‘Afromaidan’: Foreign media cite Ferguson as evidence of US ‘failed state’
/It should come as no surprise that the wall-to-wall U.S. coverage of the turmoil provoked by the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was echoed in the global media. And a quick survey of international coverage of the ongoing protests suggests that it often reflects pre-existing views of the United States.
Russian and Iranian media have, perhaps unsurprisingly, printed scathing judgments about the police response to protests in Missouri. One Russian site, Svobodnaya Pressa, coined the term “Afromaidan,” implying that the U.S. is getting a dose of its own medicine for backing anti-Russian Euromaidan rallies in Kiev, Ukraine. The article poked fun at the notion of a land of opportunity, signaling that America’s “race war” proves Washington’s hypocrisy.
PressTV in Iran led with the Ferguson story on its website Monday. A news feature quoted an African-American historian referring to “institutionalized racism” in the U.S. and calling the country a “human rights failed state.” And Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Facebook page read Sunday: “Look at what they do to the black community in their own country … . The police may beat them to death over the crime of having dark skins!”
Egypt's official news agency MENA reported Tuesday that the country's foreign ministry was "closely following the escalation of protests in the US city of Ferguson" and urged restraint in cracking down on protesters. The statement issued was strikingly similar to the White House's comments in July 2013 about demonstrations in Cairo.
‘Deeply rooted chronic’ issue
Chinese state media, meanwhile, appear to have focused on Ferguson after Sunday night’s protests. In reaction to intensified clashes between demonstrators and police, Monday’s headline from the English edition of Xinhua read: “Ferguson riot reveals U.S. racial divide, human rights flaw.”
The article quotes Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech: “African-Americans living in the United States today are enjoying elevated political and social status. Notably, the country is having its first African-American president in history,” read an excerpt from the story. But the article goes on to describe the persistent, underlying tension in U.S. society as “a deeply rooted chronic disease that keeps tearing U.S. society apart, just as manifested by the latest racial riot in Missouri.” [MORE]
