2023-06-26 15:57:56
Paula Adamo IdoetaBBC News Brazil
7 hours
image copyrightGreece Coast Guard
Caption,
The Greek Coast Guard took this image shortly before the ship sank. There are criticisms that the coverage and public interest were less than in the Titan tragedy.
On June 14, one of the deadliest shipwrecks in recent Mediterranean history took place: a ship packed with some 700 immigrants – mostly from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt, including some 100 children – sank near the coast of Greece, without the intervention of the Coast Guard of that country, now accused of negligence.
Hundreds of people remain missing, while the UN has called for an investigation into the case.
Four days later, on June 18, the submersible Titan, carrying five crew members on an exploratory tourist mission to the Titanic wreck, lost contact with its home base, triggering operations by the US Navy and the US and Canadian coast guards. .
Around ten ships were employed in the search for the submersible, which were followed step by step in the news by millions of people around the world, until it was announced that the Titan had probably imploded, claiming the lives of its crew.
Now, the difference in media coverage and global interest that was mobilized around the two maritime tragedies have been the subject of debate, both among experts and on social networks, with criticism for the actions of the press and the unequal emphasis that it was given to the Titan in comparison with the drama of the immigrants who risked themselves on the high seas.
Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of postcolonial studies at Cambridge University’s English School, is one such critic, arguing that the lives of certain individuals have come to the fore while others are “relegated to the margins of human history.”
“I think the press certainly has to step back and ask what stories it wants to tell and what it treats as whether or not it’s interesting,” he says.
“Faceless anonymous” vs “heroic protagonists”
image copyrightGetty Images
Caption,
Unlike the passengers on the wreck, the crew of the Titan were remembered as individuals with a face, name and history.
From her perspective as a scholar of literary criticism, Gopal believes that some key elements contributed to consolidating what she calls the “faceless anonymity” of the refugees in the Mediterranean, compared to the “prominence” given to the five Titan crew.
“Thinking about which stories interest us and why, and the stories that the media give us, I think the big difference between the two cases is that one of them (the one about migrants) was essentially treated as lacking a protagonist, a hero. Gopal tells BBC News Brazil.
“So, we just have kind of a vague number, hundreds, maybe 600 or 800, of people who were on board this ship that sank and died. And we saw very little interest in who these people were as individuals. We saw little interest or mention of their families regarding their grief and what happened.”
Rather, he argues, “in the Titan news, there was a lot of interest in who its passengers were, now sadly dead, as individuals, as people with a face, a name, a story, with interests and passions. In just 24 hours , we received a lot of information about them.”
“Those who died in the Mediterranean last week are also individuals, probably with very interesting life histories and interests that were simply not available to us. As a literary critic, I am interested in how our stories are constructed and who we choose to treat as individuals and who they just become part of an anonymous mass.”
image copyrightEPA
Caption,
Protesters have questioned the actions of the Greek authorities in the face of the imminent tragedy of migrants.
But could it be that the difference in attention to the two tragedies is due to the suspenseful element in the story of the submersible Titan?
The same, by the way, happened with two large search operations that took place practically in real time: the disaster of the Chilean miners, in 2010, and the story of the boys trapped in a cave in Thailand, in 2018.
It must be borne in mind that, now, it was an expedition to the most famous sinking in history, that of the Titanic, and that the public was able to follow the race against time in detail to try to rescue the Titan’s crew before their mission ended. oxygen supply.
“Obviously this is the case – I also found myself clicking ‘refresh’ (on the case news) to find out what was going on. We’re very used to reality TV and witnessing things in real time. So there’s this element of suspense, the ‘what’s going to happen?’ Hollywood-style. But that’s also manufactured,” says Gopal.
He argues that the ship that sank in the Mediterranean had also spent several hours at sea under the surveillance of the authorities, like other similar ships carrying migrants, but, in his opinion, “these are stories we don’t hear” individualities.
“What would have happened if the air coverage of the ship in the Mediterranean had been done live? We do not know exactly what the conversation was between the passengers and the (Greek) coast guard, who stated that the ship did not want to be rescued and that it was heading to Italy.
“What would have happened if all that, the suspense and the fascination, had been mobilized for the 700 people on that ship? (…) It’s also interesting (the difference) between when we decided to witness and when we decided to turn our backs” .
In the case of the refugee boat tragedy, a BBC Verify investigation has called into question the official account of the Greek Coast Guard, which claimed that the boat refused help and was not in any danger until shortly before it sank.
A BBC analysis of the movement of boats in the area of the tragedy indicates that the crowded fishing boat remained motionless for at least seven hours before sinking.
However, the Coast Guard maintains that during that period the ship was headed for Italy and did not need to be salvaged.
Interest in the lives of the rich
image copyrightGetty Images
Caption,
This survivor fared better than his fellow travelers, most of whom came from Pakistan.
BBC Urdu, the BBC’s Pakistani service, has covered the incident extensively, as most of the victims were from Pakistan. The country declared national mourning for the tragedy.
For Farah Zia, head of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, it’s only natural that news of the submersible received so much global attention, with a financially influential group of crew members including billionaires and maritime explorers.
“All over the world, when a tragedy happens to rich people, it becomes very important because people are interested in their lives and it is natural for the press to cover it,” he told BBC Urdu, adding that the tragedy should serve . as an opportunity for “more diverse voices” to be included in the coverage.
At the same time, the Pakistani commentator Zarrar Khuhro highlighted the street demonstrations that took place in Athens after the tragedy, in protest against the actions of the Coast Guard. Other cities also registered protests in front of the Greek embassies.
“Perhaps for the first time, we see a huge demonstration specifically to condemn the loss of life of migrants,” Khuhro told the Urdu Service.
“After a tragedy, we simultaneously see the best and the worst that humanity has to offer.”
For her part, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe – the main human rights organization on the continent -, Dunja Mijatovic, said she was “shocked by the alarming level of tolerance towards serious human rights violations against refugees and migrants throughout Europe”.
The sinking of the Mediterranean, he added, “is another reminder that, despite many warnings, the lives of people at sea continue to be in danger due to insufficient rescue capacity and coordination, the lack of safe and legal routes, the lack of solidarity, and the criminalization of NGOs that try to offer assistance.”
image copyrightEPA
Caption,
Most of the victims of the shipwreck in the Mediterranean are anonymous to the world, but not to their families.
preconceived notions
Following this line, the Cambridge academic thinks that the stories of immigrants trying their luck in the Mediterranean are embedded in preconceived narratives, which also limit interest in individual stories.
“We think we’ve heard their stories: ‘well, it’s desperate people or greedy economic migrants’, which is one of the stories that governments tell us, at least here in the UK,” he says.
“So we thought there was nothing interesting about it and we packed them into family stories instead of individual stories. But each of those 700 passengers had their own story and context. (…) And, once again, we go back to the question of what we decide to participate in, whether in a faceless story or a story that deserves to be told.
“I wonder, if we had coverage like Titan, there would be a change in the public discourse related to immigrants, and maybe there is no interest in changing the public discourse related to immigrants.”
image copyrightGetty Images
Caption,
Syrian baby Alan Kurdi is memorialized on a beach in Turkey, perhaps the only refugee to be remembered by name.
An example that did not follow this rule, Gopal points out, was the case of two-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi, found lifeless on a Turkish beach in 2015, after his family tried to escape the war in Syria.
“This case stands out precisely because it was the exception: when it comes to migrants, he is literally the only one who has a name. He is the exception that proves the rule.
“I think it’s because of the strong image of how it was found and the belief that children shouldn’t die that way. But for most migrants who die at sea, we treat it as normal, everyday and not deserves our attention.”
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