Pure European Racism

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

 

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Even Al Jazeera's British presente could not resist:

Al Jazeera issues apology after presenter’s “racist comments”

An Al Jazeera presenter is the latest journalist to be criticised for his comments about refugees and those fleeing the war in Ukraine.

In a recording of a live broadcast that has gone viral, Al Jazeera English’s news presenter Peter Dobbie has been criticised for making offensive comments about Arabs and North Africans.

During the interview, while describing scenes of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war, the presenter said; “What is compelling is that just looking at them, the way they’re dressed. These are prosperous, middle class people, these are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. They look like any European family that you would live next door to.”

The insinuation that people in the MENA region are more acceptable as refugees, and that none of those who fled wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere were ‘middle class or prosperous’ and the presenter’s assertion that European families are exclusively white shocked and offended many people.

Consequently, the Qatar-based news network has since been under fire with social media users around the world criticising the remarks made during a live interview, with many describing them as racist.

Fellow Al-Jazeera employees were quick to react to the remarks that social media users have described as ‘racist’.

Sana Saeed, a Host and Senior Producer at AJ+, took to Twitter to express her dismay with what was aired on the channel. “As an employee of Al Jazeera, I am horrified to see this. The dehumanization is insidious & everywhere,” said Saeed in a tweet.

Yaser Bishr, the network’s Executive Vice President for Digital also tweeted “This doesn’t represent Al Jazeera and what we stand for. This is being dealt with as we speak.”

On Sunday evening, Al Jazeera’s Public Relations team issued an apology, in a statement they said:
“The presenter’s comments were insensitive and irresponsible. We apologize to our audiences worldwide and the breach of professionalism is being dealt with.”

A source at the network told Doha News that Peter Dobbie was scheduled to be presenting the news on Monday but was taken off the presenting schedule by management. It still remains unclear whether any disciplinary measures will be taken against him.

The double-standards in media coverage

Social media users around the world have been accusing mainstream media outlets of hypocrisy in their coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine compared with other conflicts.

A source at the network told Doha News that Peter Dobbie was scheduled to be presenting the news on Monday but was taken off the presenting schedule by management. It still remains unclear whether any disciplinary measures will be taken against him.

The double-standards in media coverage

Social media users around the world have been accusing mainstream media outlets of hypocrisy in their coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine compared with other conflicts.

CBS had to issue an apology for comments made by its correspondent Charlie D’Agata  during a CBS News segment. “But this isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades.” He describes Ukraine as a “civilized, relatively European” city where one wouldn’t expect this to happen.

BBC was also under fire after Ukraine’s Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze was featured as a guest speaker. He stated that the situation in Ukraine is very emotional for him because he is seeing “European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed.”

The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) released a statement condemning the recent derogatory statements made about the Middle East and other regions in the news coverage of Ukraine & Russia.

In the statement, AMEJA said that they reject the “orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is “uncivilized” or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict.”

MEJA also called on newsrooms to train correspondents on the “cultural and political nuances of regions they’re reporting on, and not rely on American and Euro-centric biases.”

Source

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

 

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Covering Ukraine: A mean streak of racist exceptionalism

The conflict raging in Ukraine between Russian and Ukrainian Slavs, the latter with the support of a tribal coalition of nations across sub-Scandinavian Europe, has exposed much more than the fragility of peace on the disease-ravaged subcontinent. It has also revealed a mean streak of racist exceptionalism with which many Europeans, and people of European heritage, tend to regard themselves.

It has been impossible to miss the shock among Caucasian journalists covering the war, sparked by Russia’s invasion under the pretext of supporting ethnic allies in the eastern tribal enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk, which it has recognised as independent states, at the idea that this could happen in Europe.

“They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking … War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” wrote Daniel Hannan in the UK’s The Telegraph. “We are in the 21st century, we are in a European city, and we have cruise missile fired as if we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, can you imagine,” a commentator wailed on French TV.

Reporting from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Charlie D’Agata, a correspondent with CBS News in the US, declared Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades … This is a relatively civilised, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.” He later apologised.

The pearl-clutching is of course nothing new. When covering events in the US during the Donald Trump administration, especially the 2020 elections, reporters would regularly exclaim that such chaos was expected of the “Third World”, not the US. “America is a Third World country now” was a headline of Fortune magazine following the unhinged first presidential debate between Trump and his eventual successor, Joe Biden.

It all harkens back to Chinua Achebe who, in his 1977 review of British writer Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, noted that “for reasons which can certainly use close psychological inquiry, the West seems to suffer deep anxieties about the precariousness of its civilization” and needs constant reassurance by comparison with Africa. To Africa, we can add Iraq, Afghanistan and much of the Global South.

