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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Ukraine sympathy VS Syria

100 replies

JustWhyy · 07/03/2022 20:03

Why does Syria not get the same sympathy as Ukraine?
I've followed the conflict in Syria for years, therefore what's happening in Ukraine is not shocking to me because I've seen it happen to the Syrian people, but I never recall the outcry/support for Syrian people as much as I've seen it for the Ukrainians?
Am ibu?

OP posts:
CailleachGranda · 07/03/2022 21:50

@purpleboy

Op there are multiple threads along the same lines, why don't you go onto one of those and look at the answers there. I guess your looking for a we're all racist answer, like the other posters.
It's like Groundhog Day.

OP are you looking for different answers to those in the other identical posts?

GooGooMorning · 07/03/2022 21:57

@Katya213

It’s so close to home? Potential ww3 looming? I don’t know ?
All this.

But we know what the OP really want to 'discuss''.

jimmyhill · 07/03/2022 21:58

Partly because they're white and Western and their kids look like our kids and wear the same clothes as our kids and sing "Let it go", so more people feel affinity for the Ukrainians. Also, they're geographically closer.

Also because Syria was more complicated. It was a civil war, not a invasion. One of the reasons we didn't support militarily (apart from painful lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan) was that at times, it looked like opposing Assad was the same as supporting ISIS or similar terrorist organisations.

Cheesecakeandwineinasuitcase · 07/03/2022 22:00

@x2boys

We are in NATO ,if NATO get involved then there is a possibility of a nuclear war .
I’m shocked at the number of people who are still calling on NATO to get involved in this conflict. Do they have any idea what that would mean?Russia holds the biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world.
Sunshinedreaming2022 · 07/03/2022 22:05

It’s like asking why a shooting in the USA doesn’t drum up the same shock and sympathy as a shooting in France. It’s not a racist thing but it is a cultural thing.
Afghanistan/Iraq/Syria you just kinda accept the Middle East always have some form or war and become a bit used to it and it doesn’t shock you. Ukraine is a western democratic country in Europe. The fact that it has been invaded - as opposed to I’m the in fighting of Syria - is shocking, and it being so much closer to home.

CBFA · 07/03/2022 22:11

Oh goody, we really needed ANOTHER ONE of these navel gazing threads about how we don't CARE enough, as if caring achieves fuck all

Mischance · 07/03/2022 22:16

It is about the fact that this has the potential to lead to a global nuclear conflict that will affect everyone - all races, all countries, all creeds. The whole planet.

Being concerned about this does not mean that people do not have ongoing concerns about conflicts in other parts of the world.

x2boys · 07/03/2022 22:19

I'm not suggesting NATO should get involved @cheesecakeandwineinasuitcase I realise Russia have a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons,and the implications of that ,just pointing out the possibility of the implications to the Op ,nobody can win this .

Brainwave89 · 07/03/2022 22:29

Had sympathy for Syrians as well. This is a war in Europe which may well involve the UK shortly. I think the sympathy is valid. I am annoyed at the suggestion that any difference is race related which I really do not think it is.

ConsuelaHammock · 07/03/2022 22:36

Flowery curtain . It’s just over £1000 a ton atm. We had a delivery last week.
Food prices are going to rocket.

Pedalpushers · 07/03/2022 22:37

I think people are just more scared and feel like it could affect them personally, vs a conflict which they find sad but doesn't directly affect them.

Louiselady500 · 07/03/2022 22:58

Afghanistan isn’t in The Middle East

Thewindwhispers · 07/03/2022 23:01

Very simply: the war in Syria did not imapct everyday life in Britain. The invasion of Ukraine will, and what most people are worried about is that this may the start of a series of events leading up to a nuclear world war.

So very different from Syria…

meditrina · 07/03/2022 23:02

I think it's just because it's closer to home

Maybe the comparison should be the former Yugoslavia. In Europe, major war, genocide to the scale that ICC had a whole separate organisation just for this one conflict. .

Huge number of displaced people too.

EasterIssland · 07/03/2022 23:10

They’re blonde and with blue eyes like us 🤔

BulletTrain · 07/03/2022 23:14

@meditrina

I think it's just because it's closer to home

Maybe the comparison should be the former Yugoslavia. In Europe, major war, genocide to the scale that ICC had a whole separate organisation just for this one conflict. .

