Why Don't We Care about Sri Lanka

Do we have favourites when it comes to civilian casualties? Do we care about some peoples’ suffering more than others?

The contrasting levels of public concern and protest over the killing of innocent civilians in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Gaza since the beginning of this year make the answer an emphatic ‘yes.’

When Israeli forces killed women and children in their assault on Gaza in January, there were was a public outcry in Britain, the liberal left and anti-Zionist movements staged protests, and Israeli writers too registered their public disgust.

But when allegations of civilians being killed in a so-called ‘no fire zone’ by the Sri Lankan army surfaced last month, the response of the world’s public was considerably more muted.

There were angry protests by Tamils in Paris and London, and government ministers voiced their shared concerns, but the terrible suffering of thousands of Tamil civilians trapped in the ‘no-fire zone’ has somehow failed to pluck the nation’s heart strings.

Is it heartlessness? The Tamils caught in this ‘safe zone’ must be the most wretched people on Earth right now. An estimated 50,000 are trapped inside a tiny strip of Sri Lanka’s north-east coast by rebel fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who will shoot them if they try to escape, and the army, which may shell them if they don’t.

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