Alwaght- Social media users blamed the Western media for hypocrisy in their coverage of Ukraine offensive compared with other conflicts, including Palestine, Syria, and Afghanistan.
According As the Russian "especial military operation" against Ukraine continues into a fourth day, an outpouring of support for Ukrainians has been witnessed across much of the West in general.
Russia's offensive has triggered swift condemnation by Westerners, their immediate sanctions targeting Russian banks, oil refineries, and military exports, and marathon emergency talks at the UN Security Council (UNSC).
On social media, the speed of such an international response – which includes the exclusion of Russia from some cultural events and treatment of it as a pariah in sports – has raised eyebrows at the lack of such a reaction to other conflicts across the world.
Media pundits, journalists, and political figures have been accused of double standards for using their outlets to not only commend Ukraine’s armed resistance to Russian troops, but also to underlying their horror at how such a conflict could happen to a “civilized” nation.
Sky News broadcast a video on Friday of people in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro making Molotov cocktails, explaining how grating Styrofoam makes the incendiary device stick to vehicles better.
“Amazing mainstream Western media gives glowing coverage of people resisting invasion by making molotov cocktails,” one social media user remarked. “If they were brown people in Yemen or Palestine doing the same they would be labeled terrorists deserving US-Israeli or US-Saudi drone bombing.”
CBS News senior correspondent in Kyiv Charlie D’Agata said on Friday: “This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilised, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.”
His comments were met with derision and anger on social media, with many pointing out how his statements contributed to the further dehumanization of non-white, non-European people suffering under a conflict within mainstream media.
On Saturday, the BBC hosted Ukraine’s former deputy general prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze.
“It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blonde hair and blue eyes being killed every day with Putin’s missiles and his helicopters and his rockets,” Sakvarelidze said.
On Saturday, the BBC hosted Ukraine’s former deputy general prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze.
“It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blonde hair and blue eyes being killed every day with Putin’s missiles and his helicopters and his rockets,” Sakvarelidze said.
Critics pointed out the hypocrisy of crowdsourcing and setting up online donations to fund Kyiv’s military without facing any government backlash or suspension of their monetary accounts.
The double standards regarding calls for excluding Russia from cultural and sporting events and not extending the same move to other occupying entities have not been lost on social media either.
Examples were drawn between the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli regime – often touted by Western governments as anti-Semitic – and the current exclusion of Moscow from events such as the Eurovision contest and stripping the Champions League final from St Petersburg.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed the boycott of Russia from sports, but criticized the boycott of last month’s Sydney Cultural Festival over receiving sponsorship from the Israeli embassy.
Source: Al Jazeera