Huge number of displaced people too.

Probably, but I am late 30s and I was in single digits when the conflict began so honestly couldn't tell you what the public response was. I suppose with no social media it was literally just what was written in the press.
sst1234 · 07/03/2022 23:15

Because brown people have higher tolerance levels for pain. Losing a bunch of children to war is an everyday occurrence in the Middle East. Having despotic leaders propped up by being energy from them is no biggie, as long as that leader happens to only kill his own brown people. Go on, admit it.

DovesofPeace · 07/03/2022 23:19

There was huge outpouring and sympathy and pain for Syria.
I'm not seeing a difference?
We had military limited options because it was a civil war.
We couldn't attempt a regime change and he suppressed his people so much they couldn't rise up.

Unfortunately red lines were crossed and no action was taken. At that specific time I have no Idea if it was the either decision.
Now however, for this situation I think it was another part of the " emboldened" Putin back story.Sad

Other conflicts you mentioned are so incredibly complex and nothing near democratic models we understand in the west.

Ukraine is very clear cut today.

It's a democracy ( not perfect, but non are) the people have effected regime change, they choose their leaders.

Their fate.

Putin's big greedy hand has reached into their peaceful lives and smashed it all.
He's a dictator holding an entire nation to ransom.
Ukraine want's it's freedom back.

Chonfox · 07/03/2022 23:19

So many of these threads tonight...seems somewhat...coordinated...?

Copenhagenoffice · 07/03/2022 23:27

He's a dictator holding an entire nation to ransom.

Feels like he's holding the whole world to ransom.

Copenhagenoffice · 07/03/2022 23:29

Because brown people have higher tolerance levels for pain. Losing a bunch of children to war is an everyday occurrence in the Middle East. Having despotic leaders propped up by being energy from them is no biggie, as long as that leader happens to only kill his own brown people. Go on, admit it.

Don't be so ridiculous. Posters have explained and I agree why this is different. This has the potential to turn into WWIII with a dollop of nuclear for pudding, obviously we all pray it doesn't but there's a huge difference and no it is not based on colour.

StarbucksSmarterSister · 07/03/2022 23:36

I don't think YABU but I think the there are a number of factors, all of which have been mentioned here.

Racism IS a factor of course, despite what some want to think, but it's not the only one. A lot of people do think Ukrainians are "more like us" (this is reinforced in press coverage) but lots of Syrians lived a secular, westernised life in the way that we do. People are more familiar with Eastern Europe and it's closer. A lot of people seem to think the whole of the ME is in a state of perpetual war but that's not accurate.

Syria was too dangerous for journos to report from certain areas (think of Aleppo) so we didn't get the same immediacy of people trying to escape and being shelled or shot at as they did.

Boredom - it's gone on too long (no news coverage here now but it's still not totally over.)
Civil war is more complex - Assad & Putin are vile but the rebels were made up of different groups with different aims, including fundamentalists.

Self interest - it might actually impact us.

Boxowine · 07/03/2022 23:42

Why do you think Syria has received no sympathy or media coverage? The UK has taken in 20,000 Syrian refugees, the documentary The White Helmets won the Oscar in 2017, the photo of little Aylan Kurdi on the beach was covered by every newspaper in the world.

If people are so invested in comparing the plight of Syrians vs Ukrainians, why aren’t they acknowledging that Putin is as much to blame for the war in Syria as Al Assad is?

ANameChangeAgain · 07/03/2022 23:45

I'm so pissed off with the posters suggesting we are only upset about Ukraine because they are white people. We literally sacrificed troops to the recent so call brown wars, 457 according to the stats. We had troops risking their lives on the ground in Syria pulling people out. All we can do with Ukraine is send cash and help to the borders, we are otherwise helpless. A bit of simple historical politics will explain to those who still don't understand why the Middle East and Ukraine conflicts are so different.

StarbucksSmarterSister · 07/03/2022 23:47

Partly because they're white and Western and their kids look like our kids and wear the same clothes as our kids and sing "Let it go"

One of most striking images I remember from Syria was a girl of about 8 wearing a "Frozen" T shirt. I often wonder what happened to her.

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