It’s a weird moment, Athrelon says, when you start noticing how much “homegrown” dissident movements are optimized for sparking sympathy from upper- and middle-class Americans, not their fellow countrymen:
It’s not only the English emphasis that’s unusual. It’s also the clever cultural references chosen to resonate with Western audiences, with little resonance for a domestic population.
Of course the reasoning is clear: these protests were not peaceful expressions of the natural wishes of the majority of the country’s citizens, but rather an attempt to attract the use of force by Western powers. It’s somewhat important to have some support from your fellow countrymen (hence there certainly are some signs written in Arabic), but the ultimate goal is to seize power by attracting sympathy of the West’s media organs, and using the West’s military and diplomatic capabilities in a proxy war against the current government.
This, too, is only a tool, and can be used for good or evil purposes. But it’s sharply at odds with the conventional narrative around these protests being organic expressions of the will of the people. Protesting is a game that favors Westernized classes — those that have educationally and ideologically assimilated into Western norms. A small minority of malcontents — if it’s the right minority and plays its cards right — can protest and win, and be considered by the international community as representative of “the people.”
You have to wonder when the Western media might notice that it is getting played.
Who’s playing whom?