How Differently Would The World Have Reacted If Arshad Sharif Was A Russian Journalist?

Foreign leaders, their diplomatic representatives, and allied media would have all immediately issued statements of condemnation. Some of them might even have called for peaceful vigils outside of Russian Embassies in their country to protest what they’d have already been convinced was the Kremlin’s latest crime against democracy, free speech, and human rights. Hashtag campaigns would have proliferated across social media, people across the world would be changing their profile pics to that of the murdered journalist in solidarity, and further anti-Russian sanctions might even be imposed.

The suspicious death of famous Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif by a sniper shot to the head in Kenya on Sunday night shortly after he announced the upcoming release of an anti-corruption documentary exposing his country’s US-backed post-modern coup regime has been met with a muted response from the international community. Most of those outside his home country who’ve reacted to it merely shrugged their shoulders and accepted the local police’s story that it was a case of “mistaken identity”. Had this murdered journalist been Russian, however, then the world would have reacted differently.

Arshad was accused of making “anti-state” statements and subsequently fled Pakistan out of fear for his life after reportedly being tipped off that members of its US-backed post-modern coup regime were plotting to kill him. In the imagined example, this would be equivalent to a Russian journalist being accused of the same simply for sharing some sharp critiques of the Kremlin. Their killing under extremely suspicious circumstances in a country that’s as friendly to Russia as Kenya is to the US, especially after announcing an upcoming anti-corruption documentary, would have shocked the world.

Foreign leaders, their diplomatic representatives, and allied media would have all immediately issued statements of condemnation. Some of them might even have called for peaceful vigils outside of Russian Embassies in their country to protest what they’d have already been convinced was the Kremlin’s latest crime against democracy, free speech, and human rights. Hashtag campaigns would have proliferated across social media, people across the world would be changing their profile pics to that of the murdered journalist in solidarity, and further anti-Russian sanctions might even be imposed.

Instead of any of this being done in support of Arshad, those same individuals across the US-led West’s Golden Billion are acting like they could care less. A few foreign commentators said a couple words in his memory but that’s about as far as it’s gone. The simple fact is that they all seem to have also concluded that something very foul is afoot but prefer to stay silent due to self-interested reasons connected to their own careers. Rallying around justice for Arshad would put them on the opposite side of Pakistan’s US-backed post-modern coup regime, thus possibly provoking Washington’s wrath.

These double standards speak to their lack of sincerity when it comes to supporting democracy, free speech, and human rights. It’s all the worse to dwell upon when realizing that the murdered Russian journalist in this imaginary example would have an approximately 80% chance of being Slavic, unlike Arshad who was Brown. This means that there’s almost certainly also an undercurrent of ethno-nationalist bigotry at play that can arguably be described as racist and/or Islamophobic. Put another way, Arshad’s identity and the political cause that he represented explain why his death is ignored.

Everyone across the Global South would do well to learn from this example. They should know that foreign leaders, diplomatic representatives, and many media groups in the Golden Billion don’t truly care about them. Black and Brown folks are basically objects to them that are only interacted with whenever they expect to derive some self-interested benefit. If they truly cared about democracy, free speech, and human rights like they claim, then they’d rally in support of Arshad just as passionately as if he was Russian in the imagined example. By not doing so, they’re tacitly admitting their bigotry.