One reason we've heard so little about the abuses in the Sudan, for example.
Is that because we are reluctant to judge foreign cultures, or because we don't feel that the abuses in the Sudan have any significant impact on our interests? We managed not to notice 2 to 5 million dead in the Congo and surrounding countries over the last decade. That's not because we don't want to judge Africans, it's because we just don't give a damn what goes on down there. It's not bothering us, why should we? Our morally upright administration has nothing whatsoever to say about Indonesian abuses in Aceh, not because they don't want to judge Indonesians, but because they think Jakarta's cooperation in prosecuting JI members is more important than the rights of a bunch of Acehnese Muslims.
It is true that those who loudly proclaim their righteousness and civilization are generally held to the sort of standard that such a claim implies, especially if they have their hands out when making the claims. There are advantages to the image of the guy in the white hat, and disadvantages as well: there are things you can't do if you expect to be given default approval and default access to the resources of others.
There's a key distinction in this question that's often overlooked. It's the difference between behaviour we are willing to tolerate and behaviour we are willing to subsidize. Obviously there's a big difference in the level of abuse that would justify a cessation of assistance and the level that would justify direct intervention, especially if there is no critical interest in place.
The practical upshot is, they judge only countries deemed to be "Western", and leave the others alone.
Examples, please. Specific ones.
There is plenty of bias to go around in these cases. I was recently reading some Freedom House reports on Indonesia that protested vigorously about Muslim attacks on Christians, but completely failed to mention massacres of Muslims by Christian militias. That reflexive assumption that if Christians are fighting Muslims the Christians must be good and the Muslims must be bad has become a fairly common thing. |
