I’m sorry, I can’t resist this little rant:
There’s something seriously wrong with this headline:
Europeans perish in Nepal air crash
Especially when you compare it with the first paragraph:
Up to 18 people including 16 tourists from Germany, Australia and Nepal, have been killed after a small aeroplane crashed while trying to land at an airport near Mount Everest, according to Nepalese officials.
And the medium.
Here’s what I mean: “Europeans perish in Nepal air crash” makes me think we’re still stuck in some 1930s colonial mindset in which only European lives matter. I expect this kind of bullshit from the major European and North American media and their Australasian sycophants because, let’s face it, “the West” is still really [and stupidly] trying to get over it’s loss of empire and cope with the fact it is no longer the Undisputed Number One. But from Al Jazeera? For crying out loud! Al J suddenly rates European lives as vastly more important than the lives of mere colonial subjects?! What the hell is going on?
Secondly: Notice the phrase “from Germany, Australia and Nepal” in the first sentence? How many of the countries named are in Europe? One.
only one
So, partly to follow up on my first point, and partly to emphasise the fact that even the first sentence of the article does not give any credence to the stupid, stupid headline: Australia and Nepal are not in Europe. Two thirds of the countries mentioned are not European. The citizens of those countries are not European. In other words: It was not only Europeans who died in that plane crash.
So, how’s about Al J lives up to it’s initial promise, gives an equal voice to the rest of the world, and changes the headline to “Deaths in Nepalese plane crash”, or something that equally gives equal weight to all the lives lost regardless of their continental origin.
While I am heart filled with sorrow at the tragedy… What were they thinking flying Yeti Airlines anyway?
I agree with your points about the writing…more of the same international press dribble.
BTW I like your use of the word sycophants,,even looked that one up.
You have a gift for words.
Well, 包子, they were probably thinking that they had to get to Mt Everest, and that this was the airline doing the hauling of passengers to the local airport, and that risk or no risk, that’s how you get there.
I am not prepared to question their presence on the plane, having seen, on several occasions, a speeding, overladen Steyr (or Dongfeng or Jiefang or other make popular in this part of the world) truck mere centimetres from my wife’s head as we sat in a very rickety little miandi on State Highway 110. We all of us take our risks and live, or die, with the consequences.
Regardless, as you agree, the article should have given equal respect to all lives lost in the crash.