Ever wonder why people come together when tragedies happen? I have noticed that whenever a tragedy happens whether it is a hurricane or a terrorist attack, Citizens unite and become one. The recent attacks on Mumbai were devastating and unfortunate. The Taj Mahal hotel owner said that he did receive a warning that there will be a terrorist attack, but believes that he did not prepare well for it. The security plan failed and around 183 people were killed. What did the owner have to say about this incident? According to a CNN article, "Tata (the hotel owner) was hopeful that the attacks would unite Indians behind a common goal of preventing a similar tragedy." It is a good thing that the owner believes that people will come together after this misfortunate event. 9/11 is another tragedy, which brought people together. Families helped other families heal; people were there for each other. What we can ask ourselves is why do we have to wait until tragedies happen in order to unite? Why can’t we all come together as one? If we all work together to form a strong nation, no one will be able to bring harm or cause distress to the nation. I believe that a country should not wait for tragedies in order to become one connected and close community. If the government has to interfere in any way and help increase common unity, so be it. People also come together in happy times, the 2008 elections is one good example. When Barack Obama won, people gathered around wherever they were able to in order to watch his speech. Here at Wheaton, a large group of students watched Obama's speech in an auditorium all-together as one. A good sign that people are coming together and getting more involved with one another is the idea of having social networking sites. Facebook and Myspace are two social networking sites that have worked to help people meet and make new friends over the Internet around the world. Some people rely on social networking sites in order to make friends and become part of a community.
6 comments:
well said, Abby! it is a shame that it often takes a disaster or some sort of setback for people to wake up and unite.
I am in no way surprised that it takes a disaster to unite a nation. People will not work for something unless they know what they are working for, or more often against. Postmodern affect is built into our society to such a large extent that most people ignore the fact that they are a part of the United States, the State that they live in, or even the town that they live in. People ignore the fact that no matter how ill advised going to war in Iraq was the men and women fighting and dying thousands of miles form home are fighting, dying, loosing legs, and watching each other bleed to death, all so that we can sit at home and pretend that being American means being so independent that we are actually separate from the government that protects us. So, to watch Americans, suffer and, die, or die to save each other in the middle of New York City is what it takes to bring this nation out of the persistent vegetative state that is created when citizens distance them selves from their government.
Where this national sentiment came from I cannot say. Maybe around the time that every bill the congress passes was so full of pork that Americans hated taxes. A Dutch man asked me once, after I explained that all American politicians offer tax cuts, “don’t the people understand that tax money goes to do things for them.” I answered truthfully, no. We no longer under stand that our government does anything for us. Roads? Always been there. Police? Just doing their job. Water? Comes to our house because we need it. Maybe the way to bring the nation together with out mass murder is by sitting down and writing out everything that we all do every day, every thing that were not worried about happening every day, and every thing that we could to that day. Then write down all the reasons that the United States Government makes them all possible. I’ll go first. I got to write this and send it to whomever I wanted, however I wanted.
This is such a true statement, in order to have come together there must be blood that has to be shed. We need to stop letting sorrowness be the key to our counrty and people coming together.
My, we're a very cynical group, aren't we? People don't just come together because of tragedy or disaster; those are just the times we actually stop and realize it. We come together all the time, in the day-to-day "little stuff" that nobody ever thinks about. Who doesn't have people who care about them to help them through the tough times? Tragedy just amplifies this as we are all hurting, in some way or another.
Usually people are so busy doing their own things that there is a tragedy causes people to stop what they are doing and realize the most sentimental aspects of life, and that promotes unity
Yeah, I have to agree with Nick, but expand it a bit to. People come together all the time, but its a small scale thing because in order to come together, you need shared experiences. Tragedies help create those experiences, but so do other events; when obama was elected there were thousands of people laughing smiling and crying, and whenever the pope gives a speech or visits a country he still draws thousands. You just need a powerful event to bring a lot of people together, but it doesnt have to be bad.
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