On April 16th, 32 lives were lost when a student went on a gun rampage at Virginia Tech, USA. Barely two days later, another 32 lives were horrifically extinguished in Tieling city in northeast China's Liaoning province when a steel ladle used for pouring molten steel suddenly sheared off from the blast furnace, spilling its boiling content on employees. That same day, another 183 people were tragically killed by suspected Sunni insurgents in four deadly bomb attacks in Baghdad.

The 32 deaths at Virginia Tech precipitated an outpouring of international sympathy for the American people. Messages of condolences poured in from all corners of the world – from leaders as diverse as the Prime Minister of Singapore, the President-elect of Mauritania, the King of Morocco, the Prime Minister of Japan, and the President of Peru, just to name a handful.

I scoured cyberspace and googled in search of similar expressions of condolences and sympathy from the world community for the lives lost that same week in China and Iraq, but none were to be found.

So just what is it then that sets apart the 32 lives lost at Virginia Tech from the lives lost in Tieling and Baghdad? It is not that I begrudge the American people such sympathy but it boggles me that lives lost under tragic circumstances elsewhere in the world often fade into oblivion without as much as a whimper in the news or a fleeting mark of respect.

I set out trying to reason this anomaly and concluded that it has perhaps to do with the powerful influence of the Western media, which devoted exceptionally detailed coverage to the event at Virginia Tech, and from which many an international wire and news agency take their cue.

More controversially, I began to wonder whether the international outpouring of sympathy was a sycophantic response to gain the patronage of a superpower, given that a disproportionately small minority of the messages of condolence conveyed were from leaders and diplomatic officials of first-world nations.

Or worse still, could it be that the lives lost in Virginia Tech, comprising university students with a promising future and economic potential plus a couple of academics, are considered of ‘higher value’ in the social hierarchy of human beings and hence deserving of the extensive sympathy expressed? Indeed some may say that these lives were ‘more equal’ than others.

In the final analysis, I believe all 3 of the above played their roles in some way.

My condolences go out to all who have lost loved ones last week in Baghdad, Tieling and of course, Virginia Tech.