Is Europe really more civilised? Ukraine conflict a platform for racism and rewriting history – Middle East Monitor

When a ugly six-minute video of Ukrainian troopers taking pictures and torturing handcuffed and tied-up Russian troopers circulated on-line, outraged folks on social media and elsewhere in contrast this barbaric behaviour to that of Daesh.

In a uncommon admission of ethical duty, Oleksiy Arestovych, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, rapidly reminded Ukrainian fighters of their duty beneath worldwide legislation. “I wish to remind all our navy, civilian and defence forces, as soon as once more, that the abuse of prisoners is a conflict crime that has no amnesty beneath navy legislation and has no statute of limitations,” he mentioned, asserting “we’re a European military”, as if the latter is synonymous with civilised behaviour.

Even that supposed declare of duty conveyed delicate racism, as if to recommend that non-Westerners and non-Europeans might perform such grisly and cowardly violence, however actually not the extra rational, humane and intellectually-superior Europeans.

The remark, although much less apparent, reminds us of the racist comment by CBS Information international correspondent Charlie D’Agata on 26 February, when he shamelessly in contrast Center Japanese cities with the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, stating: “In contrast to Iraq or Afghanistan, (…) this can be a comparatively civilised, comparatively European metropolis.

READ: Ukraine supplies a possibility for peace in Europe and past 

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has been a stage for racist feedback and behavior, some express and apparent, others implicit and oblique. Removed from being implicit, nevertheless, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov didn’t mince phrases when, final February, he addressed the difficulty of Ukrainian refugees. Europe can profit from Ukrainian refugees, he mentioned, as a result of: “These persons are Europeans. (…) These persons are clever, they’re educated folks. This isn’t the refugee wave we have now been used to, folks we weren’t certain about their identification, folks with darkish pasts, who might have been even terrorists.”

Considered one of many different telling episodes highlighting Western racism, but in addition the continued denial of its grim actuality, was an interview performed by Italian newspaper La Repubblica with Ukrainian Azov Battalion Commander Dmytro Kuharchuck. The latter’s militia is thought for its far-right politics, outright racism and horrific acts of violence. But, the newspaper described Kuharchuck as: “The sort of fighter you do not anticipate. He reads Kant and he does not solely use his bazooka.” If this isn’t the very definition of denial, what’s?

That mentioned, our proud European buddies should be cautious earlier than supplanting the phrase “European” with “civilisation” and respect for human rights. They ought to not neglect their previous or rewrite their historical past as a result of, in any case, racially-based slavery is a European and Western model. The slave commerce, because of which thousands and thousands of enslaved folks have been shipped from Africa in the course of the course of 4 centuries, was very a lot European. In accordance with Encyclopedia Virginia, 1.8 million folks: “Died on the Center Passage of the transatlantic slave commerce.” Different estimations put the quantity a lot increased.

Colonialism is one other European high quality. Beginning within the fifteenth century and lasting for hundreds of years afterwards, colonialism ravaged the whole World South. In contrast to the slave commerce, colonialism enslaved complete peoples and divided complete continents, like Africa, amongst European spheres of affect.

The nation of Congo was actually owned by one particular person, Belgian King Leopold II. India was successfully managed and colonised by the British East India Firm and, later, by the British authorities. The destiny of South America was largely decided by the US-imposed Monroe Doctrines of 1823. For almost 200 years, this continent has paid – and continues to pay – the extraordinarily heavy value of US colonialism and neocolonialism. No numbers or figures can presumably categorical the destruction and dying toll inflicted by Western-European colonialism on the remainder of the world, just because the victims are nonetheless being counted. However for the sake of illustration, in keeping with US historian Adam Hochschild, ten million folks have died in Congo alone between 1885 and 1908.

READ: ‘Image’ portray of Russia-Ukraine conflict offered for $100,000

And the way can we neglect that World Struggle I and II are additionally fully European? Each wars left behind round 40 million and 75 million useless, respectively (different estimations are considerably increased). The gruesomeness of those European wars can solely be in comparison with the atrocities dedicated, additionally by Europeans, all through the south for tons of of years prior.

Mere months after The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was shaped in 1949, the keen Western companions have been fast to flex their muscle groups in Korea in 1950, instigating a conflict that lasted for 3 years, ensuing within the deaths of almost 5 million folks. The Korean Struggle, like many different NATO-instigated conflicts, stays an unhealed wound to at the present time.

The listing goes on and on, from the disgraceful Opium Wars on China, beginning in 1839, to the nuclear bombings of Japan in 1945, to the destruction of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in 1954, 1959 and 1970, respectively, to the political meddling, navy interventions and regime modifications in quite a few nations all over the world. They’re all of the work of the West, of the US and its ever-willing “European companions”, all finished within the title of spreading democracy, freedom and human rights.

If it weren’t for the Europeans, Palestine would have gained its independence many years in the past, and its folks, this author included, wouldn’t have been made refugees, struggling beneath the yoke of Zionist Israel. If it weren’t for the US and the Europeans, Iraq would have remained a sovereign nation, thousands and thousands of lives would have been spared in one of many world’s oldest civilisations, and Afghanistan wouldn’t have endured this untold hardship. Even when the US and its European buddies lastly relented and left Afghanistan final yr, they proceed to carry the nation hostage by blocking the discharge of its funds, resulting in precise hunger among the many folks of the war-torn nation.

So earlier than bragging concerning the virtues of Europe and the demeaning of everybody else, the likes of Arestovych, D’Agata and Petkov ought to check out themselves within the mirror and rethink their unsubstantiated ethnocentric view of the world and of historical past. In actual fact, if anybody deserves bragging rights, it’s these colonised nations that resisted colonialism, the enslaved folks that fought for his or her freedom and the oppressed nations that resisted their European oppressors, regardless of the ache and struggling that such struggles entailed.

Sadly, for Europe, nevertheless, as an alternative of utilizing the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a possibility to replicate on the way forward for the European venture, no matter that’s, it’s getting used as a possibility to attain low cost factors in opposition to the very victims of Europe in every single place. As soon as extra, precious classes stay unlearned.

The views expressed on this article belong to the creator and don’t essentially replicate the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.