Racism in war

Himashree Bora

(Cotton University, himashreebora964@gmail.com)

The people at the western reporting fraternity need to examine and ask themselves what their values are. Do they have a single set of moral standards to which they adhere in all times and places? Because if they aren't, then they have one set of values for people inside of Europe and another set of values for people outside, especially for non-White, non-European people. They are racist to an unimaginable level and the hypocrisy with which they function has a sharp familiarity with what it used to be before the Apartheid movement or Gandhi's strive for equality.

Take Yemen for example, for the last 7 years since the war started, although what's happening in Ukraine is absolutely horrific and terrifying and unjust, the latest calculation is that 2,30,000 people have died from bombing by the Saudis or by malnutrition and starvation which is endemic in Yemen. It sounds a lot like Bengal Famine when Winston Churchill let the entire population of Bengal starve by diverting every bit of food towards British soldiers and Britain fighting in WW2.

The UN has called the Yemen crisis the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century. Britain is actually a part of the Saudi assault on the Yemeni people, same as how the French government was involved in Libya's downfall and civil war and subsequent death of Muammar Gaddafi. Britain much like how they are involved indirectly in Ukraine's war with Russia is providing military guidance through their role as a pen holder in the UN Security Council, diplomatic protection, particularly against any investigation on the Saudis for the war crimes they are committing on Yemen. In other words, they are the protectors and are complicit in something which is utterly barbarous and feral, just as what Putin is doing right now in Ukraine.

Now, if the same coverage is given on the wars being raged in the middle east with the same lens on the refugee crisis as the world media is doing for Ukraine, it would have been a lot different than what it is today.

There are videos circulating on African and Indian students being tortured, beaten and not asked to board trains and buses to cross the borders of Ukraine. Even though it's a common understanding of the people in the entire world that in the 21st century, especially in the day and age of woken and social media power, everything is videotaped, or everyone is being videotaped. Yet, the people of Ukraine chose the presence of melanin pigment on the skin of the people to determine who gets on the trains and buses and who don't, who crosses the border and who don't.

The very fact that when the war escalated instead of letting the foreign students leave Ukraine, the colleges and universities made it compulsory for everyone to attend classes with an attendance of 100%. Ukraine has a history of helping Pakistan and voting against India in UNSC and same Ukraine asked for help from India quoting lines from Mahabharata and when India abstain from voting against Russia, much like the majority of the Asian countries, the Ukrainian government made sure that Indians were treated in the same manner as Pakistan treated Bangladeshis during their forced occupation of Bangladesh.

The gall of western reporters to talk about how Ukraine is made up of Europeans who are blue eyes and blonde hair and civilized than all the middle eastern countries where wars usually happen goes to show that Hitler's Third Reich and his propaganda of the Aryan race is still imbibed in the minds of Europeans. There is clear racism in them and even though their involvement in the wars of the middle eastern and African nations was indirect and almost direct in some cases with zero reports in the media circle, the Ukrainian crisis has brought out the dark, often overlooked and hypocritical side the west and the so-called White population.

To each their own they say, it is time that India and other Asian and middle eastern nations fend for themselves and rely on their capacity to defend themselves rather than taking the help of western countries. Racism exists and the more we become globalised in every sense and form, the more it will come out because at the end of the day it takes to heat and pressure for the popcorn to burst out of its seed. The same goes for any war. The true side of evil comes out when one is put through tremendous pressure.