'These are not Syrians': For Western media, only European lives are worthy of empathy

As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, the media coverage has been rightfully intense: often passionate and infused with support for Ukrainian underdogs against the obvious villainy of Putin.

But amidst this righteous wall of support for Ukraine there has emerged an undeniable tint of racism. In the context of war, this isn’t an article one wants to write, but when you hear some of the language used, such as that of CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata, it becomes apparent that this racist narrative is something that must be deconstructed and rebuked.

D'Agata, reporting live from Ukraine, said of his experience of Kyiv under Russian assault, “This isn’t a place… like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades, this is a relatively civilised, relatively European … city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”

"It's easy for people like D’Agata to accept war and its manifold horrors when it is visited upon people of colour... but when the victims have white skin, blonde hair, blue eyes and are sufficiently European, suddenly the horrors of war become truly repugnant"

D'Agata later apologised for his comments, but regardless of what the otherwise liberal journalist was precisely trying to say, the overt racism of his statement emerges from the deep-seeded narrative that Ukrainians are white, secular Christian Europeans, and thus civilised, while Iraqis and Afghanis are dark-skinned Muslims who apparently live in a constant state of barbarism.

It is a vindication of the crudest conjuring of Edward Said’s conception of Orientalism, where the West is a space of reason, rationality and transcendence and the East, though exotic at times, is fundamentally a place where pandemonium reigns and violence is the norm.

It's easy for people like D’Agata to accept war and its manifold horrors when it is visited upon people of colour who dwell in “heart of darkness” territories of the Middle East, Asia and Africa, but when the victims have white skin, blonde hair, blue eyes and are sufficiently European, suddenly the horrors of war become truly repugnant.

NBC’s correspondent Kelly Cobiella highlighted the double standards, responding to a question about why Europe is rushing to take in Ukrainian refugees, but not Syrians or Afghans before, saying: “To put it bluntly...these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine … They’re Christian, they’re white, they’re very similar.”

From people in #idlib to #Ukraine
Out heart goes out to the people of #Ukraina 💛💙 pic.twitter.com/Q37fa64rFN

— Majd khalaf 🇺🇦 (@majdkhalaf1993) February 24, 2022

On this side of the Atlantic, the English Tory Lord Daniel Hannan, writing in a piece for The Daily Telegraph, claimed Ukrainians “seem so like us … that is what makes it so shocking,” adding that “Ukraine is a European country … its people watch Netflix and have Instagram,” and finally concluding that, “war is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations … it can happen to anyone.”

Hannan doesn’t really mean anyone – he means white people, like him. War is supposed to be heard from the West only as a distant rumble inflicting far away lands and people whose life, allegedly empty of technological delights such as Netflix and Instagram, is barely worth living – certainly not worthy of care by Hannan.

In France, where Islamophobia has become an integral part of the official ideology of the state, one commentator on France’s BFMTV remarked, “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing … bombing [by] the Syrian regime backed by Putin, we’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.”

Sadly, though perhaps more understandably given Ukraine is trying to appeal directly to the West as a matter of national survival, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor told the BBC that “it’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed.”

This is the rhetoric of the West, who are supposed to be the “good guys” against the demonstrably illiberal and anti-humanitarian agenda of Vladimir Putin and his allies. Though they might think they’re on the right side of history, their rhetoric is part of the global hierarchy shaped by the same racist, illiberal values that empower Putin.

This can be glimpsed most clearly in the contrast between the quantity and quality of global support for Ukraine, including arming them with MANPADS (anti-aircraft weapons), anti-tank weapons and fighter jets, to the total global abandonment of Syria.

In 11 years of the genocidal war in Syria, the US intervened only to ensure the rebels, trying to fend off the regime, Russian and Iranian air forces as they targeted schools, hospitals and neighbourhoods, never received any MANPADS.

"If we take the above racist statements as representing deep-seeded opinions about who is worthy of empathy in the Western world, it’s no wonder that Putin and Assad were so easily able to get away with genocide"

Imagine if the world implemented these “unprecedented” sanctions against Russia for its role in carrying out genocide against Syrians? Perhaps such sanctions aren’t warranted if the victims are mostly brown, non-European Muslims who live in lands where war and mass slaughter are not shocking but apparently inevitable and commonplace?

If we take the above racist statements as representing deep-seeded opinions about who is worthy of empathy in the Western world, it’s no wonder that Putin and Assad were so easily able to get away with genocide, justifying it, as they did, by appealing to the ingrained Islamophobia of the West.

Ukrainians are depicted as waging a war for civilisation in a way that Syrians never were, namely because the Western world never truly accepted that Islamic Arab Syrians belonged to or were worthy of civilisation.

This dynamic is why their destruction at the hands of Russia and Assad passed with relatively little care, as is the case with numerous other non-European peoples struggling for self-determination and liberty against oppressors today. 

It's no wonder that China’s genocide of Uyghur Muslims has, in contrast to Ukraine, barely raised an eyebrow. It’s no wonder that numerous Israeli governments have justified occupation, annexation and mass murder by appealing to this Islamophobic dynamic. Where are the crippling sanctions?

In the countryside of the last rebel-held province of Idlib in Syria, there stands a mural made from the remains of a house destroyed by the Russian air force. It is adorned with the image of Ukraine under assault from a Kalashnikov-wielding, bear-riding Putin. The message of the mural is one of solidarity against Russian aggression, from one set of victims in Syria to another in Ukraine.

If you think that one set of victims is more worthy of support and empathy than the other based on their ethnicity, religion or culture, then you have more in common with Putin than any of his victims.

Sam Hamad is a writer and History PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow focusing on totalitarian ideologies.

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

Editor's note: This article has been edited to add clarity and context to NBC’s correspondent Kelly Cobiella's remarks on the Ukraine refugee crisis.