I went online Monday to read the news on The New York Times' website, as I often do. I shot a cursory glance at the top headline, which was something about 30 dead people.
Undoubtedly, I thought, another car bombing in Iraq occurred; or perhaps an earthquake, mudslide or typhoon in Indonesia; or a latest eruption of clan warfare in some godforsaken, HIV-ridden corner of sub-Saharan Africa. This, I was sure, was merely the latest shocker from that foreign, cruel world that only exists in the news, where people tend to die en masse in gruesome form. Reading about them is the digital equivalent of gawking at an accident while on the highway — there is a sympathetic yet perverse curiosity about the suffering and tragedy. This sort of event is always troubling to the intellect but often leaves the psyche unaffected.
In fact, my eyes were halfway down the page to check out the latest sports scores when the word "Virginia" caught my attention and brought me back to the main story. It turns out that this massacre took place in the United States. At a university not unlike this one. And everything changed.
Virginia Tech consumed my thoughts for the remainder of the day. I mourned for the youth who would never do the things he or she was working toward in school, who would never have his or her own family, who lost decades of Earth's most precious asset, human life, with a momentary, capricious pull of a trigger. I considered what it would be like to lose my friends in class, to see them mowed down execution-style in front of my eyes, to live with those images. I felt depressed. I confess I even began to look around the library for suspicious-looking individuals who might attempt a copycat attack.
Yet, if those 33 dead had been in a foreign land, I may not have even read the article.
The last thing in the world that I would want to do in a column is to downplay the horrors of the Virginia Tech killings of April 16. These senseless deaths of innocent young people amount to one of the most terrible events in our nation's history. I just find it troubling that the amazing magnitude of support that will be shown for the Virginia Tech community by me and others in coming weeks may be equaled by relative indifference for the next such disaster in the developing world.
It's difficult to grasp in a life in which we are inundated with nationalism that the divisions of human beings into nations are non-natural, historically recent constructs. I initially passed by the article because I felt disconnected from the Third World peoples who seem to experience these sorts of catastrophes frequently, yet we actually share the most essential bond of all — membership in the human species.
So, next time a car bombing in Iraq occurs; or an earthquake, mudslide or typhoon in Indonesia; or a latest eruption of clan warfare in some godforsaken, HIV-ridden corner of sub-Saharan Africa, I'll remember how I reacted to Virginia Tech. I won't actually feel the same — it is human nature to sympathize most with those with whom we have the most in common — but I'll try not to forget that the only difference between dead in Blacksburg and Baghdad is a few imaginary lines and perhaps religion or skin color.
Sometimes, it takes an unimaginable event to heighten awareness and bring previously ignored aspects of life into focus. This necessarily falls far short of anything approaching compensation or retribution, but it can serve as a reminder that there is still good in a world that seems wholly wrong in times like these.
For me, I think, this is an increased consciousness and empathy for human suffering regardless of where it occurs. And this will be my very small way of remembering and honoring the lives cut tragically short on Monday. May the fallen rest in peace.
John Sprangers ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in political science and international studies.
