'They are civilized', 'We are not in Afghanistan':media and political racism over the war in Ukraine

The conflict of recent days in Ukraine, whose sovereignty is now hostage to Russian bombs, has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee to seek shelter in surrounding countries.Faced with the ongoing humanitarian crisis at its borders, the European Union has said it is ready to provide assistance common answer, with a series of actions aimed primarily at ensuring the safety of the exiles.

The first provides for an allocation in favor of neighboring European states:Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, towards which the refugees are headed.Sums intended to cover humanitarian aid will also be given to Ukraine itself to deal with internally displaced people.Alongside economic contributions, the establishment of a European "solidarity platform" is being discussed, to coordinate operations in collaboration with community agencies, the European Asylum Agency and Frontex, which will deal with all aspects of the humanitarian crisis .

The most significant element of this response is certainly the desire to activate the procedure Directive 2001/55, a mechanism that obliges European states to collectively address an emergency situation caused by an unexpected "mass influx of displaced people" from a specific geographical area of ​​the world, who cannot be returned to their country of origin.It is a tool designed in 2001 at the time of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, but which was never used, neither then nor in subsequent migration crises, including the latest one relating to Afghanistan.The directive would grant a right of “temporary protection” - even if, as Eleonora Camilli points out, there are exceptions:"According to the draft proposal developed by the Commission, in addition to Ukrainians, third-party citizens in possession of a long-term permit and holders of international protection should benefit from temporary protection."Foreign students and migrants would therefore be excluded.

The positive promptness with which global institutions are facing this crisis cannot help but make us reflect on the ways in which migration policies have been addressed in Europe in recent years.For more than a decade we have been told that welcoming or finding a solution for the thousands of people who were dying and continue to die in the Mediterranean or along the Balkan route was not possible.We were told that the numbers of people were too large, that governments did not have the means to manage them and that you couldn't "welcome everyone".For every person who was sent to a European country, there was a new insidious debate.Migrations have become a thorny topic, often purely ideological and completely disconnected from the reality of migration, to the extremes of conspiracy theories based on invasions and ethnic substitutions, now perfectly inserted into the mainstream panorama.

Read also >> The 'great ethnic replacement':the racist conspiracy theory that has conquered the European right

In words everyone expressed great sorrow for those deaths.The best known remains that of the little one Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy found lifeless on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey, who seemed to have shaken European consciences leading to the realization of the extent of the tragedy (not without fault)  taking place in the Mediterranean.And instead, from 2014 to today there are more 20 thousand victims.Many others died within the same European borders, some in concentration camps, some in the various CPRs.And the tears, glistening enough to keep the spotlight on that one media spectacularization of bodies (rendered) empty, they were quickly dried with an implicit:“Nothing can be done.”

Today we discover that we can welcome, that even a flow of hundreds of thousands of people can at least have the consolation of finding a safe refuge on our lands, before individual cases are rightly analysed.Today we discover that first of all people must be saved, and the rest comes later.Here then is a law, ready to be revoked, magically finds utility and functionality.The hidden clauses, written in tiny letters at the bottom of the page, as in those promotional messages that so often smell like scams to us, required that the refugees be white, blue-eyed, Christian, "like us".

This is how the presenter made it clear to the world Al Jazeera English Peter Dobbie, who during a broadcast Sunday said:“Looking at them, the way they are dressed, these are wealthy middle class people.These are obviously not refugees trying to get away from the Middle East [...] or North Africa.They look like any European family you would live next to.”

This is clear from the words of the foreign correspondent of CBS News, Charlie D'Agata, who said on air that the attack on Ukraine cannot be compared to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because Ukraine is more “civilized.”“This is not a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict rage for decades,” he said, then added:“This is a relatively civilized, European city – I have to choose those words carefully, too – where you wouldn't expect it, or hope for it to happen.”

