Are 33 American Lives More Sacred Than 50 Iraqi?

Last Monday, April 16, Cho Seung-Hui entered the history books with the most brutal school killing ever in the U.S., killing 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech, plus himself. On the same day, 50 people were reported dead in Iraq, among them 2 university professors in Mosul and a university student in Baghdad.

The first incident has received massive news coverage, including a full 14 pages in the April 30 issue of Newsweek; the second hardly any, being just another day in the life for the war-torn Middle East. As always in such cases, some people want to debate the fairness of such a disposition, perhaps especially here in Europe. Why should we care more about Americans than Iraqis? Why did Europeans cry on 9/11 but hardly raise an eyebrow at, e.g., the earthquake in Pakistan?

I believe the criticism is flawed. It also highlights some quirks about globalization. The world is flat like never before, and we have access to instant communication, instant news. But this immense amount of information does not bring us closer to every single fellow world citizen; our minds would be incapable of handling such complexity. Instead, we counter-act globalization by focusing on the local. And the local does not have to be physically around the corner; the local can just as well be the culturally close. The Western world shares much the same identity, and the cultural ties between the U.S. and Europe are still strong.

The Virginia Tech killings are in some ways closer to my cultural sphere than, say, racial riots in France, or even struggling farmers here in Denmark. Physical distance doesn’t matter, for communication (and hence, the spread of culture) is instant. The world is global, yes, but also immensely local; only not local in a 20^th-century, nationalistic way.

Well, isn’t this a bad thing? If it means less caring for the third world, yes, of course. But there is no evidence that our willingness to the support struggling people of the world has diminished. They are part of the world family, but family ties come in differing strengths.

So, to answer the question posed in the headline: no, every life is sacred, and I believe every loss of life is tragic to God, no matter how or where it happens. But cultural identity is a fact of life, and I don’t think it is inherently bad that we care more about certain people/things/places than about others. It’s all a part of what keeps the world spinning.

Vibrant Aarhus

I am proud of my city.

Aarhus (Århus) is Denmark’s second largest city, but small-ish at just below 300,000 people. That doesn’t seem to limit us, though, even if it may have in the past.

This week, plans were unveiled for the development of the old harbour area. During the next couple of years a new neighbourhood will rise – literally – on the water, close to the old centre. The centrepiece will be Denmark’s tallest building at 142 metres, all designed by development consortium Keops Light House. It would be awesome to live there.

Aarhus has many strengths; one of its greatest is its world-class university, and especially the growing IT City of Katrinebjerg, with its very own Google R&D. Incidentally, this campus is where I do my studying.

You could also mention the thriving cultural scene, abundance of both classical and rhythmical music, and Aarhus Café Church

Bot most importantly, it’s just a great place to live.

International City Names

Over the latest decade, many main cities in India have changed names. Calcutta is now Kolkata, Bombay is Mumbay, and Madras is Chennai. The rationale is primarily nationalistic; apparently Indians have a wish to distance themselves from their former British colonial masters. Which of course makes sense, but only to an extent. For even though English is widely spoken in India (especially at call centers), the cities are still Indian, with Indian names. Why do they care what the rest of us call them?

Foreign names for local cities is hardly confined to the Indian subcontinent. In English, Firenze is Florence, Köln is Cologne, and København is Copenhagen. Even in Danish, we call Venezia Venedig, and Lisboa is Lissabon. The point is, you don’t expect people to pronounce names in their original language anyway.

In Chinese, apparent name changes are not due to politics, but to linguistics. The Pinyin romanization technique has long ago replaced Wade-Giles (except in Hong Kong and Taiwan) to make latin renderings of written Chinese more accurate. Thus, it is not Peking but Beijing, not Kwangchow but Guangzhou, not Tientsin but Tianjin.

So, my message to India: get real. We don’t care about the names of your cities. If we call it Calcutta or Bombay, it is not because we hate you. Why not spend your time battling corruption and poverty or fixing your infrastructure in stead?