I found your point on the 'sickening double standard' interesting, but I believe a more central geopolitical factor is at play for the lack of major demonstrations in the West.
People often feel a greater moral obligation to protest when their own government is allied with or perceived as complicit with the regime being protested (as is the case with Israel and Western allies). Since Western governments are already adversaries of the Iranian regime, that sense of direct complicity is absent, leading to less drive for mass mobilization. This -I think- provides an alternative explanation to the idea that people simply don't care.
It's a fair point, but I don't believe it explains what we're seeing. Three examples: (1) Pro-Gaza protests continued well after many western governments had distanced themselves from Israel, because people wanted more action (boycotts, recognition of Palestinian state, etc). Here, no demonstration for our governments to press Iran to stop the killing. (2) Looking beyond Iran, no demonstrations against the horrid treatment of women across many countries in the region, though in many cases Western governments are allies or commercial partners; (3) No demonstrations ever against China's persecution of Uyghurs even as Western governments built closer economic relations with China.
What struck me here isn’t the hypocrisy or the oil math, but how little anything propagates anymore.
International law registers Iran as an internal affair. Protest registers morally. Markets register continuity. None of these layers talk to each other.
It’s a good illustration of how systems now remain stable without legitimacy because coordination and constraint satisfaction persist even when law, outrage, and intervention all stall.
There is a lack of protest because the base of people who protest do not do so for altruistic reasons. They really aren’t, in their hearts, concerned about protecting women, protecting Palestine, or protecting anybody. Climate protest becomes Israel-Gaza protest become ICE protest with underlying anti-Trump protest. You can imagine them with their attention at the ready to find something to bitch about which they cannot in any way truly affect. So Iran is brutal in the treatment of women and sponsors world terrorism. These American protesters sit at home waiting for someone to tell them what to get agitated about. World terrorism is vague to them. There is no prominent person (that they approve of) who is demanding that they protest the Iranian regime.Tthey truly don’t care about any part of it. They just want to diffuse their internal agitation and they can’t figure out how to spend that energy by protesting the treatment of women in Iran.
Marco,
I found your point on the 'sickening double standard' interesting, but I believe a more central geopolitical factor is at play for the lack of major demonstrations in the West.
People often feel a greater moral obligation to protest when their own government is allied with or perceived as complicit with the regime being protested (as is the case with Israel and Western allies). Since Western governments are already adversaries of the Iranian regime, that sense of direct complicity is absent, leading to less drive for mass mobilization. This -I think- provides an alternative explanation to the idea that people simply don't care.
It's a fair point, but I don't believe it explains what we're seeing. Three examples: (1) Pro-Gaza protests continued well after many western governments had distanced themselves from Israel, because people wanted more action (boycotts, recognition of Palestinian state, etc). Here, no demonstration for our governments to press Iran to stop the killing. (2) Looking beyond Iran, no demonstrations against the horrid treatment of women across many countries in the region, though in many cases Western governments are allies or commercial partners; (3) No demonstrations ever against China's persecution of Uyghurs even as Western governments built closer economic relations with China.
What struck me here isn’t the hypocrisy or the oil math, but how little anything propagates anymore.
International law registers Iran as an internal affair. Protest registers morally. Markets register continuity. None of these layers talk to each other.
It’s a good illustration of how systems now remain stable without legitimacy because coordination and constraint satisfaction persist even when law, outrage, and intervention all stall.
There is a lack of protest because the base of people who protest do not do so for altruistic reasons. They really aren’t, in their hearts, concerned about protecting women, protecting Palestine, or protecting anybody. Climate protest becomes Israel-Gaza protest become ICE protest with underlying anti-Trump protest. You can imagine them with their attention at the ready to find something to bitch about which they cannot in any way truly affect. So Iran is brutal in the treatment of women and sponsors world terrorism. These American protesters sit at home waiting for someone to tell them what to get agitated about. World terrorism is vague to them. There is no prominent person (that they approve of) who is demanding that they protest the Iranian regime.Tthey truly don’t care about any part of it. They just want to diffuse their internal agitation and they can’t figure out how to spend that energy by protesting the treatment of women in Iran.
Absence of demonstrations in favor of Iranian protesters is not antisemitism as much as anti-americanism or anti-western values (capitalism)