The editorial article reflects on the recurring use of religion as a justification for violence, citing the 2015 Paris attacks and the Beirut bombings as stark examples of human suffering driven by political and ideological motives. The author underscores the long-standing nature of such conflicts, drawing parallels between historical clashes—such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Northern Ireland’s sectarian violence, and the Crusades—and modern atrocities, while questioning the role of South African arms manufacturing in global conflicts. The piece critiques the media’s fleeting focus on international tragedies, noting how attention often shifts to local issues or sensationalized domestic stories, and challenges the complacency of societies that view themselves as distant from global violence.
The article also highlights a dissonance between global and local scales of harm, posing a provocative question: if over 130 lives are