The Tale of the War in Ukraine Reveals Western Racism – Patrick Gathara

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine between Russian and Ukrainian Slavic populations, the latter supported by a tribal coalition of nations in sub-European Europe, has not only highlighted the fragility of peace in the subcontinent devastated by the pandemic. It also unveiled a bleak shade of racist exceptionalism with which many Europeans and people of European descent tend to look to themselves.

It was impossible not to notice the shock at the idea that all this could happen in Europe, shown by Caucasian journalists who are reporting the war unleashed by the invasion of Russia under the pretext of supporting ethnic allies in the tribal enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk, recognized as independent republics.

“They are so similar to us. That is why it is so shocking… War is no longer something that affects poor and distant peoples. It can happen to anyone, ”wrote Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph, UK. “Just think, we are in the twenty-first century, we are in a European city, and missiles are launched as if we were in Iraq or Afghanistan”, complained a commentator on French TV.

Sent to Kiev, in the Ukrainian capital, the correspondent of the US network CBS Charlie D’Agata declared that Ukraine “is not, with all due respect, a place like Iraq or Afghanistan, at war for decades … This it is a relatively civilized city, relatively European – I have to be careful with the words I use – where you would never expect or hope that something like this could happen ”. He later apologized.

A merciless portrait
These naturally scandalized reactions are new. Recounting the events that took place in the United States during the Trump administration, especially during the 2020 elections, reporters regularly exclaimed that this chaos was a “third world” thing that could not have been expected in the United States. “America is now a third world country,” read a headline in Fortune magazine, recounting the first ramshackle presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, destined to succeed him.

The thought goes back to Chinua Achebe who, in 1975 reviewing the novel by the British writer Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness, he observed that “for reasons that would certainly be useful to investigate from a psychological point of view, the West seems to have deep concerns about the precariousness of its civilization” and needs to be continually reassured by the comparison with Africa. To Africa we can add Iraq, Afghanistan and much of the global south.

In essence, journalists try to reaffirm the exceptionalism and virtue of white Europe by externalizing the ills of the latter to the “developing” world. What Achebe wrote about Africa can be extended to much of the non-white world, which “is for Europe what the portrait is for Dorian Gray, that is, a container in which the master discharges his physical and moral deformities so that he can go ahead, straight and immaculate “.

Paradoxically, the moral deformities of Europe have been there for all to see since the beginning of the Russian invasion, itself profoundly immoral and unjust. The reported treatment Ukrainian border guards have reserved for Africans, Indians and other people of color trying to leave the country will remain an indelible stain on the country’s otherwise heroic resistance to aggression.

The warm welcome accorded to Ukrainian refugees by EU neighbors stands in stark contrast to the hostility experienced by racially diverse people who have come from other countries on the threshold of Europe. And the Europeans have certainly made no secret of the reasons for this discrepancy.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said: “These are not the refugees we used to see. These people are European, so we, together with all the other EU countries, are ready to welcome them. These are… intelligent, educated people… so none of the European countries fears the wave of immigrants that is about to arrive ”.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki then declared that “we will accept anyone who needs it. Ukrainian society is increasingly afraid and worried. We are ready to accept tens, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees ”. All this while his country continues to deny entry to migrants and asylum seekers, mostly Iraqis, Afghans and Syrians, along the border with Belarus.

In the UK, which has considered turning non-white refugees back to the English Channel, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is said to have said Ukrainians will be able to enter without a visa if they already have relatives in the country.

It is worth noting that when reporters, shocked to see the pure continent plunge into a mud they believed to be reserved only for the rest of humanity, deign to mention the contradictory positions on asylum seekers, they do so only incidentally. It seems that the word “racism” is carefully avoided.

Apparently they do not even realize the paradox represented by the European powers which, while welcoming the refugees created by the Russian invasion, reject those created by its invasions and occupations. As well as the fact that while Russia is condemned, as it should be, for invading someone else’s country, the countries that make their voices heard the most about international law or the UN Charter and resolutions quietly ignore the fact that apartheid Israel is doing exactly the same thing with the Palestinians. In that case, no request for sanctions or isolation. No celebrations of the courage of the people of Gaza and the occupied territories in the West Bank defending their freedom against a brutal occupier.

But on the other hand Israel has not invaded a white European country and we know that according to them some behaviors are acceptable and must be taken into account if directed towards people on other continents.

In fact, there is the same reaction towards the north as comedian John Oliver when he learned that former US President George W. Bush, responsible for the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, was also condemning Putin. “Wait a moment, George. You really don’t, ”he said in his show Last week tonight. “You’re not the right person to do that, because this statement would only make sense in the end I said ‘Oh shit, now I understand. I’m sorry, now I shut my ass out of my mouth ”.

Rather than shut their mouths, perhaps it would have been better if they had shown a modicum of awareness and consistency.

(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)