there's not a thing i don't cherish

one of the many problems with 'listen to x voices' rhetoric is that in order to be in the diaspora & gain citizenship in the first place your family often has to conform, to some degree, to western policy regarding our home countries & then those are the most plentiful voices in the west who talk about our countries. they will try to convince you that this is "the true voice" of the people of that country but they will gleefully advocate for foreign interventions that result in the widespread destruction and looting of their home country + they will position themselves as the greatest victims in all of this. but they clearly do not view the people back home with any kind of genuine solidarity or kinship only as pawns in their own personal narrative (revenge for an imagined alternative life back home, one where you still owned land or a held position of power there) and an opportunity to seize power for themselves. & then people in the diaspora develop a complex when people back home don't like them and don't agree with them & start claiming that everyone in the home country is brainwashed and the only way to free them is by invading and bombing everyone. they don't even view their cousins and family back home as real people, in this type of person's mindset simply by coming to west you are made real in a way that the rest of the world is not, it's sickening. and i know this song and dance very well like i'm in the western diaspora and the amount of ppl i meet who position themselves as progressive people but on the topic of foreign policy re: the home country sound like they work for radio free asia and are on the cia's payroll and chomping at the bit begging canada and co to bomb their country of origin is completely insane & if you even try to push back against this you're socially ostracized. same people will do land acknowledgements and then shun you for not supporting our government warmongering overseas it's just maddening