George Floyd protests: How the world is gaping and gloating as massive uprisings spread across US

Nations hectored by Washington over human rights and democratic values aren't turning down the opportunity to reflect on the US's own troubles, as Borzou Daragahi, Oliver Carroll, Bel Trew and Adam Withnall report

(AFP via Getty Images)

In Russia, state television depicted the fiery mass unrest in the US as akin to a “dystopian movie.” Across the Arab world, commentators called protests in America over the killing of George Floyd as an “American Spring”, a reference to the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that toppled regimes across the Middle East.

In London, Berlin, Toronto and elsewhere protesters held solidarity vigils, holding up portraits of the slain 46-year-old, who was pronounced dead shortly after a white Minneapolis police officer ignored his cries of “I can’t breathe” and pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Across the world, US allies and adversaries gaped and gloated over the scenes of mass protests, which appeared to reflect persistent ethnic disharmony, social injustice and brutality by the security forces - including against journalists attempting to cover the ongoing events.

“For those of us who are American allies and friends, this is just the latest example of how the US seems to be on a slippery slope away from the standards and values it has aspired [for] all of us to follow,” said Ziya Meral, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

“For adversaries of the US, it is an opportunity to fuel its divisions, damage its global standing, mock and relativise the role it played in advancing human rights and democracy in the world,” he said. “Either way, there is no denying that we are watching the deep social and structural problems in the US, from how it handles Covid-19 to policing standards to addressing grievances of its citizens, live on TV and social media.”

From the plight of Uyghurs in China to the oppression of religious and ethnic minorities in Iran, US officials often call out the brutality of the security forces and systemic bigotry in rival countries. And nations who are regularly targeted in State Department reports and White House invective were not about to America off the hook for its own transgressions.

“I can’t breathe,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hua Chunying tweeted in response to US criticism of Beijing’s Hong Kong policies.

“If you're dark-skinned walking in the US, you can't be sure you'll be alive in the next few minutes,” said a Twitter account run by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

It included the hashtags #ICantBreathe and #BlackLivesMatter along with a video describing the history of slavery in America.

"To the American officials and police,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in English at his weekly press conference on Monday. “Stop violence against your people and let them breathe."

This is hardly the first time social unrest in the US has made waves across the world. The 1992 riots that erupted in Los Angeles and elsewhere following the acquittal of white police officers in the brutal beating of Rodney King prompted travel warnings to the US and concerns that the country was backsliding on civil rights.

Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union seized on mistreatment of African Americans at the hands of white racists in its propaganda against Washington.

But it’s been decades since the US has been seen by the world as a beacon of democracy, and its flaws, especially after its foreign debacles in the Middle East and its recent disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, have been apparent for many.

“One view that keeps popping up is the lack of a safety net and medical aid with the pandemic, and lockdown has probably created an explosion of feelings,” said Seifeddine Ferjani, a former adviser to Tunisian lawmakers who divides his time between London and Tunis. “The looting and the sheer extent of it all has surprised a lot of people. I don’t think anyone expected it to go this far and under lockdown, people risking their lives and protesting and going out.”

The presence of Donald Trump in the White House and the actions of a noisy, bellicose foreign policy team bent on hectoring other countries about their democratic shortcomings has also opened the US to especially harsh criticism, and the polarisation under Trump has perhaps made it more vulnerable to outside interference and bashing.

In his morning briefing with journalists, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the protests were an “internal affair” for the US. “Russia has never got involved in US affairs and doesn't intend to do so now,” he claimed. But Russian state news has focused heavily on the unrest, leading with videos of police cars driving into crowds of protesters.

Stars of state propaganda revelled in turning the spotlight back on the enemy. Describing the protest as America's “Maidan,” talk show host Vladimir Solovyev wondered if the US State Department would now show the same concern for protesters as it did during Ukraine’s 2013-14 revolution. "Have they demanded the arrested are released immediately, that authorities step out of the way of a nation’s free will?" he asked rhetorically.

Dmitry Kiselyov, the lyrical face of pro-Kremlin propaganda, led with irony on his Sunday news review programme.

"I'm sure that if something like this happened in Russia, they would have put sanctions on us," he said. "They would have called an extraordinary session of the United Nations to discuss human rights in Russia, and the EU would have done something dreadful to us too.

“But because it's America, where treating black people in such a way is considered normal practice, no one batted an eyelid,” he added.

Russia’s envoy to Washington sent a formal note of protest about a Russian journalist who was pepper-sprayed during the unrest by Minneapolis police. "Unrested States,” said the pro-Kremlin NTV's top news item.

In India, where the Modi administration regularly rebuts criticism by warning countries not to meddle in others' internal affairs, like Russia there was no official reaction to the US unrest. Several top newspapers did, however, provide prominent coverage of the images of a White House plunged into darkness as Mr Trump was rushed into its bunker - #WhiteHouse ranked among the top three trending topics on Twitter in India on Monday.

A number of leading journalists compared the national outpouring of anger in the US to the way India as a whole responded to the anti-Muslim riots in Delhi at the start of the year, where eye witnesses described police beating members of the public. Rana Ayyub, a well-known and outspoken critic of the government, called it the “same bloody tyranny of the oppressor against the oppressed”.

Sidharth Bhatia, co-founder of news website The Wire, wrote in an op-ed that “in India, we all know about gratuitous police beatings and custodial deaths”. Such incidents, he said, provoke brief outrage online but “vicious police brutality, often communal, is not enough to get us out on the streets”. “Police brutality is just not the issue in India that it is in the US,” he explains, adding that when videos go viral of young Muslim men being beaten by the cops, “many Indians may agree with the police, even applaud their initiative”.

But perhaps the most prominent reaction to the US protests came from Bollywood, with many of the Mumbai cinema’s leading lights issuing statements against racism and in support of the protesters. Priyanka Chopra wrote on Instagram that “NO ONE deserves to die, especially at the hands of another because of their skin color”. Deepika Padukone quoted the movie Black Panther to point out that “we must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe”. Disha Patani shared an image on Twitter stating that “ALL COLOURS ARE BEAUTIFUL”.

The problem here, as pointed out by many Twitter users and compiled into a thread by one, is that all these actresses have also fronted campaigns for skin-whitening creams - products with names like “White Perfect” - which critics say perpetuate deeply-held prejudices in India against people with darker skin tones.

The hashtags #america and #georgefloyd were trending in Arabic on social media throughout the Middle East, with many voicing solidarity with the protesters. His image was emblazoned across the rubble ruins of homes in war-ravaged Idlib by two Syrian graffiti artists expressing solidarity and his last words “I can’t breathe” were turned into calligraphy widely shared in Lebanon. There protesters, returning to the streets in their own anti-government rallies, flooded social media with #Americarevolts playing on their own revolutionary hashtag “Lebanon revolts”.

And aside from the officials reactions, Iranian media highlighted the imposition of what it described as “martial law” throughout America, an apparent reference to the deployment of National Guards in at least 20 states. “America under the boot,” said the banner of the hardline Vatan-e Emruz newspaper.

On Sunday, the White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien accused elements in China, Russia, Iran and Zimbabwe of taking advantage of the protests, without providing further details.

“They didn’t create these divisions,” US Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who is often allied with Mr Trump, wrote on Twitter. “But they are actively stoking and promoting violence and confrontation from multiple angles.”