In recent days, I’ve seen a surge of people changing their Facebook profile picture into red, white and blue as a sign of support to the victims of the recent attacks in Paris. Such trends promptly show that we, as human beings, are united, and sympathise with each other’s sufferings, and that we all condemn the barbaric acts of terrorism. But such trends also paint a grim picture of world unity.

I really had to ask myself: why are people doing this now? And not during previous attacks elsewhere around the world? In 2015, there have been 289 terrorist attacks around the world. And the Paris attack does not even compare to the biggest one: The biggest one took place on January 3, when the

terrorist group Boko Haram attacked northern Nigerian villages, killing more than 2000 people.

There have been other big ones too: 137 people were killed in Yemen by suicide bombings this March. 146 killed in a car bombing in Syria. More than 180 killed in suicide car bombings in Iraq. 102 killed in suicide bombings in Turkey. 224 killed in the recent metro jet flight 9268 bombing in Egypt. And so on…

Do me a favour. Google terrorist attacks happening around the world. You’ll come to know that multiple terrorist incidents have taken place in our own neighboring countries, Pakistan and India. 145 people, including 132 children died last year when the Taliban attacked schools in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Yet, such incidents just go passing by with little or no attention.

Most of us know what is going on in Syria these days. And how the Syrians have been suffering. Yet we’ve never changed our Facebook profile pictures in support of the Syrian people. I have not seen a single person taking it to social media to condemn the terrorist bombing  that recently killed 224 people aboard metro jet flight 9268.  And of course, I never saw any country paint their national monuments in Pakistani flag when 132 innocent children died in the Peshawar school attack. Where was world unity then?

Yet, when a terrorist incident takes place in France, people can’t stop talking about it, and all nations show their greatest sympathies. Nations paint their national monuments in French colours and a legions of sympathy flood across social media.

Indeed, there seems to be some sort of bias in the way nations are treated by the international community.

But why? Why do we behave differently to terrorist incidents occurring in developing or underdeveloped nations such as Iraq and Pakistan, than to those occurring in such developed nations as France and the US?  The answer can be summed up as: We sympathise more with western, developed nations, just the way we care more about the rich neighbour across the street, and less about the poor beggar dying in front of our gates. Its basic human psychology.

But this means that indeed, some countries are more important than the others. Or, as in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, in this case: “All nations are equal, but some nations are more equal than others.”

This, I think, is a wrong culture. No matter which country we hail from, we are all the same—humans. And we all have the same feelings and the same sufferings. That is why we all deserve the same level of sympathy and support during the moments of our crisis. The well-being of every nation on Earth is important, maybe not in terms of economic or diplomatic necessities, but surely in terms of human culture and global peace. That is why it is our responsibility to show global

solidarity, and  to provide our utmost support to the people in their suffering—whichever country they may be from, rich or poor, developed or underdeveloped, big or small.

Every nation on Earth is equally important, and it’s only when we realise this, that there shall be true world unity. My prayers are with the 128 innocent people who died in the Paris attacks and their families; and so they are, as well, with the hundreds of people who die in the Middle East and Africa every year. May peace prevail on Earth.

Poudyal is a A-levels student at Budhanilkantha School