An Arabic saying goes like this: If you want to die through yourself in the Ocean, You’ll find yourself fighting to survive. You don’t want to kill yourself; you want to kill something inside you!! The world has seen two human tragedies in the ocean, and both were domed. A migrant ship with over 700 people on board drowned off Greece’s west coast; 600 died. “Didn’t I tell you we were going to die? Didn’t I tell you we were already dead?”” a young man talking to his uncle before both drowned and died, a survivor said. The other tragedy, a risky small submarine the side of an SUV, imploded with five rich people who took an OceanGate expedition to see the shipwreck of the Titanic in the deep North Atlantic Ocean where no one else went.
The Times reported, “After an international search that gripped much of the world found debris from the vessel near the wreckage of the Titanic.” A sign of a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.” Where migrant shipwrecked was ignored by the world community. The Submarine tragedy got much of the world’s attention and coverage. The American Coastguard, Navy, Airforce, Canadian Coastguard, and the French all coordinated together for the rescue operation. “We can’t locate them, but we can only listen to any sound,” explained one rescue expert. Where in the Migrant ship tragedy, where hundreds of dead stay nameless, we don’t know much about them; women and children, came from war-torn countries, like Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Afghanistan, through human trafficking! They left their families and homes carrying their dreams, looking for a better life in Europe. However, at the Submarine tragedy, where we know their names and ages, we know that each passenger paid $250,000 to see the wrecked Titanic 1,000’s of feet in the deep sea. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush led the Expedition and once said, “It was about finding new life forms. I wanted to be sort of the Captain Kirk.” This tragedy grappled much of our attention; front-page headlines all looking for the missing new frontiers in the deep sea; some social media postings weren’t so kind, “What do you call two billionaires and three millineries sitting on the bottom of the Ocean,
– A good start .. goes the dark joke.
Why the American media paid all that much attention to the missing submarine with five rich people on board and not enough attention to the shipwreck off Greece’s coast where it’s reported more than 700 are missing, presumed dead? A tragedy where human cruelty from the civilized West is blamed for the ship’s demise. The EU Commission blames the Italians; the Italians blame the Greeks, and the Greeks blame the refugees themselves. EU pay Arab dictators millions of dollars to stop the refugees from leaving, the Greeks want them off their shores, “ The people on the migrant ship didn’t want to be rescued; they want to get to Italy,” a Greek official explained. That doesn’t go well for the Greek image; people rather risk dying than land in Greece, the cradle of Western democracy. The Italians don’t want them either. It’s reported that More than 1,200 people drowned in the Mediterranean last year and almost 25,000 since 2014. The Mediterranean Sea is now known as the drowning sea!! As we mourn the two tragedies, we should stop and wonder why the refugee tragedy didn’t get as much coverage or attention. At the same time, the vanished five rich brats in the deep Ocean got all the attention. Ironically, first, our fascination with rich people’s lives became our modern royalties. This tragedy that brought the world’s attention reflects something more profound in our everyday life, demonstrating our infatuation with technology and the Progress that our life depends on. Technology is our new messiah and our future savior. We Americans think technology can solve everything; wherever there is a problem is, we have an App for it. Then when there is a technological failure, we are shocked, and we pay attention. A few hours after the missing contact with the Submarine, TV experts explain how we should think or feel and provide 24/7 forensic analysis of what it is like to be inside this wrecked ship, whether they have enough Oxgang, minute-by-minute media coverage. In contrast, the coverage of the tragedy of hundreds of missing Refugees on the coast of Greece was sparse at best and arrogant and racist at worst! We are more interested in high-tech accidents, Plane and train crashes, traffic accidents, drones, interested in technological news, Progress without human values, Progress for the sake of Progress, McDonald’s first fully automated restaurant, driverless cars, the latest iPhone and apps, news about an egomaniac billionaire taking ego amazing rocket trip to space, or billionaires Musk and Zuckerberg ready for a cage fight. The news of AI and ChatGPT, the secret alien invasion, invading our frontages and minds! Whereas not much attention to our social problems, family crashes and breakdown, violence, rapes, divorce, social issues, mental health, depression, police assaulting young black men, racism, Islamophobia, and hate crimes, are under-reported or set aside as just stats in our collective memories archives. I have mixed feelings about the OceanGate submarine tragedy, so I asked Google AI to search for help; I’m still waiting for an answer! It’s complicated!
Ahmed Tharwat
Host/producer of Arab American Tv show
BelAhdan TV
He is still Working on his Film
Documentary
The Coptic Grave
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