia community", a "hijacked population" which is "trapped", "stuck" and "will always remain imprisoned by its leaders". The author's only hope for change? "Perhaps the Lebanese Shia Muslims are just several suicide bombings and innocent deaths away from questioning Hezbollah's mission in Syria."

Can one imagine the response if the Huffington Post published a similar piece suggesting the Paris attacks were related to a "predicament" in Parisian society? That the innocent civilians were killed because their leadership had failed them, or that France's population had been "hijacked" by imperialist military policies? Would such a piece be given a prominent space in the publication or be dismissed by editors as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) propaganda?

And what if one wistfully wrote that Paris was just "several suicide bombings away from questioning" its government's policies in the Middle East? Would the Post's editors approve such a piece just 24 hours after the tragedy?

Can we imagine how quickly readers and perhaps even politicians would attack the site and accuse it of being the bombers' mouthpiece? Similarly, imagine the reaction had a news site published a piece on September 12, 2001, questioning the 'misguided' population of Manhattan, a day after planes had collapsed the World Trade Center towers?