by Jonathan Lee

CW: War, torture, police violence, racist violence

The full-scale escalation of the war in Ukraine began on 24th February, 2022; a war which has now displaced more than a third of the Ukrainian population and forced some 8 million people to flee as refugees to neighbouring European states. The response from (most) European countries has been nothing short of remarkable. The majority of the continent’s states have responded to the largest displacement of people in Europe since the end of World War II by opening their borders, facilitating access to their social welfare systems, providing work permits, and mobilising tens of thousands of volunteers to aid those in need. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, described the obligation to protect refugees as “a moment of truth for Europe.” In her address to the European Parliament on March 1^st 2022, she said:

“This is a clash between the rule of law and the rule of the gun; between democracies and autocracies; between a rules-based order and a world of naked aggression. How we respond today to what Russia is doing will determine the future of the international system. The destiny of Ukraine is at stake, but our own fate also lies in the balance. We must show the power that lies in our democracies; we must show the power of people that choose their independent paths, freely and democratically. This is our show of force.”

If only this show of force, power of democracy, and freedom to choose one’s own path applied equally to all peoples fleeing war. Refugees from darker-skinned parts of the word can only dream of such noble rhetoric coming from a European leader. The policies of Fortress Europe to repel people from conflict regions in South West Asia and North Africa are well documented. These people have not been greeted with emergency directives to ease their access to European job markets. Rather, like beggars at the door, they have found the gates of Europe firmly shut to them. More often than not, those gates have invariably been reinforced with barbed wire, and kept shut by attack dogs, tear gas, and lethal force. While white Ukrainian refugees have broadly been welcomed with open arms, those from outside the continent remain left behind, beyond the borders of the EU.