[Xelom]

We are having explosions targeting civilians in Turkey. They are occuring in two big cities Istanbul and Ankara. People are frightened to go outside nowadays. They are trying not to use public transport. And these news keep pressuring Turkish people to stay at home more and more. Our last explosion was at heart of Istanbul, Taksim at 19th March and 13th March, 17th February before that at Ankara.

[jacquesm]

Yes, these are just as important. The whole polarization effect of these attacks is what it is all about, the more that can be deflected the better. As you indicate explosions in Turkey are pretty much on the order of the day, proximity to Syria and direct involvement there as well as a very muddled political situation do not make it easier for interested outsiders to get a grip on what is going on there, but one thing is certain, Turkish civilians would very much like it to all just go away.

Turkey is rapidly becoming a focal point in this whole affair and the way the politicians deal with it seems to only add more fuel to the fire. It must be extremely frustrating to live in Turkey at the moment, the people I'm in contact with there are literally worried for their lives and the lives of their families.

[madaxe_again]

Isn't that erdogan pretending to be the pkk in order to justify ethnic cleansing though?

[raldu]

Thank you for pointing out. Turkey has been a consistent target of frequent terrorist attacks from ISIS. However, such facts are somehow being "overlooked" in the Western media because of seemingly Orientalist attitudes.

Over 100 people had been killed in an explosion in their capital, Ankara, following a suicide bombing attack from ISIS. Nobody cared. Then afterwards another attack had happened in Paris, and the whole world broke loose.

It seems that so-called "universal" values of "humanity" is biased towards Western societies.

The same thing happening again and now. Turkey has been recently suffering from similar attacks frequently in Istanbul, and Ankara; and only following an attack in Brussel that HN responds with a protest changing the title color, etc.

Not to mention that authoritarian government of Turkey throttles or censors Twitter, Google, Youtube, etc. after each attack, and spreads misinformation through some mass media channels that they "own". I do not remember any discussion about these censorships in HN. Are such concerns not of value to HN community?

Is that because such bombings and authoritarian regimes are somehow perceived as "normal" in the "Eastern European" or "Middle Eastern" countries? I am confused.

[k-mcgrady]

I don't think nobody cares. The attacks in Turkey this week were the top headline in UK news sites. I think the reason the coverage doesn't last as long as something like Paris is that Turkey is in a much closer proximity to ISIS and attacks like these are much more common there. If anything happens often it loses it's ability to shock you even if you are saddened and disgusted by it. Take Syria for example. For the first few months of the war there was daily news coverage. Now? Nothing. It's not that people don't care, it's just that it's no longer shocking enough to get people to buy newspapers.

[johnchristopher]

> It seems that so-called "universal" values of "humanity" is biased towards Western societies.

No. It's just that western societies have more money and more media running on it so western events get amplified. That and...

> Is that because such bombings and authoritarian regimes are somehow perceived as "normal" in the "Eastern European" or "Middle Eastern" countries? I am confused.

Yes. For as long as I remember the middle-east, part of north Africa, has always been in the news mainly for some bombings against civilians or something like that. Iraq, Lebanon, the whole Iran-Iraq war, the Egyptian bombings from the 90's, the Gaza strip, etc. As a child, in western Europe, I grew up with always the same pictures on TV about the middle east.

That's just my anecdotal opinion though.

[cm2187]

At the same time Turkey plays a dangerous game with ISIS. Probably to weaken the Kurds.

[agumonkey]

It's a bit awkward indeed. Even as French I felt it was improper to have so much contrast between media coverage and people response. I believe it's partly due to the fact that the middle east has been at war for so long it doesn't shock people much anymore, while for Paris it was some kind of a first.

[jacquesm]

That's exactly why it happens. The news outlets will report the unusual with a lot more energy than something that - very unfortunately - happens several times per year. Proximity to the news outlets main audience is another large factor.

[agumonkey]

There was a bit more than media dynamics at play. People somehow treated Paris like an old family aunt that shouldn't be touched. Nice but a bit out of place considering the silence treatment on countries of lesser glow.

[jacquesm]

That's because 'Paris' is something special on the world stage, Istanbul (for no good reasons, it's a beautiful city) less so.

I think a good comparison is with Mexico, drug cartels murdering people hardly makes the news, even if the numbers are comparable or exceed the attacks in Paris. People more or less expect that sort of thing from that particular region so it is not considered newsworthy to the same degree.

[dogma1138]

It's not only that Turkey is a much more frequent receiver of such acts mainly due to ongoing conflict with the Kurdish minority.

Bombings in Ireland were also not that heavily reported on in the West, yes world wide web didn't really exist back then but the main media usually reported it as a footnote unless it was really an extreme event.

When Israel was averaging one suicide bombing every 3 days in the late 90's and early 2000's it seems that in the west it only reached the headlines once the death count came to 30 or so or as far as the US media goes when ever Americans were either targeted or were otherwise casualties of the event.

[wiz21]

hint : human nature. After millions of years of being trained to look over our short territories, we're now watching the whole world. And guess what, we still don't care about things more than 100km away.

Hopefully, we'll get better.

Moreover, you're definitively right. I just watch Belgian TV (official channel). And I can say that people (opposed to governments) of Syria, Libya, Palestine,... are 99.99% of the time represented as mourning their death, singing and jumping; or represented with ruins behind them; or with weapons, or as super poor (compared to our materialist standard down here). So it's very hard for us to build a correct representation of what it is to live in the "orient". The web can give more information, but many (I guess) people get their information from mass media.

So yes, it's super biased towards western (ex colonialist) societies... And that's a shame. I'd love to see what's good in Africa, Turkey, south america, china,...