In Europe, How Race and Religion Influence Treatment of Refugees?

Are Ukrainians more deserving of sympathy and protection than Iraqis or Afghans? This is the current question so far and many indirectly answered “yes.”

While on air, CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata, described Ukraine as “civilized," stating that it “isn’t a place—with all due respect—like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European—I have to choose those words carefully, too—city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen.”

D’Agata is almost saying that Ukrainians, are not Afghans or Iraqis, they are Europeans and are more deserving of the world's sympathy than Iraqis or Afghans.

Few hours after the Russian missile attack in Ukraine, long queues of cars and buses were supported at checkpoints at the borders of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and non-EU member Moldova, while others crossed the borders on foot, dragging their belongings away from the Russian bombs, seeking EU security, CBC NEWS reported.

Others crossed the borders on foot, dragging their belongings away from the war and into the security of the EU.

During the journey, Ukrainians were and are still the only welcomed refugees, supporting them was a call of duty as many Western officials said.

With open arms, European countries received the “civilized Ukrainian refugees," while shutting its doors to all the “non-European migrants.”

 

European Open Arms

As the Russian assault escalated with missile strikes and explosions, thousands of Ukrainians were trying to escape the country, holding children in one arm, and belongings in the other.

Ukrainian refugees were heartily welcomed by leaders of countries like Poland, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania.

According to the United Nations, more than one million civilians have quitted Ukraine since the Russian invasion started.

The same source predicted that up to four million people may try to leave and that it will welcome those refugees with “open arms.”

Ukrainians were more than welcomed after Western leaders pledged to provide housing, jobs and everything a “European citizen” needs.

Over a million leave their homes in Ukraine and head to safety in Poland and other neighboring countries, at the same time, European and North American companies have begun offering aid not only to those fleeing the war but also to Ukrainian authorities.

The United Nations said that more companies are expected to provide support in the coming days.

Serving as secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres said after the latest UN data indicating 677,000 people have fled Ukraine since 24 February: “United Nations agencies and our partners are now working 24-7 to assess humanitarian needs and scale up aid, particularly to women, children, older people and those with disabilities.”

He, then, thanked Member States for keeping their borders open to people fleeing the violence, according to the UN.

“We must help Ukrainians help each other through this terrible time,” the UN chief insisted, adding that electricity and water supplies have been disrupted, roads have been “damaged or destroyed by bombs” and food and medicine were in short supply in some areas.

Mr. Griffiths announced at the end of the launch event in Geneva, that $1.5 billion had been pledged for humanitarian support.

UN Spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, also welcomed the “outpouring of support” while speaking to New York journalists, according to the same source.

 

'It Is Tribalism'

Now when moving to the murky side, European welcoming, in fact, was not as real human solidarity for an oppressed people as it looks.

It was totally the opposite for critics like The Guardian writer, Moustafa Bayoumi, who described the call to help “our civilized brothers” as not only racism, but “it’s tribalism,” highlighting petty and superficial differences in treatment given to migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, particularly Syrians who came in 2015.

“These are not the refugees we are used to…these people are Europeans,” Bulgarian President Rumen Radev told journalists earlier this week, of the Ukrainians.

“These people are intelligent, they are educated people…This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists,” he argued.

“In other words,” he added, “there is not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees.”

For Syrian journalist Okba Mohammad who fled Daraa in 2018, European leaders’ statement “mixes racism and Islamophobia,” and he was not surprised by the remarks from Western reporters and others.

Mohammad described a sense of “déjà vu” following Ukrainian events because he also “had to shelter underground to protect himself from Russian bombs,” struggling to board overcrowded busses, and leaving his family at the border, according to the Middle East Online (MEO).

“A refugee is a refugee, whether European, African or Asian,” Mohammad said.

Ironically saying that he is choosing his words carefully like D’Agata, Moustafa Bayoumi said that if Westerners decided to help Ukrainians in their desperate time because “they look like ‘us’ or dress like ‘us’ or pray like ‘us,’ “ giving support exclusively for them while denying the same help to others, “then we have not only chosen the wrong reasons to support another human being. We have also, and I’m choosing these words carefully, shown ourselves as giving up on civilization and opting for barbarism instead,” this is how The Guardian’s writer described Westerners Western evil intentions.

 

The ‘Civilized’ West Over the Years

Nineteen years ago this month, the United States led a fantastically bloody war on Iraq as part of its ongoing effort to make sure the Iraqi nation's eternal misery.

Straight-up massacre aside, there were other more serious and "spectacularly unsavory" results of the US invasion.

Many children were born with severe birth defects because of US weapons of mass destruction like white phosphorus, napalm, and depleted uranium, which were used during the war on Iraq, reflecting the US “civility” in Fallujah.

In 2021, French missiles hit a wedding party in a village in Mali, killing 19 civilians and injuring many more as they were barefoot for prayer.

While now helping Ukrainian refugees cross the borders, Australia passed a law allowing the detention of those seeking refuge for life.

Vast Australia detains refugees in centers closely resembling prisons; some remain there since 2013.

To halt the revolution in the 1920s, Spain used chemical weapons against Moroccans, spraying gas in populated areas in northern Morocco which still leaves those living there today highly prone to cancer.

In 2016, a Russian missile in Aleppo, Syria, interrupted a school day, killing 8 children and their teacher.

Between 1883 and 1998, Canada violently abducted over 150,000 indigenous peoples’ children away from their families to residential schools to be “rehabilitated,'' during which thousands of children were killed and secretly buried in mass graves.

While helping and welcoming Ukrainian refugees, the “civilized” west should not forget the 19 refugees who froze to death in a forest on the border between Greece and Turkey, after Greece denied their refuge, stripped them naked, and left them to die, not to mention the Israeli crimes against Palestinians that have never stopped.

Massacres, violent dispossession, thousands of tons of missiles, incendiary weapons, all these constant crimes have been committed in the name of “Civilization.”