(Opinion) The desperate differences that plague our dangerously uneven society have never been better displayed than the recent deaths at sea of wealthy passengers huddled in a luxury submersible and desperate migrants from a capsized boat in the Mediterranean.
The sea doesn’t play favorites.
This has been a time of tragic death at sea for a few millionaires who, for a quarter of a million dollars each, were eager to brave two-mile depths to sightsee the wreck of the Titanic for an estimated two-and-one-half hours.
They traveled in 22 feet long and nine feet tall, specially designed and constructed submersible capsule piloted by OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
It lost contact soon after its launch and disappeared into the deep, surely killing all five aboard when the oxygen ran out or some other disaster struck, despite a massive international rescue effort.
It has also been a time of death by drowning for hundreds of desperate migrants from North Africa seeking a better life in Europe.
Their grossly overloaded smuggler-operated boat capsized in one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean, drowning as many as 650 men, women, and children in the second deadliest immigrant shipwreck on record.
Only the rescue of 100 dehydrated and sea-soaked Pakistani, Syrian, Palestinian, and Egyptian men by the $175 million Mexican-owned superyacht, Mayan Queen IV, fortunately sailing nearby and hearing the distress call, reduced the number who perished.
Comparison of these two sad events highlights differences so stark that it is as if they were taking place in two different worlds.
But they were not.
World media attention focused on the hunt and rescue efforts since communications were lost with the submersible, and even the New York Times provided live coverage of the rescue mission.
By contrast, only a tiny amount of attention has been given to the drowned immigrants. It seems as if some lives make better stories than others.
Said Kristina Drye, a communications analyst at USAID. “But hundreds of refugees just died on a boat that collapsed in the Mediterranean, and that situation has already stopped being news on most major platforms.”
She wrote that the 19-year-old passenger’s “dad put him on this boat so they could feel something thrilling, something associated with invincibility,” she added.
“I don’t think it ever crossed their mind that they would feel fear. And yet there are hundreds of kids, crossing dozens of borders, whose parents send them knowing they will only feel fear and that no one is invincible.”
Rescue efforts for the submersible in an area the size of Massachusetts have included four Canadian Coast Guard ships, five US Coast Guard surface vessels, multiple surveillance aircraft, and remote-operated vehicles, according to Jamie Frederick, captain of the First Coast Guard District.
No one has speculated about the cost of the rescue effort or who is going to foot what must be a monumental bill.
The contrast between that massive effort with the Greek Coast Guard’s pathetic inaction and their defense that the boat had rejected offers of help before it sank in front of them seemed insincere at best.
Those running the ship were reportedly intent on reaching Italy, but the boat’s captain reported to the Hellenic Search and Rescue Center that overcrowding was causing it to rock “dangerously.”
Human rights advocate Kenneth Roth was among those who contrasted the massive search operation for the five-person submersible with the “pathetic” response to an imminent shipwreck of an overcrowded fishing boat.
It is as if the immigrants’ lives hardly mattered at all.
It was nothing more than good luck that the Mayan Queen IV was nearby, and its English Capitan reacted immediately to the distress call saving the lives of the immigrants crying out for help in the darkness.
The mix with the immigrants would have been very interesting if it had its usual coterie of millionaires.
Have we become so callous that a refugee tragedy and the plight of refugees worldwide don’t rank for our attention more than the tragic end of a pleasure craft?
I hope not.