A Tale of Two Protests

In his latest commentary, A tale of two protests, antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo compares two tweeted photographs - one of Yemeni protesters, the other of Russian protesters - and draws a telling conclusion about the priorities and values of Western political and media elites:

"That day hundreds of thousands of Yemenis rallied against the vicious war being waged against them by Saudi Arabia and the United States - and look at the faces in that photo. These are children, their faces distorted by rage at what is happening to their country, and their lives. Their youth is no accident: most of the victims of this sickeningly immoral war are children, felled by US-supplied bombs dropped by US-manufactured warplanes, the rest killed by starvation. The Saudis are committing war crimes in Yemen - one of the poorest nations on earth - with the aid and active assistance of the Pentagon, which is now contemplating an even deeper involvement by the US.

"Yet this massive outpouring of protest received minimal coverage in the Western media compared to another protest that occurred on that same day in Russia, where the Russian bourgeoisie mobilized in the big cities, demonstrating against official corruption. This received front page attention in the Western media, while liberal commentators and their neoconservative allies demanded that President Trump make a statement of support (he did not). Naturally, the photographers from the Western media were swarming all over this manifestation of discontent with the hated Putin (hated, that is, by Western liberals), and, as per usual, they settled on one photo as the 'iconic' image meant to convey the plight of the Russian people...

"There she is, a well-dressed and apparently well-fed young woman being ever-so-gently lifted by the police. There is no expression on her face except for a vague emptiness, an absence of anger, passion, or any of the other emotions one associates with a righteous cause. Contrast this with the faces of the Yemeni children, their visages reflecting the utter desperation of their condition, their little fists raised in expressions of outraged militance - a militance that will, not so far in the future, be aimed at those who killed their brothers, their sisters, their parents, their nation. Aimed, in short, at us." (29/3/17)