In essence, the journalists are seeking to affirm white European exceptionalism and virtue by outsourcing its ills to the “developing” world. What Achebe wrote, regarding Africa is true of much of the non-white world which “is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray – a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate”.

Ironically, European moral deformities have been on open display since the Russian invasion, which is itself grossly immoral and unjust. The reported treatment by Ukrainian guards of Africans, Indians and other people of colour trying to flee the country remains an indelible stain on its otherwise heroic stand against aggression.

The warm welcome accorded to white Ukrainian refugees by Ukraine’s neighbours in the European Union is in sharp contrast to the hostile reception experienced by people of other races, from other places, on arrival at Europe’s doorstep. And the Europeans have not been shy about the reasons for the discrepancy.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov declared: “These are not the refugees we are used to. These are people who are Europeans, so we and all other EU countries are ready to welcome them. These are … intelligent people, educated people … So none of the European countries is afraid from the immigrant wave that is about to come.”

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also said: “We will accept anyone who needs it. The Ukrainian society gets more afraid and stressed. We are ready to accept tens, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.” This is while his country continues to deny entry to mostly Iraqi, Afghan and Syrian migrants and asylum seekers on its border with Belarus.

In the UK, which has contemplated pushing back non-white refugees into the English Channel, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has reportedly said Ukrainians can go in visa-free if they already have family there.

It is worth noting that when the journalists shocked by the pristine continent’s descent into the muck which they believe is solely reserved for the rest of humanity, deign to mention the contradictory stances towards asylum seekers, they do so in passing. The word “racism” appears to be studiously avoided.

The irony of European powers taking in refugees created by Russia’s aggression while shutting out those generated by their own invasions and occupations is apparently also lost on them. As is the fact that while Russia is condemned as it should be for invading someone else’s country, the same countries shouting the loudest about international law and the UN Charter and resolutions are happy to ignore Apartheid Israel doing exactly the same thing to Palestinians. No calls for sanctions or isolation there. No celebration of the bravery of people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank in standing up for their freedom against a brutal occupier.

But then again, Israel did not invade a white European country, and we know they think certain behaviour is acceptable, and to be expected, when directed against people on other continents.

In fact, one feels towards the North in much the same way comedian John Oliver responded upon hearing that former US President George W Bush, who ordered the disastrous and murderous invasion of Iraq in 2003, was condemning Putin. “Hold on, George. Not from you,” he retorted on his show, Last Week Tonight. “You are not the guy for this one, because that statement only would have made sense if it ended with ‘Oh s***, now I hear it. Sorry. I’ll shut the f*** up now.”

Rather than shut up, perhaps it would be better if they showed a little awareness and a little consistency.

Aljasiira

[galbeedi]

Che, MMA and others have always the better judgement of SOL. Whatever sympathy we had for the Ukranian refugees had disapeared quickly due to these racist western media personalities.

Syria was a 5000 years old nation that never left their country as a refugees in recent years. THese people don't consider us as human beings. Worst of all these are the so called liberals.I always believed that the Iraq war couldn't have taken placeas as  it did without CNN cheering and paving the road way before 2003.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Waa runtaa, Galbeedi. I actually felt terrible for Reer Ukraine lagu soo duulay. I no longer am. Western media's endless propaganda caadi ma'aha. Cunsuriyiintii ayee noo amaanayaan.

Coverage of Ukraine has exposed long-standing racist biases in Western media

“This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades,” Charlie D’Agata, a CBS correspondent in Kyiv, told his colleagues back in the studio. “You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”

Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine has generated an inspiring wave of solidarity around the world, but for many — especially non-White observers — it has been impossible to tune out the racist biases in Western media and politics.

D’Agata’s comments generated a swift backlash — and he was quick to apologize — but he was hardly the only one. A commentator on a French news program said, “We’re not talking about Syrians fleeing bombs of the Syrian regime backed by Putin; we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” On the BBC, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine declared, “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair ... being killed every day.” Even an Al Jazeera anchor said, “These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middle East,” while an ITV News reporter said, “Now the unthinkable has happened to them, and this is not a developing, Third World nation; this is Europe.”

British pundit Daniel Hannan joined the chorus in the Telegraph. “They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” he wrote.

The implication for anyone reading or watching — particularly anyone with ties to a nation that has also seen foreign intervention, conflict, sanctions and mass migration — is clear: It’s much worse when White Europeans suffer than when it’s Arabs or other non-White people. Yemenis, Iraqis, Nigerians, Libyans, Afghans, Palestinians, Syrians, Hondurans — well, they are used to it.

The insults went beyond media coverage. A French politician said Ukrainian refugees represent “high-quality immigration.” The Bulgarian prime minister said Ukrainian refugees are “intelligent, they are educated. ... This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.”

