The West is extremely cruel to refugees

The economic crisis, armed conflicts and political instability are forcing hundreds of thousands of people from Third World countries to seek a better life in more prosperous lands. Including they flee from poverty and wars and through the border of Belarus with the EU. Why do Poland and the Baltic states act inhumanly towards many guests? All this and more in a conversation with political analyst Piotr Petrovsky.

Photo by Aleksandr Kushner

People filling the voids

— The migration crisis worsened sharply. What is the main reason for this situation?
— There are several reasons. The lifting of COVID-19 restrictions has played a role. Further, the deepening inequality between the so-called golden billion and the inhabitants of the rest of the world is a consequence of colonial capitalism, which is based on unequal exchange and military intervention of NATO countries. In addition, the West in a sense stimulates migration. This is due to the demographic crisis, which does not allow reproducing their own population.
— According to statements by American politicians, including former US President Donald Trump, the country is ‘dying from the inside’ because of the actions of the current authorities, as thousands of strangers massively penetrate into it through the southern border.
— For Trump and Biden, the US is two different countries. Trump wants to see a classic Anglo-Saxon conservative America dominated by traditional white families professing the Protestant ethic and the values of the Founding Fathers of the United States. For Biden, the United States is a huge racial multicultural salad bowl, where everything is determined by the interests of transnational corporations and globalisation. However, cheap labour is needed for business, regardless of skin colour. And here we must understand that the United States is far from being a welfare state. There are tough competition laws, so Biden and many others do not care how visitors adapt to life.

Sense of superiority in a new wrapper

“Double standards are applied to refugees today in the European Union. Thus, the millions of Ukrainians who left the country after the Russian-Ukrainian conflict are treated with loyalty. They are accepted in the EU, resources are allocated to them. But others, trying, in particular, to get into the European Union through Poland and the Baltic countries, are pushed back by local security forces to the Belarusian side,” Piotr Petrovsky notes.
The European Union demonstrates authoritarian traits in its attitude towards refugees. Let me remind you that even 7–10 years ago, the entire mainstream press, EU officials not only harshly criticised, but ostracised all those who disagreed with the acceptance of migrants. Today, for such attacks and political harassment in political science, a separate term ‘cancel culture’ has appeared. In 2021, we saw the manifestation of a culture of cancellation in relation to those experts and figures who criticised the harsh actions of the Polish and Lithuanian border guards against refugees. Then the European bureaucrats said that ‘wrong guests’ appeared on the border with Belarus. But what is their ‘wrongness’ expressed in?
In 2022, the leaders of the European Union generally demonstrated open racism. They began to show segregation towards refugees no longer on the issue of their place of origin in the EU, but on their origin. There are refugees of the first, second grade, and there are generally the lowest, against whom all means are used, up to and including murder. For Brussels, as they say, the EU is an island of civilisation in the middle of the jungle. The feeling of superiority has not gone away since the days of Hitler. It just turned out to be in a new wrapper for the European bureaucrats.

REFERENCE
According to the State Border Committee of Belarus, the refugees found in the Polish forests are being moved to the border with Belarus and left in a life-threatening situation, instead of carrying out appropriate procedures and providing assistance. Moreover, these poor fellows are pushed through the animal gates. In August-December 2022 alone, about ten refugees were found dead at this border crossing. Today the situation is no better. So, a border patrol noticed a refugee near the Belarusian-Lithuanian border on February 18th, next to him was the body of a woman. The man turned out to be a citizen of Nigeria. He, not hoping for the mercy of the Lithuanian military, asked for help from the Belarusians. Unfortunately, by the time the paramedics arrived, the woman had died, they said in the State Border Committee of Belarus. This is the sixth death of a refugee due to the fault of the security forces of the EU countries. Similar cases were recorded on January 9th, 10th and 31st, February 4th and 10th.

By Igor Savostenko