Handpicked Victims: Silenced Genocides and the Hypocrisy of the Global Order

By Wesley S.T Guerra

In today’s global landscape, human tragedies are often narrated selectively. Lives from “distant” countries are usually left out of media and political focus, as philosopher Judith Butler pointed out when reflecting on the unequal attribution of “grievability” to victims. Only those who fit the dominant framework—“Western,” Christian, or strategically useful lives—are presented as worthy of compassion, while other deaths remain silenced. 

This phenomenon has been explored by thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, who showed how the bureaucratization of evil facilitates indifference, and Edward Said, who revealed how orientalist discourse dehumanizes the “others.” In a society governed by the necropolitics described by Achille Mbembe, global elites decide which populations may live and which may die. Mahmood Mamdani adds that colonial-era categories continue to fuel modern-day conflicts. In this context, international hypocrisy operates by building narratives that legitimize certain victims while silencing others. 

The case of the Belgian Congo exemplifies this historical selectivity. Under the personal rule of King Leopold II (1885–1908), the Congo Free State suffered atrocious punishment to extract rubber: forced labor, corrective rapes, abortions, whippings, and mutilations (such as hand severing) were routine. Added to this were hunger, epidemics of sleeping sickness, and smallpox. As a result, the population plummeted catastrophically. Today, it is widely accepted that tens of millions died, with common estimates ranging between 10 and 15 million Congolese killed during this period—surpassing the Holocaust and arguably becoming the largest genocide in human history. Yet, these horrors remained long hidden or minimized in the West, while the same international community expressed outrage over other abuses. Only after denunciations by missionaries and activists (such as Edmund Dene Morel) did some attention arise, but even today, the Belgian state does not formally recognize it as a genocide. This colonial case—interpreted by Mbembe as an extreme example of necropolitics (death instrumentalized for economic gain)—is rarely included in official human rights discourse, despite its enduring relevance and selective implications driven by major economies. 

Another mass civilian slaughter was the Armenian Genocide (1915–1923) in the Ottoman Empire. During this period, between 1.5 and 2 million Armenians were deported and brutally murdered. However, political recognition remains incomplete: Western countries often avoid labeling it as “genocide” due to diplomatic convenience. The “Turkish threat” is treated with leniency, while Turkey controls key narratives. 

Arendt would likely warn that the banality of politics allows such crimes to remain justified or ignored even today. The world, in contrast, gave enormous resonance to the Holocaust of European Jews, yet spoke little of other victims—LGBTQIA+ people, Roma, disabled individuals, Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks—who were also targeted in that systematic plan of extermination. 

More recently, the pattern repeats. In Myanmar (formerly Burma), the military regime committed an “ethnic cleansing” campaign in 2017 against Rohingya Muslims. Witnesses and organizations documented indiscriminate killings, rape, and the burning of villages. Doctors Without Borders reported at least 6,700 Rohingyas were killed in the first month of the offensive, including 730 small children. An independent study estimated tens of thousands of deaths (unofficial numbers suggest around 25,000), and over 700,000 were forced to flee to Bangladesh. Despite this, international reaction was limited for a long time, and media coverage rarely highlighted the ongoing genocide. 

This discrepancy reflects Butler’s observation: many of these victims were not “visible” within global recognition frameworks, and their suffering was thus perceived as distant or even “justifiable” in the name of security. 

The betrayal of the Kurds in northern Syria exemplifies another fallacy. Kurdish fighters allied with the United States in the fight against ISIS, suffering heavy casualties to defeat the extremist group. However, in October 2019, President Donald Trump ordered a sudden withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, effectively abandoning the Kurdish allies. 

Turkey, a U.S. ally, then launched an offensive against them. Lawmakers from both parties warned that such hesitation with the Kurds sent a “bad signal” to U.S. allies worldwide. The Kurdish case is almost absent from the grand geopolitical narrative: Western countries speak of defending sovereignty in Ukraine and condemn foreign powers, but look the other way when sovereignty stems from stateless populations. 

Arendt would likely point out that the “responsibility of judgment” was lost when international politics prioritized strategic appetites over universal principles. 

A current and painful example is Gaza. Since October 2023, Israel has launched an intense military campaign in the Palestinian enclave following Hamas attacks. The toll is staggering: according to verified media data, at least 46,700 Palestinians have been killed in 15 months of war, about 18,000 of them children. That equates to nearly 1 in every 50 Gaza residents. Despite the enormity of the suffering—millions displaced, civilians under bombardment—many governments that vocally defend Ukrainian sovereignty avoid labeling the Palestinian tragedy for what it is: a massive violation of rights and a genocidal plan by Israel. Neither outrage nor sanctions have reached the levels seen in response to other conflicts. 

Butler would remind us how certain frames of intelligibility render these lives less visible to the international community, thereby normalizing a collective punishment that even the UN has defined as a “massive and systematic violation of human rights.” 

The treatment of refugees also reveals this double standard. When more than 2 million Ukrainians fled in just a few weeks, neighboring countries and the European Union responded with unprecedented immediate aid. European cities set up emergency reception centers, while the media showed images of European refugee children in caring arms. In contrast, the arrival of nearly 1 million Syrian refugees and tens of thousands of Africans in 2015 sparked rejection and politicization—etched in memory through the tragic photo of little Aylan’s body on a beach in the Aegean Sea. Only a few countries (such as Germany and Spain) opened their doors, while others built walls and promoted xenophobic rhetoric. 

