DUBAI — The spectacle of a mass flight out of
Ukraine was resonating deeply in the
Middle East on Saturday, with many taking
to social media to express their sympathy and to commiserate with the plight of
those now forced to flee their homes amid a Russian military invasion.
اضافة اعلان
But in a region that has been plagued by
seemingly endless wars, the empathy was tinged with bitterness from some who
saw
European nations taking a more compassionate stance toward the Ukrainians
than they had in recent years toward Arab and Muslim migrants trying
desperately to reach the safety of Europe’s shores.
Images of ravaged cities from
Syria and Iraq
to Libya and Yemen circulated online, with memes and comments accusing Western
democracies of stoking violence and destabilizing these countries while evading
responsibility and applying double standards, especially in their treatment of
refugees.
As neighboring European countries swiftly
opened their borders to tens of thousands of
Ukrainians, many social media
users were quick to point out how refugees from the Middle East had faced a
harsher reception.
“Imagine the human face of Ukrainian refugees
is also seen on
MENA’s refugees,” tweeted Lina Zhaim, a communications manager
from Lebanon, referring to the Middle East and North Africa region.
“Imagine sovereignty and dignity as human
rights not bound by race or nationality.”
Not a few commenters acknowledged that some
European countries had been generous in resettling Middle Eastern migrants. A
wave of asylum-seekers from the wars in Syria and Iraq made their way to Europe
in 2015 and 2016 and the
European Union took in more than 1 million refugees
over that two-year period, most of them Syrians, with Germany receiving the
bulk.
But Arab critics said that migrants from
Muslim and
Arab countries were often deemed a threat, rejected and at times
confronted with force and violence as they tried to enter Europe.
“What’s happening in Ukraine is incredibly
tragic and heart wrenching to watch,” said Rana Khoury, a Syrian American
postdoctoral associate researcher who focuses on the study of war and
displacement at Princeton University.
“But like many others, I also saw how these
same countries who have put up so many obstacles to refugees fleeing conflicts
in the Middle East open their borders to Ukrainians.”
In November, Polish security forces beat back
migrants from the Middle East and
Afghanistan with batons as they tried to get
across the border.
In contrast, refugees arriving from Ukraine at
the Polish border over the last few days were greeted with smiles, hot drinks
and transported to railway stations.
Ayman Mohyeldin, an Egyptian American
television host on
MSNBC with hundreds of thousands of followers on social
media, said in a Twitter post: “So what you are saying is that Europe knows how
to humanely and compassionately welcome a large and sudden influx of refugees
escaping war?”
Unlike Middle Eastern migrants, Ukrainians are
allowed to enter EU countries without visas. And nearly 1 million already live
in Poland.
Khoury, while acknowledging the generosity of
some European countries like
Germany in taking in Middle Eastern migrants, said
she saw an apparent bias.
“There are these justifications that somehow
war and violence are endemic to the Middle East in ways that they are not to
Europe,” she said, adding that Middle Eastern and African countries with much lesser
capacities are left to host “many more refugees all the time”.
Many Syrians who oppose the government of
President
Bashar Assad watched the invasion of Ukraine with particular
interest, having personally experienced a Russian military intervention in
their country that destroyed cities and displaced huge numbers of people.
Some posted images on social media of lines of
cars fleeing an advance by Russian-backed Syrian forces two years ago next to
photos of lines of cars fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
More than 5.6 million Syrian refugees remain
in the Middle East, most of them in
Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Of those who
have made it to Europe, most effectively forced their way in, crossing the
Mediterranean on flimsy boats that sometimes sank, killing their passengers.
Once in Europe, many found that countries
sought to shut their borders.
During the 10 years of war in Syria, the
United States let in about 22,000 Syrian refugees.
Jomana Qaddour, a senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council who focuses on Syria, said there is a tendency to blame Middle
Eastern violence on the region’s culture.
On Saturday, one clip contrasting Ukraine with
two predominantly Muslim countries ravaged by war appeared to go viral, setting
off a firestorm of criticism.
Describing the flight of tens of thousands of Ukrainians,
a CBS reporter expressed a sense of shock, saying: “But this is not a place,
with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging
for decades.”
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