Has the
conflict in the Ukraine and how it is covered by the media revealed biases in who
the West (and Slovaks in particular) are concerned about and feel compassion
for? Is empathy often conditioned by
racism and other factors?
Thursday, March 10, 2022
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The Russo-Ukrainian conflict is tragic, especially since innocent people are the ones paying the price for a decision, in which they had no say. I think it’s great that we are trying to help them in any way we can. Honestly, I am surprised by how the West, including us, banded together and welcomed the Ukrainians refugees with open arms. This, in my opinion, highlights the racism and xenophobia ingrained in our population. Why did we not offer the same type of support for Africans or Asians running from war? I fully agree with the author saying that the open arms of the neighbors extend only to whites fleeing conflict.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s truly shameful to see how easy it is for us to welcome a couple hundred thousand Ukrainians, while also having an extremely difficult time welcoming a couple hundred Africans/Asians because they would “steal our jobs and wives”. However, I don’t solely blame the people for thinking this way. The media and some political figures have demonized African/Asian refugees in the past to further their agenda. For instance, the Polish Defense Minister stated, in regards to the 2015 migrant crisis, that “The open-door policy led to terrorist attacks in Western Europe”, yet now, Poland has already welcomed 1mil+ Ukrainian refugees. Again, I am in no way trying to criticize any support offered to Ukrainians refugees, but I wish that it would extend past that.
In all honesty, I was taken aback by how welcoming the citizens of Slovakia have been since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian invasion. The sheer number of charities that have been established since then certainly speaks volumes about how willing people are to lend a helping hand to those in need. Considering the fact that some are willing to go as far as share homes with fleeing families, just so they have a place to rest, I’m afraid if I said that that warms my heart, it would be a criminal understatement. Most people definitely have an ideology similar to the one that led to the establishment of the Red Cross Foundation, that the victims of war are to be treated equally. However, there is a demographic of people who completely disregard this line of thought. They either do not want to help anyone at all, or in the better case scenario, make careful and calculated decisions on who they choose to help. I believe that this is the exact group that perpetuates the hierarchisation of empathy that this article discusses.
ReplyDeleteThe issue that the article presents instantly reminded me of a video that the political party Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko posted on their official YouTube channel just 4 days after the Russo-Ukrainian invasion began. The 7 and a half minute long video can be boiled down to the party’s leader, Marián Kotleba, stating that the claims that women and children are fleeing from Ukraine are complete lies and that the border is overrun by “African and Asian immigrants”. He then proceeded to show footage of a checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Slovak border in Vyšné Nemecké at 2 AM, pointing out that there is not anything to be seen but queues of non-white, adult men. There are a plethora of reasons why I believe such behavior is not only irresponsible, but completely morally wrong and deliberately malicious. It endorses xenophobic beliefs and polarises an already polarised society even further. The fact that this video is now slowly approaching half a million views on YouTube alone is in my opinion incredibly worrisome. I strongly agree with the sentiment shared by the article’s author. War brings out the absolute worst in everybody.
“The hierarchy of empathy”, as the author put it, definitely exists. However, in my opinion, there are many different and more important factors than just race that influence it. People are driven by their own self-interests and they don't like external factors forcing them to change their way of life. If a large amount of refugees were to arrive from a different country, they would inevitably have an impact on the local culture. Therefore, it's usually in the best self-interests of the local population to either assimilate these refugees, or deny them refuge altogether. In the case of Ukrainians their culture, ethnicity and history are very similar to that of Poland and Slovakia, that's why they're seen more like relatives in need of temporary help. When it comes to the recent conflicts in the Middle East, the same countries see these refugees more as complete strangers that are just traveling to achieve a better life in an economically better off country.
ReplyDeleteAnother very strong component that “forces” us to help the Ukrainians is FEAR. Fear is a very strong emotion and it may be much more influencing than racism. The Poles and Slovaks have historical fear of the “Russian menace” and when they see Ukraine suffering from the strong hand of the belligerent Russia, they know they might be the next to go and would rather do everything they can to stop the threat before it even reaches them. The threats of some factions in the Middle East, on the other hand, have nothing to do with Europeans, from their point of view, as they are too far away for us to realize the people's suffering and their own fear. I don't believe there is a lack of compassion from our side, rather there is a lack of will to help others, if it doesn't bother us directly. We're scared of suffering our own losses in the form of high unemployment, shift in culture, unsustainable social benefits and more.
-Maxim