Analysis Of Op-Ed 'The Day Horror Invaded The Park'

On Easter Sunday in Lahore, Pakistan a bombing occurred at an amusement park killing 72 people, twenty-nine of which were children. I read two op-eds about this incident, and while both were emotionally charged, one was more logical and written with a larger viewpoint while the other was extremely emotionally driven and hit closer to home. In Sarah Eleazar’s op-ed “The Day Horror Invaded the Park” in The New York Times she describes the events of the Gulshan-e-Iqbal bombing and uses first hand accounts from people actually present at the bombing and those at the park after the tragedy. This strategy of writing comes across as very logical, emotional, and had a sense of authority because of the first hand accounts. The other op-ed “The Playgrounds
She compares the the park she went to as a child in Pakistan to the park that was targeted on Easter in Pakistan, gives her a sense of authority on the matter because she remembers how fun and comforting the park was for her and how children and parents who go to or went to the Gulshan-e-Iqbal park will not feel that sense of joy because it was robbed from them by a terrorist attack. This gives a great personal aspect to the start of her op-ed, and lets the reader know that this issue hits quite close to home for her and that she cares about this situation, which gives the reader a sense of security in that you will believe that what is written is correct and thought out because people who truly care about something will most likely take time into making sure they’re correct and have a well formulated argument about the topic. “Twenty-nine of the at least 72 dead were children, all of them, presumably, engaging in the child’s pastime of facing fear and surviving it” (Zakaria). This quote gives great emotion and ties in her experiences as a child and how the children effected will not get that opportunity now. “Pakistan’s pain has already been extinguished from the global news cycle, its catastrophe a news item and not — as in Paris or Brussels — a news event.” – alludes to the fact that a lot of times western
The use of her language and using a personal story to show what the children of Pakistan have lost, a sense of joy and safety at parks, made me, a reader not directly effected by this tragedy personally, feel immensely for these victims and want to do something to help. Which I feel was the goal of this op-ed, to make people feel and make them take action against these horrible tragedies. Sarah Eleazar’s “The Day Horror Invaded the Park” was very moving and very informative but I feel that for this situation an approach that focused more on evoking emotion will cause a reader to actually go out and do something as apposed to just be more informed about the