AS the world mourns with Paris, one cannot help but notice that those who perished in France (may their souls rest in peace), are more newsworthy and important than terror victims elsewhere in the world.
Paris was rocked by several terrorist attacks last week on Friday evening.
Over 130 people died and at least 350 others were injured.
In the days since the Paris attacks, love and support for the beloved French capital has poured in from every corner of the world.
Stirring renditions of La Marseillaise rang out on Saturday from Jerusalem to New York as global landmarks were bathed in the French colours and thousands marched in solidarity with Paris.
Monuments from the Sydney Opera House in Australia to One World Trade Centre in New York were adorned with France’s red, white and blue, while the ‘Peace for Paris’ symbol combining the city’s iconic Eiffel Tower with the peace sign of the 1960s went viral online.
And presidential speeches, stumbling upon each other, called it ‘an attack on all of humanity’ and touted the need to defend ‘shared values’.
Flower bouquets, candles and messages of condolence were laid at French embassies worldwide.
More so, facebook quickly rolled out to users a one-click option to overlay their profile pictures with the French tri-colour.
The social media giant even activated Safety Check, a feature usually reserved for natural disasters that let people alert loved ones that they are unhurt.
Yet barely 24 hours before the Paris attacks, there was another attack, twin suicide bombers struck a crowded market place in a southern Beirut suburb in Lebanon, killing at least 44 people and injuring over 200 others.
This has been the worst terrorist attack Lebanon has experienced in years.
And just like the Paris attacks, the Beirut attack was claimed by the Islamic State group ISIS.
Although the terrorist group behind the attacks in Paris and Beirut was the same, the Western media narrative has been vastly different.
The Beirut incident is just another report because not much attention has been paid to it at least by the world leaders who are appalled by terrorism.
No world leader called it an ‘attack on all of humanity’.
The media seems to have also turned a blind eye to the attack as all the attention is on the ‘city of lights’, Paris.
There were no visible solidarity demonstrations, showing support and compassion for those who lost their lives in Lebanon.
On facebook, there is no one-click feature for the Lebanese flag, let alone the safety check feature.
Facebook’s decision to implement its ‘safety check’ feature for the attacks in Paris, but not after bomb blasts in Beirut a day earlier has been criticised, with many Africans and Arabs highlighting facebook’s double standards.
Critics of the site accused it of valuing the lives of Western victims more than those in the Middle-East, Africa and other regions.
Is it the issue of numbers as some are saying in defence of facebook?
If so why did facebook not offer users the chance to overlay the Kenyan flag in support for the 147 Garissa students killed by Al-Shabaab in April?
Does it mean that media coverage of such tragic events depends on race of the victims as well as on where the victims happen to be?
The international media have time and again proved to be systematically racist and Eurocentric as they value the lives of poor people of colour far less than they value the lives of rich white Westerners. 
In northern Nigeria last year, nearly 7 000 people died at the hands of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.
The starkest reminder of this came in January when the world’s eyes were again on Paris where terrorists had attacked the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people.
In Nigeria, reports emerged that 2 000 people had been murdered at the hands of the terror group in the town of Baga just a few days before the Charlie Hebdo attack.
However, the news was largely overlooked by the Western media who prioritised 12 deaths in France over 2 000 in Nigeria.
What makes it even more sad is that during such times when terror attacks hit Europe, African countries cry more than the bereaved yet they turn a blind eye when a similar tragedy befalls a fellow African nation.
On Monday, Benin, a former French colony, observed a day of national mourning in commemoration of the victims of Friday’s terror attacks in Paris.
Flags flew at half-mast all across the country and a minute of silence was observed in memory of the victims.
But Benin has never done that when Boko Haram kills hundreds of people in neighbouring Nigeria.
In Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire about hundreds of people observed a minute of silence at the countries’ French schools.
It seems terrorism is only what leaders and media moguls tell us it is and only when it happens in the West.
It is prudent for Africans to look back and realise that all terror attacks are an attack on all of humanity.
There is nothing unique about the Paris attacks.
After all, they created the mess.
And in the words of William Shakespeare: France was hoist by own petard.