The bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in early August was without question a tragedy. US President George W Bush responded to this 'terrible situation' by sending his top transport officials in an attempt to find answers.
The disaster in Minnesota, especially as the recovery effort continued, dominated the American media. It is human nature to respond to tragedies closest to home. As concerns were raised about the structural integrity of bridges throughout the United States, the issue remained in the news for weeks after.
Despite the distance between Australia and Minnesota, our local and national media was also saturated with stories from survivors, live reports and footage of the collapse. News broadcasts ran numerous segments devoted to developments at the scene. This demonstrates the Australian capacity for empathy. The tragedy of the victims of the bridge collapse, as well as the pain of their families, is not under question. It is the intensity of the Australian public and media interest in this particular tragedy, as other disasters and crises that require our urgent attention and reflection continue unabated, which is interesting.
In Iraq, also on that Thursday, the news was also grim. In a town outside Baghdad, a suicide bomber drove an explosive laden car into a line of new recruits queuing to join the state’s police force, an act which has become inherently risky in the new Iraq. A reported 13 people, police and civilians, died. Scores more were injured. But the bloodshed didn’t end there. In Baghdad, also on Thursday, a series of bomb attacks left at least 70 people dead, the overwhelming majority of which were civilians. Lives were torn apart, families destroyed and sectarian divisions deepened.
This kind of violence, and the death in Iraq, is so commonplace that it no longer captures our attention. The reports on the civilian death toll since the US-led invasion in 2003 vary so widely that it becomes easier to not engage. Indeed, the sheer number of deaths somehow dehumanises the victims. The online resource, Iraq Body Count, places the reported number of civilian deaths in Iraq at between 68,470 and 74,900. Comprehending or contextualising death on this scale is hard, particularly in a country as peaceful and secure as Australia. Put in a way that makes sense in sports mad Melbourne, the number of dead Iraqis would nearly fill the MCG.
The war in Iraq, and its horrific associated death toll,