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When a ugly six-minute video of Ukrainian troopers taking pictures and torturing handcuffed and tied-up Russian troopers circulated on-line, outraged individuals on social media and elsewhere in contrast this barbaric behaviour to that of Daesh.
In a uncommon admission of ethical accountability, Oleksiy Arestovych, an advisor to the Ukrainian president, shortly reminded Ukrainian fighters of their accountability underneath worldwide legislation. “I wish to remind all our army, civilian and defence forces, as soon as once more, that the abuse of prisoners is a warfare crime that has no amnesty underneath army 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 accountability conveyed refined racism, as if to counsel 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 overseas 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 chance for peace in Europe and past
The Russia-Ukraine warfare has been a stage for racist feedback and behavior, some specific and apparent, others implicit and oblique. Removed from being implicit, nonetheless, Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov didn’t mince phrases when, final February, he addressed the problem 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 individuals. This isn’t the refugee wave we have now been used to, individuals we weren’t certain about their id, individuals with darkish pasts, who may have been even terrorists.”
One in every of many different telling episodes highlighting Western racism, but additionally the continued denial of its grim actuality, was an interview carried out by Italian newspaper La Repubblica with Ukrainian Azov Battalion Commander Dmytro Kuharchuck. The latter’s militia is understood 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 would not solely use his bazooka.” If this isn’t the very definition of denial, what’s?
That mentioned, our proud European associates have to be cautious earlier than supplanting the phrase “European” with “civilisation” and respect for human rights. They ought to not overlook their previous or rewrite their historical past as a result of, in spite of everything, racially-based slavery is a European and Western model. The slave commerce, on account of which thousands and thousands of enslaved individuals have been shipped from Africa throughout the course of 4 centuries, was very a lot European. In line with Encyclopedia Virginia, 1.8 million individuals: “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 complete 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 specific 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 response to US historian Adam Hochschild, ten million individuals have died in Congo alone between 1885 and 1908.
READ: ‘Image’ portray of Russia-Ukraine warfare offered for $100,000
And the way can we overlook that World Conflict 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 a whole bunch of years prior.
Mere months after The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was fashioned in 1949, the keen Western companions have been fast to flex their muscle mass in Korea in 1950, instigating a warfare that lasted for 3 years, ensuing within the deaths of almost 5 million individuals. The Korean Conflict, like many different NATO-instigated conflicts, stays an unhealed wound to at the present time.
The record 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, army interventions and regime adjustments in quite a few international locations world wide. They’re all of the work of the West, of the US and its ever-willing “European companions”, all executed 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 individuals, this author included, wouldn’t have been made refugees, struggling underneath 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 associates 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 individuals of the war-torn nation.
So earlier than bragging in regards to 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. The truth is, if anybody deserves bragging rights, it’s these colonised nations that resisted colonialism, the enslaved those 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, nonetheless, as a substitute of utilizing the Russia-Ukraine warfare as a chance to replicate on the way forward for the European challenge, no matter that’s, it’s getting used as a chance to attain low cost factors in opposition to the very victims of Europe all over the place. As soon as extra, beneficial 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.
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