Opinion

Robert Azzi: The persistence of prejudice

By Robert Azzi
We are witnessing a moment in history where a free and democratic world stands in solidarity with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the inspired mobilization of Ukraine’s people and resources in defense of the homeland against Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and barbaric invasion.

Together, the world is mobilized to both provide Ukraine with lethal aid — Stinger and Javelin missiles — as well as shelter civilians fleeing a monstrous Russian threat.

I support this moment and stand in solidarity with Ukrainians, in solidarity with victims of oppression and discrimination wherever they are; victims seen and unseen, many of whom foreshadowed these dark days in Eastern Europe.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds its way inexorably toward Kyiv, 1,000,000 Ukrainian residents have fled their homes, seeking sanctuary in neighboring lands.

Sadly, I am also learning that as they leave Ukraine many refugees are sorted by color and national origin, with Ukrainians seemingly receiving preference from host countries over those of Asian, Middle East or African ethnicity.

The unjustness of these acts, occurring amidst both the heroics and horror we’re witnessing has surprisingly surprised me and I’m taken aback by the persistence of prejudice, taken aback that humanity’s capacity for inhumanity is never too far removed from our own experience.

I am reminded, at this moment, of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old olive-skinned Syrian who drowned along with his mother and brother while trying to reach Europe in 2015.

Alan Kurdi, whose lifeless body washed ashore at the Mediterranean’s edge for all to witness.

I am reminded, too, that in 1996 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl asked the UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died (because of sanctions following Desert Storm.) I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

“I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”

Half a million Iraqi children dead, for all to witness — worth it.

On February 3, 2022, Doctors Without Borders, after attempting to assist migrants and refugees facing freezing temperatures without food, water, shelter, warm clothes or access to healthcare in a forested area along the Belarus-Polish border, withdrew after being blocked for months by Polish authorities from giving assistance to needy sojourners.

21 refugees of color seeking sanctuary, dead. Seemingly not white enough for Poland, for all to witness.

People choose neither their parents nor their ethnicity. I, for example, was born into a family of olive-skinned Semites to parents who fully embraced the American Promise and who believed all people are created equal.

My parents’ embrace of that universal truth, sadly, is still not universally embraced and as we witness the tragedy befalling Ukraine we witness, too, the persistence of prejudice and racism, too often embedded in unconscious privilege.

A persistence that forewarns, a persistence too often unheeded.

“I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced,” Marlow says in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Marlow, who believes that a “heart of darkness” is found in all people, thinks that many (like himself) suppress such darkness even as others (like Putin) succumb.

I have a voice, too.

I wish to speak not only to honor the heroism of the Ukrainian people but to honor the African, Indian and other sojourners of color alongside them.

Today, I speak to honor Alan Kurdi and others who, from other places, have washed ashore on Europe’s doorstep, seeking sanctuary.

Today, I speak to the UK reporter who said, “[The refugees] 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.”

To the reporter in Kyiv, CBS’s Charlie D’Agata, who said (in comments for which he later apologized,) that Ukraine “isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades … 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.”

It can happen to anyone and it happens everywhere, especially in places where failed colonial enterprises left behind broken promises, broken peoples.

It can happen in an Iraq where civilized Ambassador Albright shrugged off half a million dead children; an Iraq America invaded in 2003 and irreparably broke.

It can happen in an Afghanistan which Russia invaded and then lost after 10 years; an Afghanistan where NATO and American forces fought for 20 years then left with nothing.

It happens where hearts of darkness are not confronted.

Today, we must recognize that we live in an intersectional, increasingly conflicted world where, regardless of the nature of the struggle, we’re all inexorably linked whether we like it or not.

We cannot ignore the thousands of Chechens murdered and more than 200,000 displaced by Putin’s Russia at the turn of the century, nor the carpet bombing of Aleppo by Russian and Syrian forces committing crimes against humanity.

We cannot ignore Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of forces from Syria, the withholding of lethal aid for Ukraine, his attempts to weaken NATO and his treasonous embrace of Putin.

Together, in hearts of darkness, they are linked.

We cannot ignore — whether at home or abroad — victims of oppression, discrimination, apartheid or exploitation, wherever they occur, as they are too often harbingers of a future that cannot be ignored.

The great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote:

“The war will end. / The leaders will shake hands. / The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son. / That girl will wait for her beloved husband. / And those children will wait for their heroic father. / I don’t know who sold our homeland. / But I saw who paid the price.”

We witness, too often, who pays the price.

Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com and he can be reached at [email protected].

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