I’m sick of hearing about Ukraine already
This article is not going to make me popular, I imagine it will do exactly the opposite. I will probably seem heartless, cold, and evil. Utterly despicable perhaps. Perhaps some people will attribute that to my name, it’s a Muslim one you see, and there are plenty of negative stereotypes that the insulted can draw upon. Broadly speaking, it seems like no good can come from writing this article, and similarly no good can come from the situation in Ukraine. But I’m writing this anyway, because I think there are a lot of things that need to be said about how the world is reacting to the war in Ukraine, and about Ukraine itself.
When Vladimir Putin announced his ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine on 24th February this year, the Western world reacted unanimously. Vladimir Putin we are all being told, is an evil invader. The undeniably brave Volodymyr Zelensky, we are all being told, is a hero. He is a freedom fighter, protecting his countrymen from a dark force that must be stopped; Russia. Certainly, the leadership Zelensky has shown his people in this time of crisis shines a damning light on the inadequacy of many other leaders around the world. But nothing is ever entirely straightforward, things are not always what they seem.
I was going to write that nothing is black and white, but in Ukraine, and in the rest of the Western world, it seem that some things are often all too black and white. If you’re white, you matter, if you’re black you don’t…..
Reactance
The theory of reactance by Jack Brehm (1966, 1972) avers that people are negatively aroused when their freedom to choose is restricted. One outcome of reactance can be a person refusing to do what they have been asked to do, even if they originally intended to do it before being asked. Everywhere I go lately I am asked to donate money to help Ukraine. Before I sat down to write this article I went to buy some bread and breakfast cereal. At the self service checkout, I was asked if I would like to round up my bill to the nearest pound, so I could donate the difference to Ukraine. I didn’t. I don’t want to help Ukraine. Part of that might be due to reactance. When I returned from the supermarket I clicked on a YouTube link sent to me by my sister. It took me to a recording of a concert in which her two sons, both accomplished musicians, were performing. Before the concert began, one of the players stood up and told the audience that it was ‘impossible not to dedicate the performance to Ukraine.’ Utter nonsense.
Everywhere I go I am asked to help Ukraine. The terrible plight of Ukrainians is being thrust relentlessly into my consciousness, as if it is the world’s singular most important emergency. But singular it is not. Far from it. Now that there is a war in Ukraine, are we all meant to forget all of the other wars that have been raging for so long, creating millions of refugees and civilian victims? Why has the British government not thrown open it’s doors to the victims of other wars, invasions and sieges? Is it because they’re not white, not European? Is it because the oppressive regimens they are fleeing are propped up by the West? The answers are quite obvious, but nobody will admit it. Black lives don’t matter. Neither do brown lives. But white people, people who might be Christian (there are Muslims and Jews in Ukraine as well)? Oh, they matter so much that Liz Truss has sanctioned British citizens to go and fight in Ukraine if they so wish. The British Government has said it will pay £350 a month to take in Ukrainian refugees. These are both short sighted and dangerous policies. Even more worrying is the fact that so many governments are arming the Ukrainians.
Remember Ronald Reagan’s freedom fighters?
Sending arms and propping up sides in countries involved in conflict has never done any good. For anybody who can’t see this, Lesley Hazleton makes the point clear in her book ‘After The Prophet’ when she points out that America engineered a coup d’état in Iran, deposing the newly elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and installing Shah Reza Pahlavi, who aspired to nuclear armament with America’s encouragement. What does America and the rest of the world think of Iran’s nuclear ambitions now?
Another group armed, trained and even once financed by America were the Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan. ‘Freedom Fighters’ President Ronald Reagan called them. In Rambo 3, the titular character fights alongside them against the evil invading force of Russia. The Mujahideen aren’t called freedom fighters anymore. Now they’re better known as the Taliban. How’s that working out for the rest of the world?
For decades American governments backed the Wahabis, and in return the Wahabis spread their brand of extremist terror via Osama Bin Laden to American soil on the 11th of September 2001. That Wahabis might do such a dreadful thing would not surprise anybody with an ounce of foresight. One of the Wahabi movements founding acts in the decades following the death of Prophet Mohammed was to tie up and disembowel a pregnant lady, then remove the unborn child from her stomach and drive a sword through it, before turning on the watching father and beheading him. Wahabis also murdered the first cousin of the Prophet Mohammed.
More recently, British, American and German governments have been selling weapons to the Wahabis. Those weapons have been used to wage war against Yemen for 8 years now, creating the greatest current humanitarian catastrophe on earth. But I’ve never been asked to help the people in Yemen at a supermarket self service till, though they have been brutalised and displaced for nearly a decade. Nor have I ever been asked to help Syrians fleeing war, Iraqis, Iranians Libyans, Somalians, need I go on? God forbid that I’ll ever be asked to help Palestinians who have been brutalised for over seventy years. Imagine if I offered space in my home to refugees fleeing war and persecution from Syria, Palestine, or anywhere in Africa. I’d likely be arrested, maybe I’d even be accused of harbouring terrorists. I certainly wouldn’t be offered £350 a month for my troubles by the British government.
