Do you remember the terrible tragedy that resulted in the collapse of a building, the death of many hundreds of people? Do you remember the outcry that followed, the calls for justice?
Do you remember when the people responsible were shot? That last part never happened, because I'm not talking about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. I'm talking about the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Savar, a city in Bangladesh.
There are many obvious differences between the two incidents.
In the Rana Plaza collapse, fewer people lost their lives. There were 1,129 fatalities, and more than 2,500 injured. In the Sept. 11 attacks, 2,977 victims lost their lives directly.
The most obvious difference, the one that everyone will want to point out immediately, is that of intent.
Osama bin Laden and his cronies planned and executed the terrorist attacks with the intent of murdering as many people as possible, of sowing fear and chaos.
No one actually wanted the Rana Plaza building to collapse.
The workers there certainly didn't. They just wanted to keep collecting their meagre pay to keep their families fed and clothed.
The subcontractors and supervisors there didn't want the building to collapse - it would be bad for business.
And the North American and European clothing companies that bought those clothes and sold them at hefty markups didn't want the bad publicity that comes from the death of a good portion of your workforce.
So the question is, how much does intention matter? Bin Laden was a murderer, and for this he would be tracked down and shot by an American assassination squad and dumped into the depths of the ocean.
Are the executives of Joe Fresh and Benetton, Wal-Mart, and Bonmarché quaking in fear of death squads? Of course not.
Because they never meant to kill anyone. Because they're wealthy westerners. Because they're insulated by being many steps away from the decisions that led to the catastrophe.
They didn't build the faulty structure. They didn't hire the workers who toiled there. They certainly weren't the ones who directly ordered workers back into the building the day after cracks started forming - orders backed up with threats of losing an entire month's pay.
But they are responsible. The collapse of the Rana Plaza was as predictable as the tides. In the wake of the tragedy, for the first time, Bangladeshi garment workers have been given the right to form unions. They have been given raises that have nearly doubled their monthly wages - to $68.
Poor, desperate people, with few options, were trying to survive in a harsh environment.
And we have not only allowed this system to come into being, we have created it, with our consumer demand, our international flow of money and power, our trade agreements.
We marked out the way for the Rana Plaza's collapse, as certainly as if we'd attacked the building's supports with sledgehammers and dynamite.
The last resort in defense of the wealthy survivors over the poor dead is that this is an impersonal tragedy, a result of mere economic forces.
To put it in a way appropriate for a family-friendly newspaper, that is a large pile of bovine excrement.
Markets and governments are tools built by and shaped by people. They can be unmade or reshaped by people, as well.
The final equivalence between the two tragedies is simple. The victims of each are all equally dead. They are beyond intent.
Matthew Claxton is a reporter with the Langley Advance.
