The Truth of Danger

Two weeks ago, we were haunted by one of the most disastrous events in recent American history: the Boston Marathon bombings. On Monday, April 15, the bombings of the Boston Marathon killed three and maimed over 100 people. Then on Thursday night, the suspects of the bombings intruded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, killing a campus security officer during a gunfight. The suspects were identified, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed by the police during the early hours of the following Friday. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was taken into custody on that night.The response to these Boston bombings was significant, all over Facebook and all kinds of media and news. All throughout last week, the majority of Facebook statuses consisted of, "Stay safe, Boston," or some other phrase involving Boston and the bombings. And this is perfectly understandable; after all, the bombings happened about 50 miles away from our campus, and a lot of our families and friends were involved in the events and the lockdowns following the attacks.After the hundreds of statuses and news articles solely focusing on the Boston bombings, after a few days, some people started posting that there had been a bombing in Iraq that killed about 50 people and that there were various bombings and attacks going on all over the world the same day as the Boston Marathon bombings, which weren’t as nearly publicized as the Boston attacks. This made me wonder why so many of us would care and write about the Boston Marathon bombings and why so few of us would even know about the existence of other bombings around the world that were killing and injuring far more people than the Boston bombings affected. This is not to say that the Boston Marathon bombings are in any way inferior to the bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, but what I mean to ask is, why did so few of us know about these bombings in the Middle East, and why were the Boston bombings such a huge deal?Yes, it might have been because the Boston bombings were so close to us and because many of our loved ones were involved in it and were in danger. And yes, some people might think that bombings happen every single day in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are war-zones, and therefore that it is nothing special that there was a bombing that happened in the Middle East, but that it is a big deal for bombs to explode in the middle of Boston.It is all that, but I think that there is also another factor involved in our responses to both bombings. We all have this sense of security that we take for granted, and suddenly, with an attack on Boston, that sense of security is shattered. But it was only temporary—as soon as the suspects were caught, I can say that most of us breathed a sigh of relief and cheered because now it seemed like we were once again safe. Things seemed back to normal because Boston was strong and resilient, and now, the root of the problem was taken care of.However, what we should all know is that we should not take this sense of security for granted. In the Middle East, there are dozens of people who have never felt what security is, because they can be killed by a bomb or attack at any time. Therefore, I think what these attacks should help us realize more than anything is that we should not take anything for granted, even security, which, as we saw in the Boston Marathon bombings, is not guaranteed and thus should not be taken for granted.Overall, I believe that it would have been great to bring the bombings in the Middle East to as much public attention as the Boston Marathon bombings received, and I do believe that the amount of public attention that the bombings in Boston got was deserved. But what I think that we should emphasize in these bombings is that we are not under a permanent umbrella of security; therefore, we should never take the sense of security that we have for granted.