The semantics of tragedy

The events of the last 24 hours, with Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 falling from the sky having been shot by a missile over the Ukraine, has raised again the semantic distinction between ‘accident’ and ‘crime’. One tweeter called it a ‘crime against humanity’ because of the ‘tens of AIDS researchers’ killed. Many tweets made reference to ‘the MH17 accident’, while others wanted to steer clear of that nomenclature:

JCH999: Has flight #MH17 been classified an accident now? All media are saying it "crashed" yet I'm pretty sure it was SHOT DOWN. BIG DIFFERENCE!

KJBar: PM on #MH17: 'This is not an accident. This is a crime. It was shot down. It did not crash.' http://tinyurl.com/pnemnfg v @abcnews

   shadowb0lt: Calling #MH17 an "accident" is a bad joke. This is nothing less than an abominable act of war.

sh1bumi: #MH17 recorded talks between Seperatists and Russian Gov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbyZYgSXdyw … Shooting was an accident

MarkTregonning: Where is #Abbott's evidence this is not an accident? That Russian-backed forces did it? He may be right-but evidence shld be given.

danielrhamilton: #MH17's crash is looking more like a crime than an accident. If so; what a wicked and evil act. The perpetrators must be found. #Ukraine

A ‘crime’ is “an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law” (Oxford). An ‘accident’ is “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly or unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury” or “an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause” (Oxford). These definitions do not rule out an overlap between accident and crime, as the first definition of ‘accident’ could constitute a crime if it is something punishable by law.

Australian PM Tony Abbott was reported as saying adamantly that the MH17 incident was no accident (at least by the second definition above). Rather, he said, “it was shot down. It did not crash. It was downed, and it was downed over territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels. It was downed by a missile which seems to have been launched by Russian-backed rebels.”

Here, apart from in the second sentence, Abbott consistently uses verbs that express processes of deliberate action that require a ‘doer’ (Agent) - to shoot, to ‘down’. Only in the last clause does he specify the Agent: a missile.

A missile does not have its own volition. It must be operated by a human being. But Abbott is careful not to be too categorical about who the human being(s) might have been. He mentions them only as part of the description of the missile (which missile? one that seems to have been launched by Russian-backed rebels). And he chooses ‘seems to have been launched’ instead of ‘was launched’ to allow for the fact that the details of the incident are still quite hazy. He presents it as a suggestion or speculation rather than an assertion.

The potential human agents, ‘Russian-backed rebels’, are in turn identified by political affiliation (Russian-backed) and orientation to the law (rebels), rather than by any other feature or characteristic. This is perhaps not surprising as the perpetrators have not been specifically identified. But it is interesting that the action is construed politically, rather than morally. For example, Abbott could have chosen to say ‘a missile which seems to have been launched by irresponsible or careless or murderous individuals’.

Abbott’s construal of the event is as a non-accidental tragedy. An accident would not involve the sense of human volition or the use of processes that imply deliberate action. It may have been accidental in the sense that the perpetrators didn’t mean to shoot a commercial passenger plane, but the action of shooting itself was presumably not accidental. 

But as another tweeter pointed out, the labelling of a significant incident such as this as accident or not often depends largely on political agendas:

dellcam: U.S. agenda dictates response:

* #MH17: Not an accident.

* 4 kids children on #GazaBeach: A terrible accident.

My heart is grieved by this tragic loss of many lives, and I pray that God will bring comfort and peace to the families and friends of those who died and somehow turn this terrible situation to good. But let us not lose sight of other tragic losses of life, whether ‘accidental’ or not, that occur every day in other parts of the world where people don’t have the means, opportunity or ability to get on an aeroplane and go somewhere else.