Picture’s source: Allposters
I have read some saying that changing profile pictures to show cares and sharings for the victims in the recent attack in Paris is a “nonsense” or “stupid” thing or an unfair action because the victims in recent attacks at many other places in the world deserve to be as equally identified and cared as those in Paris etc. I rarely talk about political stuff on facebook and hardly changed my profile pictures after any facebook trends. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care. I just prefered keeping this facebook out from any trends 🙂. But I do this time and find it worth doing (even find it more necessary after reading the opinions mentioned above). Why? Firstly because like many out there, I have nice memories and good feelings when I think of Paris as a beautiful city- the city of love, light and peace. But above all, the recent attack has huge impacts on people’s mind in many senses.
I totally agree that we all are equal and humans of all ethnic groups deserve to be treated the same. However, we should not compare the attacks in Afghanistan to the recent one in Paris to judge how unfairly people are indentifying the tragerdies at the two places. Its not abt discrimination. Besides humanitarian aspects, it has “symbolic meanings” and huge communicative effects. Why do ppl show their solidarity more on social media when the attack happened in Paris? Because Paris is one of the symbols for peace, satefty, security and a belief in a beautiful and happy life. What FIRST come into your mind when you think of Paris? Beautiful, peaceful things or wars and conflicts? But NOW Paris has been attacked. The belief is broken. No where is safe anymore. Do you see the awakening influences of the issue? It awakened ppl to act and show the solidarity. Changing the profile picture on social media is, truly, a very small deed everyone can do but it shows how solidary the world is towards the fights against terrorism. Social media nowadays have huge communication impacts. Immagine, without this “chaging picture” trend, we all still feel sorry and painful for what has happened but we cannot see how much and clearly ordinary ppl in the world are caring about the issue and showing their supports and solidarity for the fight towards a safe and peaceful world. We definitely cannot cry nor “change the facebook profile pictures” to show sharings for all the dead people in the world but we can do it once for things we all see clearly and understand how serious it is to our OWN lives, our beloved ones and people who are close to us, because, saying roughly, danger is right behind our ass. It indeed has a great spiritual effect. It caries symbolic meanings and has great communicative impacts, too. And surely, it never means the victims in Afghanistan don’t “deserve” to be cared as much as ones in Paris…
An Binh's peaceful corner 