GARETH MURPHY,
Sir, - A pertinent question that has been repeatedly asked in your letter columns over the past few days is: why do we hear so much about those who died in the attack on the World Trade Centre and sympathise so much with them, yet hear so little and care so little about those who died in Afghanistan?
Without wanting to risk sounding cold-hearted, the answer is quite simple. Many Irish have visited New York and saw the Twin Towers for themselves. Many Irish people can identify with the business background of those who died, and the predominantly Christian culture of those victim's families. It is this ability to relate to the victims' culture, being similar to our own, and the lack of such relativity with those who died in Afghanistan, with whom there are few cultural similarities and fewer historical and familial ties, that causes us to ponder so much more the death of the former.
Regarding the media coverage, the even simpler explanation is that the unprecedented amount of press coverage generated in the US, in the language we speak, is so much easier for the press here to disseminate than the rare broadcast they might receive from their Afghan colleagues.
Whether these reasons morally excuse us from focusing our attentions on the victims we know as opposed to those we do not is open for discussion, but I hope they go some way to explaining why we direct our focus in such a manner. - Yours, etc.,
GARETH MURPHY,
Ashton Close,
Lnocklyon,
Dublin 16.