The value of a tragedy?

Tragedies come in all shapes and sizes. Some are a tragedy to individuals, some to small groups, some to countries, some to the world.

To limit the scope of this post, we'll define tragedy as an event that stuns you in its scope or brutality and leave out natural disasters and events commonly called accidents. This still leaves a ton of events, out of which we picked two: 911 and the CharlieHebdo attack of this week.

We picked them because they seem to be two events on which the overwhelming majority of folks on this planet might agree when we use the word tragedy.

So, what value can a tragedy have, especially one of such caliber that we will always hear it called "a senseless tragedy"?  For one, sense and value are not the same.

The one value we at the K-Landnews see in tragedy is probably known since at least the Greeks who invented the concept as currently used. We have not checked this claim, feel free to google it, or - if you live in the EU to bing it to show you independence from Google even if the results are dodgy.

The value of tragedy is: it gives us an opportunity to reflect on who we are.
Needless to say, many waste this opportunity. See Dick Cheney if you doubt this.

The tremendous value in what you see in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy lies, to us, in the almost automatic nature of many responses [including this post]. No matter how well rehearsed, no matter how measured things will be after a week or so. The initial few days speak volumes.

About 911, a few things still pop up in our minds every once in a while. The eerie silence on the train around the time the first plane hit is one. Another illuminating point was how quickly, within a day or two, Indian and Pakistani co-workers put American flag stickers on their cars.
Those who mentioned this to me did not cite patriotism or solidarity, they cited the fear that came with dark skin and, for some, with a turban.
Within a day or two after the attacks, the building I worked at was draped in a huge American flag, one of those 30 or 40 feet deals you only see in movies.
Within the first week, the company had rebranded a suite of products to "Homeland Security Suite". Someone saw the money early.

With the CharlieHebo shootings, the German Interior Secretary called for the removal of videos of the event from YouTube, according to German weekly Der Spiegel. A day later, after international media showed a clip, the demand became more muted to maybe not everything should stay on YouTube.

The Russian offer of assistance in fighting terrorism? Shot down immediately by some German commentators as an effort to get back into the good graces of the West.

Condolences and condemnation of the attack in Arab media? Accepted by conservative commentators, but only after pointing out that they did not call for freedom of the press. 

On Jan. 8, Frankfurter Allgemeine lamented that the country of freedom of speech had censored itself. The article said that no American media had shown Muhammad cartoons, that British media had pixelated some, that the German press received praise for publishing some.
The overall picture is more nuanced than this: a number of popular American online news sites, did publish cartoons, and some large German papers did not.

While the French Front National called for a referendum on the death penalty, the major German parties took their time on policy questions. The Bavarian conservative CSU then called for stricter laws and the introduction of online data retention, despite an EU court decision against the policy.

The largest German police union and some politicians asked for more money and personnel to be able to handle an increased threat.

The aspect of satire and religion beyond CharlieHebo was picked up by Der Spiegel, saying that blasphemy is part of satire and asking this question: why is blasphemy still a felony in Germany?
Indeed, you could ask, why would German politicians who defend the right of CharlieHebo to do Muhammad cartoons oppose abolishing the German blasphemy statute?

If this post has not been worth reading, don't worry. The next tragedy will happen, and maybe someone will have something valuable to say.