Disgusting European racism: the paradox of xenophobia from Ukrainian victims of xenophobia
11. 4. 2022 / Fabiano Golgo
čas čtení
7 minut
Vladimír Putin's declarations about the non-existence of an
Ukrainian nationality is at the root of the Kremlin's war against
Ukraine. By denying an Ukrainian nationality, Russia tries to impose a
Russian identity to their ethnic cousins. This fake framing of
Ukrainians dehumanized them to the eyes of an apparent majority of
Russians and gave them a sense of righteousness in the naked aggression
that this war has brought to Ukraine. Those Ukrainians who deny their
Russian identity are then seen as "the other", as enemies of the Russian
nation. This kind of xenophobia feeds the ethnic ultranationalism that
is so characteristic of Putin's rhetorics. Ukrainians without a Russian
identity are free to be discriminated against.
Xenophobia is a primitive feeling that can be found all around the globe but some nations are less ashamed of expressing it openly and, in the case of Russia and some European countries, as the official line of their governments. From Marine LePen to Tomio Okamura, Matteo Salvini to Viktor Orbán, politicians thrive on xenophobia to gather popularity. While they are highlighted as the "Racists-in-Chief" of the continent, they would not exist if a considerable part of the populations of most European countries didn't mirror those prejudices themselves. Tragically, lots of Ukrainian refugees, who are fleeing their country that is being attacked with the aim of making them part of the Russian identity, are xenophobes and racists as well.
Aziz is a Nigerian "Facebook friend" of mine. He moved to Ukraine to study Sociology at the Black Sea National University in Mykolaiv. When the war started, he first decided to stay and wait for what he and many others believed would be a short conflict. But when the bombardments of the capital of Ukraine started, he found out he was even less protected than the local population. He was lied about bunkers and other underground protective sites being full each time he tried to find a shelter. When he forced his way inside a metro station, he saw Ukrainians who were there simply leaving him with many meters of free space around him, even though the place was packed. They refused to be close to him. "I felt like I had some infectious disease. But what caused them to rather pile up over each other and leave me far away from them was the color of my skin", he told me from his Romanian refuge. To reach Romania, though, he had to go through yet more episodes of blatant and shameless racism.
While at the metro station, he overheard a teenager tell his mother "Я вважаю за краще спати на вулиці під бомбами, ніж спати поруч із смердючим африканцем" (I prefer to sleep outside under the bombs than to sleep next to a stinky African). Aziz tells me he spent the night with his eyes wide open, afraid to be the target of violence from those who were there fleeing the danger of violence.
Aziz managed to join a group of other Nigerians who, with the help of their embassy in Poland, were taken by a van to the border to cross into safety from Russian bombs. After an excruciating trip where Ukrainian check points made them stop and wait for hours while other citizens from that country could pass without any constraints, the group paid bribes to be able to continue further. Once they reached the border, both the Ukrainian side as well as the Polish side kept trying to keep them from crossing.
He heard from an Ukrainian guard "you are strong men, you came to use our country, so stay to defend it". Partially, he agreed that, as a male who lives in Ukraine, he could be asked to help defend it, if not for the fact that two fellow Nigerians from his group had tried to do so, just to be dismissed by the local civilian militias that were preparing molotov cocktails and having guerilla exercises for not being Ukrainians. One of them said that he was told repeatedly to go back to the jungle, that this war was not theirs.
When they finally managed to cross into Poland, paying bribes of over 2 thousand euros between the two countries, one of them was not allowed to enter Polish territory with the excuse that his behavior showed he was "obviously gay". Even though homophobia is common and accepted in Nigeria, Aziz said only one person from his group decided to continue in Poland, whereas the others, notwithstanding their own prejudice against homosexuality, felt a closeness to their fellow countryman that arose from the life threatening situation they were all in. "Akuna's homosexuality became less important, we were all humans in serious life danger and that made us united as a family", Aziz explained.
They went back to Ukrainian soil and joined a group of Ghanans who had given up their failed attempts at crossing into Poland and left towards Slovakia. Almost broke, they gave their last euros to pay Ukrainian border guards, who nevertheless never came through with their promise to let them into Slovakia, claiming Slovak guards insisted only females, children and the elderly could cross the border.
The group, already without food and unable to even buy any from walking vendors of snacks, for they refused to attend them, moved towards the Hungarian border. There, they heard that "monkeys belong to a zoo, not to our country" from a Hungarian border official. With the help of bitcoins sent by a Nigerian businessman who was helping with digital cash their compatriots, they got to the Romanian border, where Aziz says they were welcomed without any perception of prejudice.
However, they tried to find an AirBnB apartment to stay and were refused by the owners repeatedly, giving up after 16 attempts. Their names and photo IDs in the app showed they were black. "One of them made the appointment for us to come to his house but when he saw us he said that the place was no longer available", excusing himself, saying he was not a racist but unfortunately the neighbors were and when they found out a group of Africans were coming to stay near them, they confronted him and threatened to get his permit to rent his house with airBnB cancelled.
The group separated and some of them found a fellow Nigerian student who lives in Romania to let them stay there until their embassies manage to get them an air ticket to go back home.
Sumon is a Bangladeshi immigrant to Ukraine who owned a now destroyed small market. He tells me that his shop was sacked already before the first bomb fell in Kyiv. A woman who used to buy food there almost everyday and with whom he had cordial talks shove his wife against a wall when she tried to keep a group of Ukrainians from stealing their property and yelled at her "this is our country, feel lucky that you are allowed to be here", as if this justified their looting. Sumon and his family are still in Kyiv but were denied any kind of assistance from what the local government is giving residents, having spent days without food or water, even though their neighbors were being offered meals and drinks by government officials and NGO workers. "Ukrainians are disgustingly racist, just like all Europeans", he says.
This conflict has brought up full proof that racism and xenophobia are widespread and common features of the European character. Even though many Europeans are not racist nor xenophobe, they seem to be exceptions that reinforce the rule. Even while in a position of victims of a foreign nation's dismissal of their value based on their nationality, many among Ukrainian refugees and authorities are culpable of the same prejudices that put them into that dehumanizing position.
When asked about these episodes, my Ukrainian friend Ilya, who lives in Prague, was silent for a few seconds until he said "but they are not Ukrainians and the war is against Ukrainians"! As if bombs chose their targets...
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