As a rooftop burned in Paris, footage was broadcast all over the world.
The fire engulfed bricks and timber, claiming the spire that had stood at the centre of the 4th arrondissement of Paris for centuries.
As people grieved, and billionaires pledged money we didn’t know they had, it felt for a moment like we were in the midst of a human tragedy, rather than an architectural one.
With nuts and bolts and wood and stone, the ceiling of Notre Dame will be rebuilt.
Such hope does not exist in Sri Lanka.
On Easter Sunday, six coordinated terror attacks were orchestrated in the commercial capital of Colombo.
Three Christian churches and three luxury hotels were targeted by suicide bombers, who blew the buildings to shreds.
But in Colombo, it was more than bricks and timber.
The death toll has risen to 359, and more than 500 are seriously injured.
Anders Holch Povlsen, Denmark’s richest man, and his wife Anne Storm Pedersen lost three of their four children.
Sri Lankan TV chef Shantha Mayadunne and her daughter Nisanga were killed in the blast in the Shangri-La hotel, where they had taken a photo together moments earlier.
An entire family, including a seven-year-old girl and a one-year-old boy were murdered at St Anthony’s Shrine. They’d heard news of explosions and were looking for relatives when the bomb went off.
And in the 24 hours after the incident the world went, relatively speaking, quiet.
Google trends shows that the terms ‘Notre Dame fire’ were searched seven times more often than the terms ‘Sri Lanka’ in the hours after the events.
No billionaires have emerged, pledging to donate millions to rebuilding Sri Lanka. There has been no viral hashtag, or social media outcry in the same way there was when we nearly lost a cathedral.
“Notre Dame felt closer,” some try to reason, even though it is geographically further away.
“I’d been to Notre Dame,” others argue. But had they been to a Christchurch mosque? Or the Twin Towers in New York? Or Manchester in the UK? Must we have been somewhere to feel a closeness to it?
Perhaps the Sri Lankan victims and mourners did not ‘look’ like the majority of Australians – making it seem like it didn’t have all that much to do with ‘us’.
On this week’s episode of Mamamia Out Loud, we talk about the Sri Lankan government’s decision to shut down Facebook in the wake of the terror attacks. Post continues.
Or maybe it was the timing.
We were in an Easter break bubble, further from our phones and work computers than usual. It was a time we wanted to be celebrating, and when we saw the headline ‘Terror attack in Sri Lanka, death toll rising’, we decided not to click.
We were fatigued, maybe.
It was only five weeks ago that a gunman murdered 50 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday afternoon prayer.
That was an attack on Muslims. Sri Lanka was an attack on Christians. There is no coherent narrative and there are no goodies and baddies.
It is time, perhaps, to ask ourselves where our priorities lie.
There was no one inside the Notre Dame cathedral, old and beautiful as it was.
But the six buildings bombed on Easter Sunday were full.
And surely that’s worth more.
Top Comments
I have much compassion not only for Sri Lankese victims -- to be honnest and fair. But also for also the Arab Christians killed in Lybia, Nigeria, Sudan, Mail, Indonesia -- you name it. It never ends, and Europe has not more than a scared word of comiseration. It is a shame.
But I also find it totally displaced, to abuse the tragedy of Notre Dame -- in order to make such theories. The two have nothing to do with each other. NOTHING. You might better have questioned, when they all thought "I am Charlie", why they are not Sri Lanka, Nigeria, or so on? Was more appropiate.
Sri Lanka receives hundreds of millions of dollars in donations from various sources every year. There are right now several campaigns to raise money for the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society in response to these terrorist attacks. There are in-country drives to donate blood. There are GoFundMe sites set up, such as one by KindHearted Lankans. Brother's Brother Foundation in Pittburgh, PA, is raising money.
I found these with a minimum of effort via a basic internet search in less time it took for Judas Iscariot to complain about the cost of the oil wasted on Jesus.
The Catholic church receives more than that per year. They are the richest organisation on earth - and also the most damaging to humanity. The point is, people are going on and on about Notre Dame and tweeting about funding. No such tweeting is done regarding Sri Lanka. Regardless of what charities exist, the point is that Sri Lanka is not 'trending' if you like, as much as Notre Dame is.
You do know that the government doesn’t treat all people in Sri Lanka equally right? So much of the donations through the Red Cross goes to the majority Sinhalese population. The tamil population hardly receives any donations and many people are suffering. That was the whole point in the civil war where after the government won after so many Tamils were killed, rapes and tortured. Donating via Red Cross or offical channels doesn’t benefit the people who need it. It just finds the majority.