YET another humanitarian crisis entirely of human making has compelled more than a million people to flee the comfort and safety of their homes. Millions more are expected to follow. In Ukraine, as bombs drop and bullets fly, families are being uprooted — forced to pack the entirety of their lives in small bags and escape to safety in strange lands. They have been fortunate to find accommodating neighbours in Poland, Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia, where both governments and citizens have received them with open arms. The Western press too has been sympathetic to their plight, filling their pages with the lament of those displaced as well as with glowing commentaries on how they have been welcomed. Compassion dictates that those forced to abandon their homes not be begrudged the small decencies shown to them. However, the magnanimity with which Ukrainian refugees have been welcomed and the racist undertones of most media coverage does bring forth some unpleasant memories. Of the way those not born with “blue eyes and blonde hair” (as one BBC commentator described Ukrainian refugees) were spurned by European nations and forced to watch their children drown in the Mediterranean Sea. Of how some “civilised” countries slammed their doors shut to those seeking refuge from war, when war was raging in some part of the “developing world”.

Indeed, the world seems to have temporarily forgotten that 86pc of the 26.4m refugees from before the Ukraine crisis are still being hosted by other developing countries; deprived of most rights and with little option but to rely on the charity of donors in order to be able to meet even basic human needs. In the fog of this latest crisis, the 6.7m refugees forced to flee their homes in Syria, the 5.7m uprooted from Palestine, 2.6m Afghans, 4m Venezuelans, 2.2m Sudanese and 1.1m mostly Rohingya refugees driven from their homes in Myanmar cannot be allowed to be erased from public memory, even temporarily. While no amount of welcome can ever erase the pain of losing one’s home, perhaps the gradual realisation in the “developed” world that war inflicts misery without regard to race or religion can be a catalyst for positive change. We need narratives and policies that encourage better assimilation of displaced peoples without regard to their place of origin and to avoid vicitimising them for getting caught up in wars not of their choosing.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2022