It’s as if, in our anger and horror at the scenes of Russia’s aggression, we are incapable of recognizing a simple fact: We’ve seen this before.

A Vanity Fair special correspondent denied precisely that in a tweet: “This is arguably the first war we’ve seen (actually seen in real-time) take place in the age of social media, and all of these heart-wrenching images make Russia look utterly terrible.”

The tweet was erased — like the experiences of many who have documented the horrors of war in recent decades on social media and beyond.

Putin’s military also intervened ferociously in Syria, backing a murderous regime. That war unleashed a level of mass death, suffering, destruction and displacement not yet seen in Ukraine — but the West’s response was far less empathetic. The same can be said of the U.S. invasions and military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen; the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians.

This double standard is so evident in how we as Westerners engage in international relations. Far too often, we dehumanize non-White populations, diminishing their importance, and that leads to one thing: the degrading of their right to live in dignity.

Beyond the moral and ethical imperatives, there are geopolitical ones — by engaging with suffering in this myopic way, we embolden other Putins. They realize that the checks against them will be mostly weak and ineffectual, as long as the so-called civilized world is left alone.

It’s true that states often intervene to protect their own interests. For all the talk of “values,” it’s usually cold pragmatism that informs decisions. But it is also true that our “interests” are informed, tremendously, by our values. When our values stipulate that there is a civilizational ladder, where a population is on one end of it and everyone else is far below, then we lose the moral high ground.

Solidarity with the brave people of Ukraine has reminded us all what is possible when empathy is really felt, but it will be bittersweet if our solidarity is really just skin-deep. Our media has a big role to play to avoid this. Many do an excellent job, but too many need to do a lot better.

- Washington Post

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

 

[Che -Guevara]

LOL

 

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

 

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

 

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Cunsurnimadaan maalin caddeeyga ah ila arka:

Denmark will not seize jewelry from Ukrainian refugees: Prime minister

Denmark will not seize jewelry from Ukrainian refugees *unlike Syrians and Africans* who sought refuge in the country from 2016 onwards, its prime minister said Friday.

“Ukraine is in our immediate region. It is part of Europe. It's in our backyard,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told public broadcaster PR.

“Denmark has a special responsibility in relation to the Ukrainians, who are on the run from Russian missiles and cluster bombs, which now also hit civilian targets.”

DR noted the country adopted a law in 2016, known as jewelry law, that gave authorities the right to seize valuables and large sums of money from refugees. “Clearly, there is a difference between refugees and how we receive them,” it said.

The broadcasting service said the government is working on a special law that would allow Ukrainian refugees to benefit from social subsidies and have their children easily enrolled at schools.

Russia's war on Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, has drawn international outrage.

The EU, US, UK, among others, implemented tough financial sanctions on Moscow that received condemnation at the UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council.

Moscow has been further isolated, with its planes barred from flying in European, US, and Canadian airspaces.

According to the UN refugee agency, more than 1.2 million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries.

In the second round of peace talks Thursday between Moscow and Kyiv, the two sides agreed to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Denmark fast-tracks new law to welcome Ukrainian refugees

Denmark on Wednesday passed legislation allowing Ukrainians fleeing the war in Ukraine to start working, going to school and receiving social benefits soon after arrival in the Nordic welfare state.

The law, which was fast-tracked in parliament, allows Ukrainian refugees to apply for temporary residency in Denmark for up to two years, effectively bypassing the slower process of applying for asylum.

Integration Minister Mattias Tesfaye said in a statement he wanted the first residence permits to be granted at the weekend.

“After that, it will be a few days before we can start getting Ukrainian refugees as colleagues, and our children will have new schoolmates,” Tesfaye said.

Ukrainians coming to Denmark would be provided with rights similar to those offered to citizens within the European Union, as well as relief and accommodation.

Lawmakers wanted the bill, effective as of Thursday, to ensure optimal conditions for Ukrainians “to be able to continue their lives quickly and efficiently and to actively be a part of Danish society.”

More than 3 million people have fled Ukraine so far, data from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) shows. The Danish government expects to receive upwards of 20,000, documents related to the bill showed.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, a total of 1,733 Ukrainians have sought asylum in Denmark, according to data from the Danish Immigration Service.

The law has drawn criticism from leftist parties who said it discriminates against refugees who have fled other war-torn countries, such as Syria, but don’t obtain the same rights.

Denmark’s ruling Social Democratic government has carried over the wealthy Scandinavian country’s decade-long tough stance on immigration, which it says is necessary to protect Denmark’s cherished welfare system and integrate the migrants already in the country.

In Poland, which has received nearly 2 million people from Ukraine, authorities on Wednesday began issuing national identification numbers to the refugees so they can access social services and benefits, and more easily find jobs.