Why isn't there the same sympathy for Kenyan attacks?

Because Kenya isn't in Europe and all that matters is attacks on Europe , sadly

Not to me, I feel really sorry for them. They must feel very slighted.

I agree stillhere.
I've resisted the instruction from Facebook to change my profile picture to reflect my solidarity with France, because I would prefer to think that all victims of war and terrorism deserve our support and prayers.

Not to me either, be it France or Kenya, the same pain, fear, grief , they must also suffer greatly from the inability to react in anyway

I am ashamed to say that I can barely remember the Kenyan attack. . There is so much misery in the news, it all begins to meld into one. Who claimed responsibility for that attack?

Sympathy expressed regarding the Paris massacres is not an indication that atrocities carried out by terrorist acts across the world don't still produce the same revulsion of course they do. Paris is closer to home and the magnitude of the casualties this time was on a very large scale for Europe, possibly only the Madrid train bombings saw more deaths. I live in Greater London, my children work in London, I did too during the IRA years and perhaps you need those sort of experiences to understand that Paris will resonate more to say a Londoner, or indeed anyone who lives in one of our larger urban areas where something similar could happen. That's not to say a bomb going off in Africa or anywhere else further away is any less of a tragedy. Yes Paris hits it home, it could have been here, it may well be here the next time. We are constantly told how many planned attacks have been averted due to our intelligence services.

147 were massacred in a Kenyan university earlier this year

I have just posted on another thread about our news coverage being dire so I won't repeat it.

It all comes down to 'lazy' journalism in my opinion. I wish there was more coverage of 'World' news because the public would perhaps take more notice how savage, gaining momentum with the likes of IS, Boko Haram etc. We need to take more notice !

We seem to sanitise our news coverage and only wake up when attacks happen in the UK or close to home. War is ugly and we are shielded by the devestation in our main media news coverage but there are some intelligent debates that take place in Parliament and political progs such as Daily Politics but there is a distinct lack of will by the media to run stories.

Perhaps it's because attacks sadly take place on such a regular basis and they have now become 'the norm', they are no longer news in some countries but a way of life

I was lucky enough to visit Beirut in 2010 for work. I loved the city, its people, its countryside and I consider it a privilege and a once-in-a-lifetime experience to have visited one of the most impressive sites of antiquity that I will ever see (Baalbeck).

I have been so very sad that the bombings in Lebanon last week have attracted no outpourings of outrage or sympathy in the media - or none that I have seen. I am very sad for the people of Lebanon and the years and years of unrest that they have lived with and continue to experience.

It feels like "us and them".

147 deaths at the university in Kenya and a considerable number in the Nairobi Shopping Mall, I believe we had threads on GN at the time. Al Shabab but it could have been ISIS, Boko Haram Al Quaeda same objectives, similar outcomes. Murderers killing innocent people in the name of a sick ideology. God is great! Clearly not their version

Stillhere I am afraid it's probably because ther're non whites.

I don't think it's skin colour which dictates how the general public react. We have had wall to wall coverage of the Paris atrocities and inevitably we react strongly as a result. We've had virtually no coverage of other recent atrocities around the world, so it's little wonder that there hasn't been a mass outpouring of grief for them. I would weep for anyone, black, white or brown. Makes no odds to me, we're all on this planet together.

Sorry, Nelliem I wasn't meaning to imply that I thought that you saw a difference.

Nellimoser

Sorry I despair at comments like that, not because I think you have a point.

Perhaps the people who have not updated their FB profile pic with the French Tricolor do feel the same sympathy for the victims of terrorism elsewhere.

Perhaps, even the people who are showing the French Tricolor on their profile pic feel the same sympathy too.

I think it is mistaken to assume otherwise. A flag is a way of showing solidarity. One can feel sympathy without any outward sign. One can also feel helpless about the death cult that is murdering people without any outward sign.

Assumptions such as the one apparent in the OP are why I don't join in band-waggoning gestures like the current tricolor one. People can assume what they like about my feelings but, like as not, they'll be wrong.

I find it slightly insulting to suggest we don't care about all atrocities we hear about. But I do think it's reasonable to be even more upset about Paris, because it's European. And we are too. And it's so close to us.

Perhaps the African people on Facebook had the Kenyan flag all over their pages.

Oh! It's nothing to do with them being non-whites! Now that is bloody insulting!

I am not more upset over the killings in Paris than the killings in Africa , but I think all people are equal

The whole assumption of a lack of sympathy is insulting. No-one has the right to assume they know how other people feel without being told. Not being told about it is not a sign of lack of sympathy.

My not saying I despise the actions murderous thugs does not mean I don't despise them. It may mean I don't wish to talk about it. It may mean that I don't think anything I say (or 'signal' with a flag or whatever) will help anyone. It may mean I'm grieving silently for ALL victims of murderous thugs, whether I know the gory details or not.

I tend to assume that's what all decent people are doing, whether or not they say or signal so.

Because Kenya isn't in Europe and all that matters is attacks on Europe , sadly

I don't think so really, because when the Kenyan shopping attacks happened it was top of the news agenda; When the terrible university attacks happened I remember it being top of the news agenda again.

I think we have watched years and years of unrest and war on our screens coming from the Middle East as well - it seems to have become part of the fabric of life there - and it is wrong to feel inured to it, but people sometimes do in the end.
Refugees fleeing across land and sea has been top of the news agenda for weeks.

However, attacks like the ones in Paris are more unusual and therefore probably more shocking.

I think reporting like that, trying to say that we feel more for those closer to home than those further away, is guileful and intended to stir up more hatred.

Nellie I am not sure I agree with you. I think it is a lot more to do with the frequency of terrorist events in a country and, sadly, Kenya has had a lot - as have many countries in Africa with local insurgencies as well as arab extremists. The shopping mall atrocity in Nairobi received just as much attention as the Paris events.

Thinking back to the recent troubles in Ireland. When the IRA & Protestant Loyalists started their terrorist campaign in Ulster in the late 1960s - 70s every event shocked us. I can still remember the shock and horror of the death of the first British soldier there, I can even remember his name, but as the campaign developed the space given to yet another death or deaths in Northern Ireland, whether military or civilian, either in this country or any other occupied less and less space in the media and certainly was ignored elsewhere. I too became inured to just accepting further deaths as they occurred. I cannot rememeber the name of the second soldier to die in Ulster, or the third, fourth........etc.

Well said that bags. I have near relatives, close friends and good friends of my children in Paris. I am concerned about their immediate welfare . I have no one in Kenya or Beirut and while no man is an island it is relative to ones own circumstances. Otherwise we get compassion fatigue, or at least I do. And suggesting that it is because people are non white that we don't care is a possible thoughtless remark which perhaps the poster might wish to have deleted.

I agree wholeheartedly with the last three posts.