Language and mores, Part V

 In previous parts were framed culture & communications (Part I), stratification of society (Part II),  migrating populations (Part III), and issues of inclusivity as seen in the Global South and North  (Part IV). Let's look now at further asymmetry of newscast among Global North & South. Follow on Part VI.

Note: I find the Middle East intriguing, at the intersection / boundary of Global North & South.

Ever since Kuwait I read Al Jazeera English, and I found this the best reporting (among many) written by a Cambridge University English professor famous for outing post-colonial disparities: Ms. Gopal contrasts the fascination around the Titan accident offshore Newfoundland and the shrug-off of the migrant disaster in the Eastern Mediterranean... 5 vs. 500 people, high tech vs dilapidated vessel, the contrast couldn't be starker. She concludes with:

No tragedy, at sea or elsewhere, requires us to forfeit grief. We are obliged, however, to ask ourselves whose lives we are inclined to mourn and whose lives we consign to our collective equanimity. Who gets to be the hero of an epic or the protagonist of a tragedy, and who is relegated to the margins of human history? Unlike Homer who believed that only a few could survive an Odyssey, perhaps we can hope that all who brave the dangers of the unkind seas may emerge “alive through a big surf to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind.”

Here's another succint illustration from Queen Rania of Jordan Instagram account:

instagram.com/queenrania

In Kuwait I lived in a flat in Ras Al Salmiya, a mainly Middle-Eastern family occupied sector described earlier here. On a construction site opposite my street, there was once a fatality: a construction worker fell to his death from the tenth floor, and I noticed there were no safety rails on the as-yet naked concrete frame. My Palestinian landlord quipped however: "depending on if the victim was a legal migrant or not, the site will be closed for a month or a few days. Why? Coz illegals aren't considered worth investigating!". He said that without a hint of irony or critique of migrants. But it highlighted in a small way the stark contrast described above. 

Note: my landlord was a Palestinian from Beirut (... who I spoke French with!). We laughed at the fact he listened to BBC Arabic Radio while I watched Al Jazeera English TV then online (Al Jazeera started, when BBC Arabic TV was shut down - Wikipedia).