The hypocrisy of choosing what matters more to you
On November 14th, as Facebook painted itself in French colours, a conservative social media pundit made an observation that was characteristically simple, yet surprisingly accurate. Are lives in the West worth more than everywhere else?
I hesitate giving Mr Abbasi too much credit, since conservatives and right-wing elements have never actually refrained from playing the victim card. There is rarely an opportunity wasted to deliver a passionate anti-West monologue. However, the monologue might hit the right notes once in a while, considering that the Western nations often deliberately or inadvertently make grievous mistakes.
In a discussion on terrorism, both conservatives and liberals bring a nugget of truth to the table. In my opinion, liberals are correct to assert that religious radicalism, a growing problem, is the fountainhead of terrorism which most of the Islamic world isn’t doing enough to curb through secular reform. However, liberals betray their own cause for peaceful coexistence by consciously or unintentionally lauding Western imperialism as the answer to Islamism.
Following the brazen attack on Paris, the French government has promised a “merciless” response, as if Western intervention in Syria and Iraq has thus far been problematically restrained. Mr Hussain Haqqani, in his latest opinion piece, urged the United States to respond to the tide of Islamism with the same fervour that helped contain communism. We give the former ambassador to the United States the benefit of the doubt, and agree that he meant this only metaphorically. Because the frightful McCarthy hearings and overzealous crackdown on “commies” is no rational historian’s idea of a decent campaign. The same strategy employed against “Muzzies” sends chills down our spines. In the post-9/11 world, the US attitude to Islamism has already been anything but cavalier.
People often make the mistake of assuming that among the only two options presented to them, one must undoubtedly be correct. If state-induced religious fanaticism is a no-no, then Western intervention must be hailed an answer. If colonialism is an evil worth resisting, then ‘counter-imperialist’ forces like Islamism must be tolerated, if not fanned.
The right answer, in my view, walks a tightrope between these two perspectives.
If you’ve been following the world’s response to the attacks in Paris – which you certainly have, unless you’ve been stuck in an elevator since 13th of November without mobile phone reception – you have probably noticed that it’s been unusually enthusiastic.
From monuments all over the worlds lit in French colors, to Facebook its activating ‘Security Check’ feature for the very first time for a calamity other than a natural disaster, the exhibition of solidarity has been curiously extravagant.
Those who dared ask why the same support is never shown for lives lost in the ‘third world’, were met with reflexive rage by many liberals across social met. One could empathise with liberals on this matter, as it is common for nationalists to concern-troll Western mourners in their time of tragedy. However, these nationalists, regardless of the purity of their intentions, were not wrong about the hypocrisy they were witnessing.
Earlier this year, the incident at Charlie Hebdo involving 17 deaths, almost completely overshadows a horrific attack in Nigeria that resulted in 2,000 deaths. Boko Haram relentlessly assaulted the town of Baga for several days, razing all in their path. It is worth mentioning here that Boko Haram comfortably outranks ISIS in terms of its deadliness as a terrorist organisation, but it is ostensibly not a priority because it’s Africa’s problem. Devastation and misery in Africa is an inevitability we are willing to accept.
There is a difference between ‘outrage’ and ‘corporate-sponsored premium outrage’, and it appears that the latter is reserved exclusively for terrorist attacks against the Western world. Deaths in Garissa, Gaza, Beirut, Yola, Peshawar, and other places most Americans cannot pronounce, let alone locate on a map, are mere statistics we hear on the TV in the background, as we get our hair done at the salon.
Many justify their bias by claiming that they simply relate better to Parisians than they do with Lebanese or Nigerian people; that the attention showered on France isn’t the result of racism (indeed, many who do so are themselves people of color living outside the West), but simply a heightened interest a city as renowned as Paris.
It does not occur to many that the reason we display such heightened interest in predominantly white countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and France, has a lot to do with both military and cultural colonialism. We’ve been drip-fed advertisements of Paris through art, literature, movies, music and cuisine. Do Palestinians have their own great cuisine and art to boast, or do they feed on raw vegetables and table cloth? We’d never know because they haven’t had the opportunity to export their cultures as exuberantly as the British and French, until the world grows accustomed to European people and culture in a way they never do to Third World inhabitants.
Racism is something that happens at the level of individuals, like a black pedestrian and a white cop. It also occurs at an international scale. Taking a macro view of things, governments often behave as ordinary people afflicted with dangerous biases; being alarmed when the financially and racially privileged fellows undergo a crisis, but responding with complete apathy with the people of color. Using American lingo, one may fairly assert that not only do ‘Black Lives Matter’, but Black Countries Matter too.
We’re not out of line when asking world powers to treat us as they do the French. We don’t belittle others’ pain by asking them to spare us a thought too in our times of crises. Fellow liberals must allow themselves the self-respect to make these simple demands from the empowered ‘first world’ denizens who believe that their experience is all that truly matters.
