Helping Ukraine

https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/helping-ukraine/

by olalonde • 4 years ago

33 17 4 years ago

Honestly it's really nice to see the support given to the Ukraine by Google, but I cannot help myself and notice some big inconsistencies in the response to the war in the Ukraine by Western institutions and the wars in conducted in the Middle East.

The USA has invaded several sovereign nations, tortured innocent people, murdered innocent children, on false accusations such as "mass destruction weapons" and many other falsehoods. They were never banned from SWIFT, never boycotted from sport events, never contracts cancelled.

The .NET Foundation for example has two banners on their website (1), one in support of Black Lives Matters and one in support of the Ukraine. Two great initiatives, but where are the banners for Muslim lives? Where is the banner in support of Syria, Afghanistan and a handful other countries which have been devastated by Americans?

The truth is, once a company decides to become political on one matter then the silence on anther matter also becomes a statement. This is why we had the wisdom of not being political at work for so long for a good reason. Now it is pretty clear that the .NET Foundation or Google simply don't care about Syrian refugees or Muslim children being murdered and in fact it almost seems like they were in support of those actions, otherwise they would have shown equal support recently.

All of this makes me realise how much we get brainwashed in the West. There is no objective way to explain these hypocrisies.

1) https://dotnetfoundation.org

olalonde• 4 years ago

I think a big factor for public opinion is the type of government attacked. Many in the West perceived the Talibans and Bashar al-Assad as illegitimate rulers that oppressed their populations. And many in the West perceive wars against such governments as legitimate. If this is your belief, you could be in support of those other wars but not the war in Ukraine without being a hypocrite.

VictorPath2• 4 years ago

Many in the West perceived the Talibans and Bashar al-Assad as illegitimate rulers that oppressed their populations.

Afghanistan had a secular, left-leaning government in the 1970s - the US armed and funded the mujahideen, the radical Islamic jihadists, to overthrow that government.

raxxorrax• 4 years ago

To be fair, I often ask myself how "grassroots" organizations like this really are. I mean there is obvious corporate interest in promoting certain technologies. .Net is pretty great that it wouldn't even need much advertising and in the time I did develop a lot on that platform was really nice. But I noticed a lack of technical voices or at least I did not find them. So some kind of outreach might be sensible.

If the family of Floyd asks me if I support BLM, I would answer yes and mean it. If a corporation signals that to me I very likely will not stand in unison with that. It feels like getting scammed and to be honest that is exactly what happened to some people that provided donations.

Do I support Russia with the invasion? Absolutely not, but I can acknowledge that western powers supplied weapons to the groups that removed the former government that happened to be close to Russia. Was that the will of the people? I don't know. Does it justify an invasion? Certainly not. But the only thing I can influence is that my country perhaps does not provide weapons to support a side of some form of civil war I do not know much about. I wish companies would think stronger of that. I don't expect any self-reflection, but if I have nothing sensible to offer aside blind obedience, perhaps the smarter move is to just shut up in general.

I see the same childish certainty that we saw before the Iraq war. I does not look any different to me.

then the silence on anther matter also becomes a statement

I fully agree. While I might support the message in question, I cannot just think less of these companies and I certainly would want to restrict my dealings with them to a minimum. Iran was banned from SWIFT with threats of sanctions against it by the US. I don't agree that this should be a political issue and I am disappointed in the leadership of SWIFT that it would comply.

shmageggy• 4 years ago

Al Jazeera published a roundup of the things people in media and government have been saying about Ukraine that reveal pretty deep biases and double standards.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/27/western-media-cover...

Then there was the Bulgarian PM two days ago saying about Ukrainian refugees, "These people are intelligent, they are educated people.... This is not the refugee wave we have been used to."

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-refugees-diver...

ImPostingOnHN2• 4 years ago

You make some good points, and it would be good to discuss them in a post about those topics, rather than Russia's war of territorial conquest in Ukraine, which is what this post is about.

I'm sure you didn't mean to, and are a wonderful person, but the whataboutism detracts from the more important message about _this specific war_, and serves to deflect the criticism about the specific topic in this post.

waffleiron• 4 years ago

You make some good points, and it would be good to discuss them in a post about those topics

The whole point is that "posts about those topics" never get the same type of traction as these posts do.

wbsss4412• 4 years ago

I don’t think this rises to that level.

OP clearly states that they think showing support for Ukraine is a good thing. Typically we consider whataboutism to be bad because it’s purpose as a rhetorical device is to deflect away criticism, but that isn’t what OP is doing.

As such it is quite relevant and germane to this discussion. The way the western press is treating this conflict stands in stark contrast to others that do not take place in Europe.

jelly• 4 years ago

Let me have a go at objectively explaining the difference: America has a lot more political clout than Russia.

Under Putin, Russia's soft power has been decimated and they are left with misinformation, violence and resource starvation as their main tools to make others comply. A government like that will face much stronger pushback than a nation like America.

America is rightly criticized for its wars and its mistreatment of countries like Palestine but it has the political clout to absorb those criticisms and slow down their effect. When the criticisms eventually mount the government is forced to make changes, but this is slowed by soft power.

vero2• 4 years ago

You make factual points. But note that

1. Money: Russia is a tiny market for MS/Google/Apple. So they can appear to boycott it and still be OK with shareholders.

2. Communities (like these are mainly Western and hence) make decisions based on their surroundings/public views. Also this war is clear - one knows who is in the side of west and who is NOT.

3. The primary Middle East conflict is complex - Take for example, Arab-Israeli conflict. Actions in Muslim world are also perpetrated by local/regional govt. Too complex to take actions. and there is the $$$ in those oil countries - nobody incl. US govt wants a boycott of these $$$ - For example, Israel (technology), Saudi or UAE - support.

4. Also one needs to wait for some months to see how these responses pan out. There is a lot of fatigue in people for humanitarian things.

5. Ukraine has a similar cultural identity to Europe - that helps. But one needs to wait and see the responses of EU citizens when Ukrainians move to get EU residency. The same sympathy may change.

6. In defense of these Western organisations, during Tsunami lots of people helped

orteam• 4 years ago

It's bigger than Ukraine. It's that people just realized they are witnessing a new form of fascism in Russia and what it can do if ignored.

nailer• 4 years ago

They need to shut down Google Play and Apple needs to shut down it’s own app store.

siruncledrew• 4 years ago

To the point of Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc virtue signaling during this time - yes, they are doing it. And yes, of course they calculated this first and didn’t just do it on a heartstring. It’s like regular people giving to charity to get themselves a tax deduction. Sure, it’s a calculated decision to get some personal benefit from it, but in the end, a charity still got some money which is good for them.

It’s like a cost-benefit analysis of sitting in church evaluating the social backlash of not doing something vs. the cost of putting some change in the collection tray passed around.

The reason other things get passed over (other wars, conflicts, politics, etc) is because these companies know they can skip out on those collection trays and not face any material scrutiny.

Helping Ukraine

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