Hypocrisy: A Beacon for Western Standards
WORDS BY HABIBAH JAGHOORI.
War is devastating and its impacts are something no one can be immune from. The dark realities of invasion and dispossession, coupled with the psychological trauma of being torn away from your personal property, community, and enduring the long-lasting consequences of environmental and infrastructural destruction of your land, is a traumatising experience and a lethal form of violence.
Violence itself, however, can manifest in multiple forms and through multiple channels. One form of violence that is particularly painful in this era is systemic and cultural hypocrisy.
Currently, we see innocent Ukrainians facing the consequences of a criminal invasion by Russia, baited by their own far-right, neo-Nazi and war worshipping government. Simultaneously, those who possess a little insight can see the impressive anti-war Russian protestors and innocent Russian civilians victimised by western sanctions and European media propaganda. This is a deeply unnecessary war. The innocent Ukrainians who don’t recognise President Volodymyr Zelensky’s far-right, neo-Nazi agendas as their own and the innocent Russian civilians who make up the anti-war protestors are victims of the West’s cruel sanctions, propaganda, and proxy war manoeuvres.
But what about the wars and hardships imposed on countries predominantly filled with black or brown people and Muslims? These are the countries that have suffered in greater quality and quantity from all of the physical dimensions of violence, war, and colonisation. These are the countries that must deal with generational trauma, cultural infiltration, and weak governing systems because imperialism - capitalism’s greedy claws - seeks to plunder their resources and wipe out their independent markets to install their own western neoliberal institutions. The wretched impacts of war you don’t see are those few hours of electricity because the power plant has been bombed, saving up your last pennies to buy medicine for your child sick because of a lack of clean drinking water, or when your schools have been destroyed and the children have to be home-schooled and are denied a chance to build a community with one another. Yes, indeed, war is a horrible thing that can scar your sense of self and identity. It’s a thing that will alienate you from the rest of the world - being victim will make you the outcast, the scary and dangerous one, the enemy, the threat to normal. Yes, this life is actually a reality for around one billion of the world’s population. Why has the West turned a blind eye to those victims of war? Blaming the governments of these countries fails to seriously consider of the devastating impact of foreign policies and global alliances.
When it comes to Ukraine, however, Zelensky is not held to account. Is it fair to not even question a government that bans all opposition parties, that absorbs all independent media into state media, that asks only for weapons rather than medical aid and food supplies, that has broken contractual agreements with its enemy country, and that has continuously attempted to join an extremely rich and powerful western military alliance actually responsible for the wars and destruction inflicted on countries whose citizens are not typically white?
The media is a tool and it’s being used to brainwash and perpetuate individualism. It’s a fuel for racism and fear mongering. The hypocrisy to never report on or speak about the oppression and bombings of Palestine but to instead steal that footage and claim it is of Ukraine is evil. To cover the oh-so-inspiring story of Ukrainian children fleeing and being embraced by American politicians but to justify jailing Mexican and Haitian children in detention centres at the border as a necessary immigration policy is evil. To say Ukrainians need to be cared about because they are white people with blonde hair and blue eyes is racism.
What should the people, who came out in demonstrations, who took to social media, who gave speeches and wrote papers about the conflict in Ukraine, but never said a word or lifted a finger for the country of Yemen, a victim of horrific war for the past 8 years, be considered as? When the news media provides more coverage of the first 24 hours into the Russian invasion than they have for Yemen in 8 years, what can we view this as?
The Yemeni people are facing one of the worst famines and exterminations the world has ever seen. Our universities are partnering with the very weapons companies responsible for manufacturing and distributing the bombs that blow up school buses filled with children. Where is the massive cry of opposition to that? Why can’t western officials, celebrities, influencers, and ordinary citizens condemn and protest their own countries’ allegiance to the Saudi Royal Family’s oil at the expense of Yemeni blood?
Capitalism, coloniser nations, western cultures of performative activism, shallow political participation and trend-hopping, as well as neoliberalism, are inherently and innately hypocritical. They breed alienation, racism, individualism, toxic double standards and the normalisation and even appraisal of brainwashed people whose participation in society extends to mere aesthetics and social relevancy.
Glory be to the real anti-war resistance in the forgotten and neglected countries who defy colonisation and imperialism. The criminals responsible for the devastation in Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Kashmir, and beyond need to pay the price. The news media need to bow out shamefully or start telling the truth. People of the world need to wake up and fight the real war machine.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This article has been reuploaded and was originally published in 2022.