Reply #29: Because it was a Western-style society.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

The reason South Africa under apartheid generated so much more international attention than other, comparably or even more unpleasant, governments was that it was a Western society doing it - South African whites are comparatively rich on average, they governed their country nominally democratically and they have a recognisably Western culture.

The same thing is true of Israel, which, I think, is why it is generating so much more attention than other comparable or worse crises.

Cuba also suffers from the same phenomenon, to a lesser extent.

I think that both the western media and the western population (it is unfair to lay too much of the blame on the former and too little on the latter) tend to divide the world up into "People Like Us" and a category that varies between "Strange People" and "Savages" from person to person.

People Like Us doing things to other People Like Us generates by far the most media attention. PLU oppressing non-PLU and vice versa generate roughly comparable amounts of attention, although of rather different forms. Any number of Africans can kill any number of other Africans without it making very much dent on the Western collective consciousness.

In fairness, I think there's some justification to some parts of this attitude, inasmuch as rich, democratic Western nations are likely to be far more susceptible to Western public opinion than others are. Protesting against South Africa (or Israel or Cuba) probably accomplishes more than protesting against Burma or Iran or North Korea or one of the world's *really* unpleasant regimes.