Anees Majeed, who lost five relatives on the ship that sank off Greece on June 14, watched in disbelief and anger as a multimillion-dollar rescue operation was underway for five more men lost at sea last week.
At least 350 Pakistani nationals were on the overcrowded ship, Pakistan's interior minister, Rana Sanaullah, confirmed on Friday. More than 80 people have died. About 500 more people are reported missing and presumed dead.
There is little hope that his cousins ??will ever be found or brought home. The family is devastated to hear of mounting evidence that European authorities knew the ship was in trouble but failed to intervene.
However, as they mourned funerals without the bodies of the victims lost at sea, a rescue operation was being talked about around the world. His target was five men, also lost in the depths of the ocean, but on a journey they had chosen as an adventure, not driven by desperation for a better life. Two of them were also Pakistani nationals, but from the opposite side of the social scale to Majeed's cousins ??- businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman.
The contrast between the two tragedies, the scale of efforts to rescue those in danger and the international media's response to the two stories has fueled debate within Pakistan about national and international inequality and the different values ??placed on people's lives.
"We were shocked to learn that millions of money would be spent on this rescue mission," Majeed said. "They used all the resources and so much news came out of this research. But they did not bother to search for the hundreds of Pakistanis and other people who were on the boat near Greece. This is a double standard.”
"It is not the fault of five men that hundreds of people died on the Greek coast. But it is the fault of a system where class inequalities are so great,” a Palestinian journalist, who asked not to be named, told the Guardian. "When people point that out, it's misconstrued as hate."
"It is sad that a submarine with five rich people was given much more consideration, coverage and importance than the migrants on the boat," said one of the victims' relatives. "Millions of dollars must have been spent to save the rich, but there is no such possibility for the poor. Even the Pakistani government was not paying attention to this issue.”
“Këto dallime nxjerrin në pah vlerat e pabarabarta që u janë caktuar jetëve të ndryshme njerëzore, me vetëdije apo pa vetëdije, nga shoqëria dhe qeveritë,” tha Arsalan Khan, asistent profesor i antropologjisë në Union College në New York.
Përmirësimet e sigurisë mund të parandalojnë një tjetër tragjedi si ajo e Titanikut, por fluksi i njerëzve drejt Europës me anije të nuk ka gjasa të ndalet pa ndryshime të thella në sistemin ekonomik që i shtyu qindra të vinin në rrezik jetën e tyre e të vdisnin në një udhëtim që e dinin se ishte jashtëzakonisht i rrezikshëm.
"Unë e di një gjë: njerëzit e varfër do ta bënin përsëri këtë udhëtim vdekjeprurës pasi ata po jetojnë në mjerim në Pakistan dhe kushtet ekonomike janë të padurueshme," tha Majeed. “Qeveritë do të bënin më mirë ta ndalonin këtë, në vend që t'i mbysnin në det të hapur.”
Sources: Guardian, CNN
