Many non-Westerners always complain about western solidarity when they [westerners] are attacked by terrorists. These complaints are genuine concerns because we see many unreported terrorist attacks in places like Yemen, Nigerian, Syria, Turkey, and other countries. However, we don't see the same level of outrage we see when any western target is hit by terrorists.
Should terrorist attacks in Nigeria outrage Washington, Brussels, Paris, Berlin or London in the same manner terror does in the case of Paris or Brussels? It's an unrealistic expectation! We give westerners more credit or blame than they deserve.
It should be clear by now to non-westerners that the use of the term 'west' to refer to Western Europe and North America isn't an accident. It's what sociologist Paul Gilroy would call 'an index of differentiation', a self-consciousness derived from the idea that the 'west' is a logical continuation of the Greco-Roman civilization. This 'in-group bias' is a universal phenomenon so we need to put these terrorist attacks and the complaints against the 'west' into a very clear context. Why exactly should westerners care about what happens to people outside their delineated compartment?
We can resort to morality and say: 'because it's the right thing to do!' However, westerners have shown to the world time and again that they don't care much about what happens to the rest of the world. Since the days of transatlantic slave trade and colonization, they've shown time and again that their interest lies where their benefit is.
They care less about what doesn't affect their political interests, or their citizens. Terrorists attacks are only relevant if they lead to deaths of westerners or threaten western geopolitical interests. We see grim reports of Saudi Arabia using stone-age legal methods to hang their citizens like goats and chicken but no western 'moral' leaders speak out a word against them. Palestinian civilians in Gaza are killed and their houses demolished by IDF but western 'moralists' support such Israeli heavy-handedness.
It's indeed possible to protect the interest of Israel and its innocent civilians without subjecting Palestinian civilians to immoral brutality. However, as history proves it, Palestinian civilians are the sacrificial lambs being used to assuage the 'western' historical guilt from the brutal treatment of Jews over many centuries.
The 'west' has told the Rest of the world that "we'll care for our own!" Why can't the Rest do the same?
It's indeed possible to protect the interest of Israel and its innocent civilians without subjecting Palestinian civilians to immoral brutality. However, as history proves it, Palestinian civilians are the sacrificial lambs being used to assuage the 'western' historical guilt from the brutal treatment of Jews over many centuries.
The 'west' has told the Rest of the world that "we'll care for our own!" Why can't the Rest do the same?
While I see the moral rationale in the complaints, it's time for Africans, Asians and Middle Easterners to initiative methods that can protect their citizens from terrorist activities. Why expect something you don't expect?
