Paris's gain is Orlando's loss

The gunshots have died. The shooter has died too. And with him, more than 50 innocent citizens of the USA. But in this gory process, the boredom of choosing between the Devil and the Deep Sea, in the US elections, has been relegated to the back-seat now. The media has got a new life, as it were, with this sensational news. And I am sure primetime TRP ratings are bound to go up. In the USA, and elsewhere. Orlando, that SunShine State , home to more than a dozen theme parks, has herself become the theme of the month.

The media is doing their job. Of drum-beating a disaster into sensational news. Of course, Western media is, like ( well, almost) all other  media elsewhere, is biased. They spare no efforts to turn the arclights, when blood of whites is shed on the roads. Rightly so. But then, when more than 200 innocent school kids in Rawalpindi, Pakistan are killed by similar terrorists, they " get on with it", after a brief mention. Or when thousands are killed by the LTTE, it fails to find even a passing mention in their headlines. Mumbai 26/11 was in the news for sometime, because a handful of Jews unfortunately caught in the crossfire- quite literally. But for those Jews, and the White guests staying the Taj Hotel, Mumbai 26/11 too would have been buried deep in the middle pages of Western media news. Much like the grave of Mumtaz lying in the underground of the Taj.  And as far as terrorism in Burkina Faso is concerned... hang on! Where is it in the map?

I can understand the vested interests of the media and the Western Governments. But what I can't fathom is the one upmanship of our so-called "intellectuals". FB has already been flooded with "I condemn Orlando killings" messages.

I find it concerning that their one upmanship borders on anxiety disorder. An anxiety to show the world that they care for lost innocent lives. " I will be looked down upon by the intellegentia, so let me hurry, before anyone else does", seems to be the driver.  What I still don't see yet, is the flag of Florida donning the FB profile pics of these intellectual beings. Mark Zuckerberg had made a brilliant business move of getting that feature of the French flag to "watermark" on one's FB profile pic. That was his business, and he perhaps had made a few more billions, riding on the anxiety disorder of this intelligentia. But it does appear that Paris's gain, this time, has been Orlando's loss. 

These intellectuals clearly don't care about any news of terrorist attacks that are " not popular" in the circuit. The London Bombings, or Madrid train attack evoke the strongest and most spontaneous outbursts. But there is hardly a whimper, when Naga rebels kill innocent villagers. Ask these intelligentia what the acronym LTTE stands for. And don't be surprised at the blank stare. Or, for that matter, the lives of those innocent Somalis and Ethiopians killed by carpet bombing by American Air Force, in the name of decimating Chemical weapons, that ended up unleashing unseen levels of misery on an already impoverished nations. Those thousands of innocent civilians, surely, are children of lesser Gods, as far as Western media is concerned.  I can understand that. But what about these so called learned intellectuals? Where is their conscience when such attacks happen elsewhere?

Make no mistake. I condemn any killing of human life. Whether it is Orlando, or Oslo. Whether it is Spain or Maine. The terrorist who attacked Orlando clearly had religious motive, since he attacked a Gay Bar. He may or may not agree with LGBTs, but they have a right to live, as much as he does, and he has no business to do what he did. 

But then to be selective in condemnation? Succinctly biased in Solidarity? I would not do it. 

Shame on you, my dear "intellectuals". If our response is " I can choose which incident to react to. I do not have to react to every human killing on planet earth. My focus is only on those that will give me the political mileage amongst my peers", then it exposes who you are. Or, if you say " I can only react to news that is sensationalized, and not to the other news that get buried in the last pages", then you clearly do not belong to the intellectual cadre. So, stop pretending to be one.

Either stand up and be counted for all atrocities that take human lives away by force. Or stop exposing your hypocrisy caused by anxiety disorder. Stop stepping over human misery in order to show-case your intellectual and liberal credentials.