As the critical press noted, white-skinned Western citizens received a “solidarity” rarely extended to Black and Arab migrants. This echoes what Said described in Orientalism: the creation of an “other” deemed unworthy of empathy, reinforcing global hypocrisy. In short, the pretext of cultural proximity or useful geopolitics revealed that “some lives matter more.” 

Paradoxically, those who preach the importance of freedom and sovereignty act inconsistently. An example is the rhetoric of President Donald Trump. During the 2025 NATO summit, he fiercely criticized Spain for not increasing its military spending to 5%, threatening to impose worse trade conditions (“we will make them pay double” in negotiations). Strikingly, the same Trump administration claims to defend Ukraine’s “sovereignty” against Russia. 

This dissonance is blatant: political and economic commitment is demanded from European allies, while other nations outside the Western bloc face sanctions. 

Another widely debated yet overlooked example is the politicization of economic blockades and the impact of international sanctions on certain countries and their civilian populations—such as Cuba and Iran. Both suffer from unilateral blockades that hinder access to goods and the full development of their economies. This persists even though Cuba accepted the commercial opening proposal established by the Obama administration, and Iran opened its doors to international agency inspectors and signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (never ratified by Israel). Still, the U.S. placed Iran on its blacklist—even as the country complied with international demands. 

In fact, the UN has repeatedly condemned the embargo against Cuba—voting annually for its suspension—and even classified it as a “crime of genocide” against the Cuban people. Yet this prolonged rights violation receives no similar sanctions from those imposing the blockade. Once again, the contrast shows how the international order chooses whose “sovereignty” to defend based on convenience, not justice. 

The reflections of Butler, Arendt, Said, Mbembe, and Mamdani shed light on this phenomenon. Butler invites us to recognize that “precariousness” and mourning must be extended to all lives—not only the privileged ones. Arendt warns that when we externalize evil as something standard and distant, we cease to feel responsible for it. Said denounces that Western discourse tends to silence the oppressed by labeling them subaltern. Mbembe highlights how systems of power allow the extermination of colonized populations as inherent to the “civilized” order. Mamdani reminds us that these hierarchies emerged in the colonial era, when people were arbitrarily classified as “allies” or “enemies” to justify violence. 

If the global community wants credibility, it must apply the same condemnations and urgency to all genocides and war crimes—without exception. 

Ultimately, global hypocrisy is sustained by narratives that tilt the moral balance. While some victims receive tributes and pledges of justice, others suffer in the silence of institutional oblivion. A critical perspective reveals that this selective international order maintains policies of sanctions, deals, and alliances driven by strategic interests—not universal principles. In light of this, the lesson from these authors is clear: human dignity must be upheld without exceptions. Only by equally acknowledging the pain of all victims—Armenian, Rohingya, Kurdish, Congolese, Palestinian, or Ukrainian—can we break the global complicity that today legitimizes some deaths while silencing others. 

Wesley S.T Guerra

Wesley Sá Teles Guerra

Founder of CERES and paradiplomat. Polyglot. Trained in International Negotiations at CPE (Barcelona), holds a Bachelor's degree in Administration from UCB, a Postgraduate degree in International Relations and Political Science from FESPSP, a Master’s in Social Policies and Migration from UDC (Spain), an MBA in International Marketing from MIB (Massachusetts, USA), a Global MBA from ILADEC, a Master’s in Smart Cities from UC (Andorra), and is currently a PhD candidate in Sociology at UNED (Spain). Specialist in paradiplomacy, economic development, and smart cities. Author of the books Cadernos de Paradiplomacia, Paradiplomacy Reviews, and Manual de sobrevivência das Relações Internacionais. Guest commentator at CBN Recife and finalist for the ABANCA award for academic research.

He served as a paradiplomat for the Government of Catalonia during the "procés" — the region’s self-determination process in Spain — and was also a member of IGADI (Galician Institute of International Analysis and Documentation) and coordinator of OGALUS (Galician Observatory of Lusophony), being responsible for the study Relations between Galicia and Brazil. He was also the first Brazilian to run in a local election in the city of Ourense (Spain).

He was executive editor of the ELA journal at IAPSS and is a member of various institutions, including CEDEPEM, ECP, Smart Cities Council, and REPIT.

Sources 

• Judith Butler. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?, Verso, 2009. • Hannah Arendt. Responsibility and Judgment, Schocken Books, 2003. • Edward Said. Orientalism, Pantheon Books, 1978. • Achille Mbembe. Necropolitics, Duke University Press, 2019. • Mahmood Mamdani. When Victims Become Killers, Princeton University Press, 2001. • Adam Hochschild. King Leopold’s Ghost, Houghton Mifflin, 2006. • Doctors Without Borders. Report on the offensive against the Rohingyas, 2017. • UN General Assembly. Resolution on the blockade of Cuba, 2024. • Al Jazeera, AJLabs. “The Human Toll of Israel’s War on Gaza – by the Numbers”, January 2025. • Fox Business. Trump’s statements on Spanish military spending, June 2025. • Foreign Policy. “Europe’s Refugee Hypocrisy”, March 2022. • The Guardian. “6,700 Rohingya Muslims killed in one month in Myanmar”, December 2017. • Wikipedia. Entries on “Armenian Genocide”, “Congolese Genocide” and “Syrian Refugee Crisis in Europe”. • UNHCR (ACNUR). Data on displaced Ukrainians, 2022–2024. • International Crisis Group. Reports on the situation of Kurds in Syria, 2019.