Guilty Generosity?

An argument that has been circulating widely over the recent days is that opening up to the victims of the war in Ukraine has allegedly revealed a racist attitude of closure toward Syrian, Afghan, and Yemeni refugees. Many propagators of this idea are very well-meaning. They want to push Europe into being more generous and taking the universality of human rights at face value. The argument deserves careful, nuanced consideration, however, for several reasons.

The first is that some European countries have, in the past, been open to very diverse populations. Consider the Kosovars in 1999, who were facing what the UNHCR described as the largest exodus since World War II, when NATO set up an evacuation airlift, or the Syrians in the summer of 2015, when borders were opened to them – particularly those of Germany and Sweden.

It is true that afterward, questionable agreements – particularly with Turkey – kept away refugees who had previously been welcomed with open arms, but the permits granted to hundreds of thousands of them in Europe were often permanent, unlike the temporary admissions being offered to Ukrainians today. [Footnote: Germany has granted refugee status to 350,000 Syrians. On a European level, the rate of protection (the proportion of people having gained the right of residence from 2015 to 2020) was 85%, with considerable differences between countries].

The second nuance concerns geography. While Aleppo and Damascus are not so far from Europe, numerous other potential host countries – Jordan, Lebanon, Syria – are much closer, and emergency aid has been able to focus on those areas. By contrast, Ukraine, aside from Moldova and “enemy” countries, only shares borders with the European Union. Reception elsewhere is not an option.

The third nuance relates to the temporal unfolding of the events. While the crisis in Ukraine undoubtedly began a long time ago in the eastern part of the country, Russian tanks entering the territory on February 24 triggered an exodus of such immeasurable suddenness compared with crises that have been just as deadly or even more terrible in the Middle East but spread over many years. No one knows how Ukrainians will be received a year from now if the situation becomes a stalemate.

A fourth nuance has to do with the profile of the fleeing populations, which up to now has been characterized by a majority of women and children. The Hungarian experience in 1956 has already shown how important this victim profiling was in Switzerland. At that time, the arrival of young men sparked a backlash of rejection, and in 1957, the doors closed.

The few arguments listed above do not invalidate the idea that solidarity is easier with communities deemed culturally close. Analysts of the 2015-2016 crisis, including the historian Leo Lucassen, have clearly demonstrated that fear of Islam played a role in the closure of European borders. However, they have also shown that we need to distinguish carefully between the respective weightings of the overlapping layers of explanation.

Taking offense at the racism of certain attitudes of rejection is a justified reaction, but the geographical proximity that characterizes solidarity still remains, to a large extent, a constant throughout history. The 1951 Refugee Convention was originally intended explicitly to apply to Europe alone, just like the 1969 Convention of the Organization of African Unity is intended, as stated in its preamble, for Africa, and the 1984 Cartagena Declaration for Latin America.

We can dream that, one day, compassion and a sense of welcome will overcome any distance, but we must be careful not to denigrate solidarity with those who are close to us in the name of a distant ideal.

The original version of this text has been published in French on the blog website from Etienne Piguet on the 18 March 2022.

Etienne Piguet is a Professor of Geography at the University of Neuchâtel, project leader of the research project Migrant Entrepreneurship, and vice-president of the Federal Commission on Migration FCM/CFM/EKM.

Reference:

– Lucassen, L. (2017). Peeling an Onion: the “Refugee Crisis” from a Historical Perspective, Ethnic and Racial Studies 41(3), 383-410.