You keep missing the point. Allow me to illustrate it this way:
No one is perfect. Neither people nor countries have perfect records when they are faced with challenges.
Expecting perfection is unreasonable. Let’s say that this is the 15th century Europe and baths and showers are rare. Coming to a person and saying “You stink! I can’t be around you.” is hypocritical if you yourself stink and everyone around you stinks. If stinking a certain amount is the norm for that level of civilization, then you have to take that into account when trying to address issues.
If someone comes along and says to you, “look, you and your friends have not taken any showers recently either, and smelled even worse last year… this person had very good reason preventing him from taking a shower” what would be your reply? If it is the following…
“That’s what aboutism! You are victim blaming! The complete and utter responsibility is on this person for stinking! Their stench is foul! Yes, perhaps somewhere, some other people did the same (huge understatement). But let’s focus on only this one case and take EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES to exclude THIS person from society.”
“But when you and your friends did it, no one excluded you even a little bit…”
“Well, mistakes were made back then, but we are wayyy cleaner than this person obviously. And besides, you are trying to distract from this one issue… we ALL have to band together teach this guy a lesson, if you are still talking to this person then you’rs a traitor and part of the problem and J must now shun you too”.
This argument has numerous logical problems:
1. It sets one standard for the “target” to be “punished” after having had a completely different standard the entire time for oneself and one’s allies
2. It makes no promise to now use this new standard consistently going forward, no guarantee that the one calling for massive penalties will not continue to do that very thing or worse
3. It ignores far worse situations that are happening AT THE SAME TIME and were happening for years leading up to it, and doesn’t propose to do anything about them
4. It actively takes away support from real solutions that could prevent such situations from happening, within the current framework (diplomacy, eg Minsk agreements or deodorant/cologne for stinking)
5. It puts roadblocks in the way of improving the system, eg creating more mechanisms in International Law for peaceful self determination via voting to join a diff country, or requiring countries to give citizenship to native born children at least 2 generations in, etc.
Again I ask, how can one point these problems out without engaging in “whataboutism”? Or we have to simply accept any hypocritical hysterical bullying or be told “we are part of the problem”, “on the wrong side of history” and deplatformed?
You have to compare apples to apples. If all apples are a bit rotten, but you only focus on ONE apple rather than the problem of why apples rot, and not even the MOST rotten apples, then you are just hijacking the issue to attack one “enemy apple” you dislike. You are part of the “real problem”.