As the invasion of Ukraine by Russia continues, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are fleeing the country and are being welcomed by European countries. They are being welcomed by leaders of countries who share borders or are close to Ukraine geographically such as Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova as they consider them so called culturally identical.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petrov described Ukrainian as not being refugees they were used to, when he spoke to journalists. He called them “Europeans.” He also called them “intelligent” and “educated people” and not people “with unclear pasts who could have been even terrorists.”
According to NPR, he added, “…there is not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees.”
This statement is a combination of “racism and Islamophobia” according to Syrian journalist Okba Mohammed, who now lives in Spain. He said that he was not surprised by these comments.
In December 2021, according to a report by the Associated Press, right-wing populist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, “…we aren’t going to let anyone in.” Now, the same leader is extending a warm welcome to Ukrainian refugees in February 22 as he said that they were letting everyone in, according to NPR.
Sadly, even some of the media doesn’t seem to be exempt from this kind of bias as an Al Jazeera English television presenter described Ukrainian refugees as “prosperous, middle-class people” who looked like people “you would live next door to.” The channel later issued an apology.
CBS News also apologized when one of its journalists said that the Kyiv conflict wasn’t “like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European” city.
Tangent: The earliest known flourishing civilizations in the world, the Sumerian civilization originated at the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq, around 5000 BC when most of Europe may not have had what some journalists now call civilization.
All refugees whether they flee from Ukraine or elsewhere are leaving their homelands due to some type of repression–political, financial or more. Bracketing refugees as “ European, civilized, prosperous or middle-class” or not may not be illegal but might be considered as racist and superficial.
God forbid, if you are a Black or brown resident of Ukraine and are fleeing the country, you might face the same plight that Middle eastern people, mainly Syrian or those from Africa faced when there were waves of refugees from these countries to Europe.
Angela Merkel did welcome the Syrians and others but the same countries who are now welcoming the Ukrainians refused to take in earlier non Ukrainian refugees, thereby exposing the deep racism that still exists in parts of Europe.
