This week, the former deputy general prosecutor of Ukraine, David Sakvarelidze, went on BBC News to talk about the tragedy of war and the situation in Ukraine.
“It’s very emotional for me,” he said, head down. “Because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed, children being killed everyday with Putin’s missiles.”
A friend of mine said it’s crazy. Crazy, how even through war, racism prevails.
What’s also interesting is the complicity in Sakvarelidze’s words from the BBC presenter, who carried on nodding empathically without flinching as he spoke about how it was particularly devastating to watch people who looked like Hitler’s ideal idea of a person die. It didn’t ring a red flag in the presenter's mind; maybe because it only confirms what we’ve always known. In the ‘west’ (for the sake of conciseness and for a lack of a better term) it is often asserted through either language, political policies, and abuse in the form of violence or racism that our humanity is worth less.
We see this in reporting on wars in Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria…
A senior foreign correspondent at CBS News is currently under fire for expressing these exact sentiments. Reporting from Ukraine, Charlie D’Agata said - live on the news - “Tens of thousands of people have tried to flee the city; there will be many more. People are hiding out in bomb shelters.
“But this 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!” he added with what looked like a small smirk - “city where you wouldn’t expect that.”
The comment also went unchallenged on air; it’s funny how there is so little self-awareness, if any - or maybe that’s deliberate. Random, but it reminds me of this level of a lack of self-awareness. I still find this video horrifingly hilarious.
“Surreal to know Poland is setting up welcome centers for Ukrainian refugees. Because Poland is also building high tech wall & detention centers & funding Polish Border Guard to block migration of mostly Yemeni, Egyptian, Syrian, Pakistani, Afghan refugees - as recently as today.”
- Harsha Walia
The Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Metodiev Borisov was questioned on his stance on taking in refugees, and he said (note; this is a translation):
"These are not the refugees we are used to. These are people who are Europeans, so we and all other EU countries are ready to welcome them. These are intelligent people, educated people...some of them are IT specialists, highly qualified.
"In other words, this is not the refugee wave we have used to, where we do not know what to do, people with obscure past, maybe terrorists. These are Europeans who just got their airport bombed, who were shot at, who were hiding in the metro. So none of the European countries are afraid of the immigrant wave that is about to come.”
Look at the hashtag #AfricansinUkraine on Twitter and you’ll see Ukrainians literally stopping Black people from boarding trains to safety. Africans who trekked for hours and miraculously made it to the Polish border were threatened with guns, and only white Ukrainians were let across in the majority. This person has documented the journey via their social media. While Brown and Black people were left to freeze at the border, it was announced Ukrainians could bring their pets without passports. All lives matter!
When I saw images of people fleeing the streets of Kyiv with nothing but a few clothes on their back; young couples tearful at train stations and an older lady holding a cross to her forehead I cried, because the importance of someone’s humanity isn’t determined on a scale based on colourism and culture… and you’d like to think that would go without saying, right?! (Hint: Wrong.)
Anyway, it gave room for pondering and yesterday, I was speaking to my husband about why, for us (‘us’ being British Pakistanis, but that can be extended to lots of minority groups) the conflict in the Middle East cuts deep in a way it doesn’t for other demographics? Is it Muslim affinity? While there is some unification via our moralistic belief systems, it’s not that; not to me. I think it’s our deep connection to displacement that keeps us empathetic to refugees that look like us (and refugees who don’t).
As British-born-brown people we know that we are spectacularly privileged in one way, but deeply out of place here in another. The more I learn about my own family and their histories of fleeing to borders, narrowly escaping death, and surviving long enough to get to England and start a new life, raise a new family… the more I understand my own connection to the displaced, to the people who are ‘othered’. The more I feel my own ancestral displacement and trauma, the more empathy I have… and the more rage I have, too, tbf.
I tried to explain the feeling of displacement to my dad once and he didn’t get it. But how could he? He came to England in his late twenties; this was never home. When his mind flashes back to nostalgic moments, him as a child with his siblings, he is in Pakistan in his mind. He doesn’t feel displaced because England is not the only home he knows, and I’m kinda jealous.
For us, it’s different. In terms of culture and language, I know nothing but my own Britishness. I feel British, but then I watch the news reports and I remember that we are ‘other’. In one way or another, we’re reminded of it every single day.
Language is important, language is a weapon, and right now the narrative is very clear. It’s strange to me, sometimes, to think the birth of civilization was in Iraq. The first university in the world was in North Africa. Middle Eastern people were the world’s first astronomers, they invented algebra. The western numeric system comes from the Hindi numeric system; Indian mathematicians invented it sometime between the 1st and 4th centuries. Islamic societies were pioneers in medicine. So yeah, I guess it just feels weird to say the least, to live in a world where Black and Brown societies are portrayed as uncivilized. It feels gravely unjust. I always do this as well; I feel the need to list our accomplishments as a validation of our humanity. But that shouldn’t be necessary. We shouldn’t have to demonstrate our excellence to be seen as human... we just are.
Thanks for sharing this Maz, very sightful as always x
Thank you for sharing and helping to articulate my feelings on this. How war always has a white lens.