The Tragedy World Map

NEW DELHI: A “Tragedy World Map” shows the world as it is, where some lives matter more than others. According to the map, countries in red (the US, Canada, Australia, and western/northern Europe) are at the top of the hierarchy, with a “what a terrible tragedy!” tag for tragedies that happen within their borders. India features on the “that’s sad” grouping, whilst West Asia, Russia and China get a “well, life is like this” response. Central Asia makes it to the “wait, does this country exist?” grouping, whilst a majority of Africa falls into the “who cares?” category.

The map makes all the more sense as the brutal Paris attacks dominated newspaper headlines and our social media feeds since gunmen killed 130 people in the French capital on Friday night. In the days that have followed, many have pointed out that just a day before the violence in Paris, twin suicide attacks in Beirut killed 49 people in some of the worst violence Lebanon has seen in years. Beirut, however, did not result in the kind of coverage Paris did… and neither did the attacks in Baghdad or Sanaa or Kabul or.

As a majority of my Facebook friends list changed their profile pictures to include the colours of the French flag, the remainder pointed out why this was not done for Beirut? In fact, Facebook faced some criticism for not offering the feature of a temporary national flag infused profile photo for any of the other attacks of terror that have claimed thousands of lives the world over.

"Hey Facebook can we get a Beirut color option also for profile pics," tweeted comedian Sanjay Manaktala, referring to Facebook’s option to change to a temporary profile picture that was embossed with the colours of France.

Facebook user Kartikëya C Khanna asked rhetorically, “Dear Facebook… is it a bug?”

Others wondered why Facebook did not activate the “Safety Check” feature for the numerous other attacks across the world, in Beirut and elsewhere.

"Let us not forget, 43 people died in Beirut and 200 were wounded on Thursday," singer Bette Midler tweeted.

Indian blogger Karuna Ezara Parikh’s poem, asking people to remember Beirut and other scenes of attacks, went viral.