The British government flings open it’s doors and borders for Ukrainians but does all it can to keep out anybody else fleeing war. Is that just because Western powers have a hand so many of the wars causing devastation to so many people who are not Ukrainian, or is it just because the only refugees that matter are white refugees? There are plenty of news reports which have explicitly stated that Ukrainians matter because they are European, they have blue eyes, and they are white. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the short video below.
Black Ukrainians?
None of the news anchors in the clip above mention black people. But there are plenty of black people in Ukraine, and they are at risk from the Russian invasion, maybe even more so than their white neighbours. That’s not because Russians are specifically targeting Africans, it’s because Africans trying to flee Ukraine are being told the buses are for Ukrainians only, meaning white people only. Africans are being pushed off of buses evacuating civilians and those who manage to reach borders are being held back or pushed away by Lithuanian and Polish border patrols.
The non white refugees who do make it across borders are inexplicably ‘delayed.’ Watching Monica Matus, a Polish human rights worker, try to say its because they don’t have Ukrainian passports is tragic. Though its so obvious she just can’t bring herself to say its because they’re not white (see the clip below).
The war in Ukraine makes one thing obvious. In the eyes of the West, only white refugees warrant any help, only white victims of war matter, only white people should be treated humanely. Everybody else can be locked up or left to die.
What does Zelensky think of invaders?
Commenting on the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2021, Volodymyr Zelensky said the only tragedy in Gaza was that suffered by the Israelis. In his article ‘Navigating Our Humanity. Four Lessons from Ukraine’, Ilan Pappe suggests that based on Zelensky’s reasoning, the only tragedy in Ukraine is that being suffered by the Russians.
What about Putin?
There isn’t much coverage about why Putin sent troops to Ukraine, and I don’t see any schools collecting for Russia either. Are we all just supposed to believe Putin is an evil dictator, that he’s all bad and (non Russian) white people are all good? What does that say about the fact that Russia (along with countless Asians and Africans drawn from the British colonies, but they don't matter because of the colour of their skin) helped to defeat the Nazis?
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has largely abided by NATO's demilitarisation requests. NATO on the other hand has expanded its military bases eastwards, all the way into Ukraine. Those military bases pose a threat to Russia.
Putin says his ‘special military operation’ amongst other things, is about removing that threat and also about ‘de-Nazifying’ Ukraine. Putin seems acutely aware of the threats that Nazis can pose. Especially well trained, well armed, well funded Nazi military units. But where in the ‘civilised’, white skinned, blued eyed world might one find something as abhorrent as Nazis?
The Neo-Nazi threat
In 2014, Shaun Walker penned the article ‘Azov fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and may be it’s greatest threat’ in The Guardian. At the time, Azov battalion was fighting with other Ukrainian groups against Russian separatists. “The Azov” wrote Walker, “causes particular concern due to the far right, even neo-Nazi, leanings of many of its members.” An Azov member is quoted in the article, saying Ukraine needs “a strong dictator to come to power who could shed plenty of blood but unite the nation in the process.”
A Reuters news article from 2019 entitled “Ukraine’s Neo Nazi Problem” pointed out that more extreme members of groups like Azov could pose a threat to Ukraine in the long term. White Supremacists from around the world have travelled to Ukraine for military training over recent years.
The National Militia, another privately funded volunteer army in Ukraine, marched on Kiev in January 2018, dabbling in politics the next day by storming a government building and refusing to let officials leave until a delayed budget had been passed. National Militia members swear an oath of allegiance to Andriy Biletsky, a former Azov commander and ultranationalist politician. In 2010 Biletsky stated that the mission of Ukraine was to lead the white races of the world in a final crusade against Semite led sub-humans.
Writing in Fair Observer this month, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies suggest that the West is trying to sweep the presence of Neo Nazis and right wing parties under the rug. According to the article, the West used the far right in Ukraine to pull off a coup d'état in 2014, and then redirected them to fight separatists.
The fact that Western nations are sending arms to Neo Nazi groups does not bother Volodymyr Zelensky despite his Jewish heritage. One could argue that he is being pragmatic. But what happens when the war is over? Will the National Militia, Azov and other assorted ‘Freedom Fighters’ become Europe’s very own Taliban? Will any good come from the ethnocentric policies of the West, or are those policies just planting seeds for greater trouble and conflict, as Western policies have done in the Middle East for decades?
Using the colour of a persons skin to decide policies has never led to anything good, but that is what’s going on in the West, right now.
Should we ignore the refugees?
Can we ignore the plight of Ukrainian civilians? No. What is happening in Ukraine is terrible. But it’s clear that most of the West can easily ignore the plight of of anybody with darker skin, many of them victims of far more protracted wars and oppression. That’s what’s wrong. That’s why I’m sick of hearing about Ukraine. It doesn’t matter where a person comes from. A person is still human being, and our humanity should apply to all of them.
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