Of course there is an asymmetry of indignation. Of course, the cultural and geographical proximity of Ukraine strikes a chord in the countries of what is called the West.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been indirectly at war with each other in Yemen since 2015, a horrific conflict: an estimated 377,000 dead, most of them from hunger and disease, on the fringes of gunshot and bomb deaths1.
Do we just know?
Not really.
It is “far away”, Yemen, far from “our” world. And democratic states don’t make a big fuss about what’s going on there, precisely because it’s “far away”…
And, also, of course because Saudi Arabia is our faithful and loyal gas station attendant. Denunciations of Saudi abuses are rarer than those of Russians, let’s say.
Voices have been raised in recent days to denounce this asymmetry of indignation in the outcry condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine. Among these voices, accusations of racism.
This was denounced in The Press Lawyer Fabrice Vil2Friday, quoting often delusional remarks by French journalists on Ukrainian refugees, including this pearl: “There is a difference between the Ukrainians who, once again, participate in our civilizational space and populations who belong to other civilizations … »
There was also this American journalist who spoke about these Ukrainians, “Christians, white, very similar to us”, on NBC3. “Caucasianity”, as Fabrice Vil said.
I do not doubt for a second that there is an element of racism and unconscious prejudice which explains why Syrian refugees have been despised with an assumed xenophobic zeal, in certain circles.
The Ukrainian refugees, on the other hand, are unanimous. Everyone wants to help them…
Almost everyone, in fact. Among the recalcitrant, a handful of 2.0 fascists like Éric Zemmour, candidate for the French presidency, who does not want to see them in France4. The Ukrainians, he would prefer Poland to keep. But hey, Zemmour, yesterday, was polishing the boots of another facho bandaged on the lost greatness of the Nation – Vladimir Putin – I don’t think he’s lost his pot of wax now that Russian missiles are devastating Ukraine …
By the way, maybe one should be wary of people who promise to restore the lost greatness of the Nations, no matter the Nations. This will be the subject of another column.
Where was I going with my skis?
Ah, yes, the asymmetry of indignation. No doubt there is a part of racism there. But I think it’s also a matter of proximity: the murder committed in your street will always worry you more than the murder committed at the other end of the city, at the other end of the country.
The same goes for tragedies. When Haiti was hit by the terrible earthquake of 2010, we were all paralyzed here… There were many impulses from the heart. More than if it had been Puerto Rico, let’s say. Or the Bahamas. Proximity, again: Haiti has strong ties with Quebec, so many of its sons and daughters have settled here… We know each other. Closeness creates empathy.
For Ukraine, it is far, geographically. But it’s very close, at the same time. It seems to me that reducing the empathy and outrage we feel to a matter of racism is a bit short. Proximity to Ukraine here is a matter of democratic and cultural cousinhood.
History, in this corner of the world that currently makes us all tremble, goes back a long way. The common roots of Ukrainians and Russians go back to the Xand century5 and, since then, it has been a game of tug of war that has brought Ukraine into several spheres of influence of several powers, depending on the era…
This shows how the issues – and the interpretations of the issues – are complicated, between Russians and Ukrainians, and have been for centuries. Just the issue of Crimea deserves a thousand doctoral theses.
But the fact remains that a certain moral lucidity also encourages us to see that Ukraine is a State, that this State shelters a people, that this people has chosen to turn towards Europe, with its tools democratic to him.
And next door, Russia, a state that has nothing to do with democracy, led by what Pablo Escobar would have been if Pablo Escobar had had at his disposal the second largest army in the world, which moreover has the largest arsenal nuclear on Earth.
Putin, that’s it: Escobar with nuclear missiles.
And it’s this dictatorship led by a guy who we don’t really know if he’s sane who chose to annex his neighbor Ukraine by force, with the humanitarian disaster that we know. With the geopolitical consequences that are still unknown, for the time being, but which threaten to plunge Russia into dangerous economic misery and the world into a Cold War 2.0.
Where does my empathy for Ukrainians come from? I don’t care if they’re white, Christian.
It’s just that, personally, when a dictatorship kicks a democracy in the face to enslave it, I tend to side with the democratic country.
I’m old-fashioned, I know, but I’ve never had any sympathy for dictators, even when they have their picture taken on horseback in chest. I already find it vulgar, dictators, imagine without a t-shirt…
Amos Oz, Israeli writer, explained it masterfully: “When you see aggression, you have to fight it, no matter where it comes from. But only if it’s about life and freedom, not about additional territories or resources. »
My empathy for the Ukrainians therefore comes from there: in this conflict, they are the attacked, not the aggressors, and they are fighting for their lives and for their freedom.