Just a few weeks ago, ISIL launched a series of attacks on Paris, France. However, there are constant terrorist attacks in Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East overall, but none of these attacks has gotten as much attention as Paris.

On social media, many have changed their profile picture to show the French flag and symbolize their compassion and sympathy for the current events. But how come there are only a handful whose profile picture is the Iraqi or Syrian flag or even posted a sympathetic #prayforiraq picture? The answer is clear. The United States puts more focus on France because they have a long-term alliance with us and France is, to put it simply, more familiar to the citizens culturally. I’ve seen maybe one or two articles that point this out and a few discussions that notice such an occurrence. Social media can be powerful, if used correctly, and people in today’s society could do so much more if they shined more light on these topics. People have become extremely wrapped up in this issue in an unfair way; some news stations take advantage of this to write more articles or report about France in order to get more people will read/watch a certain news outlet, which will ultimately increase their profit. People cannot put a price tag on the issues that need to be discussed and known to the world.

Although I do sympathize with the gruesome attacks on Paris, those casualties cannot compare to the number of people lost in the Middle East every single day. We cannot possibly imagine the terror and fear the people in the Middle East feel, especially as they are practically neighbors of ISIL.

The bottom line is, I do believe that people need to know about these attacks on Paris but there needs to be more focus put on the events that are even more disastrous and bigger in scale.

<Nicole Kim, La Canada High School 9th Grade>