And again:“We are in the 21st century, we are in a European city and we have missile fire as if we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, you can imagine!”, said one commentator of BFM TV, the main French news channel, during a live broadcast.In another broadcast of BFM, the journalist Philippe Corbe said:«Here we are not talking about Syrians fleeing from the bombing of the Syrian regime supported by Putin, we are talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives». And finally the chief deputy prosecutor of Ukraine, David Sakvarelidze, who declares to BBC:«It's very touching for me because I see Europeans with blue eyes and blond hair being killed». If the message wasn't clear enough, just move to Italy and listen to the words of the Northern League member Susanna Ceccardi who, when asked directly, explains what the difference would be between Ukrainian refugees and African refugees fleeing from Ukraine:we are still at "real refugees" and not.

The most rotten Eurocentrism and white supremacism travel with confidence and acclaim in the major Western media.Nazism, the writer noted Aimé Césaire, is considered a sacrilege in the European conscience, since it is the device that dared to turn against Europe itself the techniques of subjugation and dehumanization that colonialism had implemented against "others".«What they don't forgive Hitler is not the crime itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, but the crime against the white man, it is the humiliation of man white, and having applied to Europe those typically colonial treatments which until then had been the exclusive prerogative of the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India and the blacks of Africa".The white man in history has made "civilization" the den in which to enclose and protect his image, while the stench of moral relativism spread and contaminated the air from the bodies of his victims.

This explains the humanitarian dissonance whereby the EU remains deliberately indifferent towards the fate and rights of racialized people.This explains why a country like Poland, on whose borders until a few months ago there was shooting with water cannons and tear gas on migrants, has now put itself at the service of the least.Here's why the bombings in Yemen the last few weeks pass in silence, while we cry (rightly) over bodies (unjustly) considered more deserving.Here it becomes clear as the video of one Palestinian girl what a challenge an Israeli soldier is went viral, because it was mistaken for that of a Ukrainian girl dealing with a Russian soldier.

This hierarchy of inclusion has also made itself felt at the Ukrainian borders themselves.Several non-white citizens, particularly students of African and Indian descent, spoke of incidents of racism among the ranks of those trying to leave the country to save themselves from the Russian offensive.According to various testimonies, a Kyiv, in order to prioritize the white-skinned Ukrainian population, many people would be barred from entering trains and buses heading from the Polish border.

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Confirmation - to denial the false accusations of Russian propaganda by those who, as always happens, tried to belittle or deny the experience of those victims of racism - came from United Nations (in particular by the High Commissioner for Refugees).Numerous video testimonies then emerged documenting the violent and discriminatory attitude of the Ukrainian authorities at various checkpoints. In one of these, we see a black woman who is prevented from boarding the train;in others, hundreds of black people, women and children, leave in the cold while other white people go up to occupy the means of transport.

«They stopped us at the border and told us that blacks were not allowed to cross.But we could see white people crossing,” said Moustapha Bagui Sylla, a Guinean student interviewed by France24.In ainterview at the BBC, Ruqqaya, a Nigerian medical student, said she walked for eleven hours during the night before arriving in Medyka, a Polish city.“When I arrived here there were black people sleeping on the streets,” explains Ruqqaya, further saying that the armed guards told her to wait because the Ukrainians had to be let through first, while only a few African citizens had the privilege of being drawn. from the tail.And similar testimonies continue to surface.

All this is nothing more than the result of the continuous campaign of dehumanization with which politicians and the media have penetrated our daily lives in recent years.If ordinary people, amiable neighbors, colleagues, relatives, passively welcome or even rejoice in the death of their peers, it is simply because they no longer recognize them as such.

As if they don't belong to the same world, simply because they come from the other side of the border.As if that border served as a dividing line between humans and others, the undesirables.Those we always talk about in the plural, stripped of any subjectivity, to stage objects.Those who are accused of perverting our values ​​and our culture, of creating unemployment and insecurity, but who we forget at the first crisis, as if they no longer exist.

Preview image:VION video frames via YouTube