As William Churchill said these are the “darkest hours”. Indeed, we are living in the darkest hours of time. Where the European world in devasted by the war and its aftermath.
In a 21st century hyperconnected global economy, we have regressed to witness a 20th-century invasion. Plunged into the abyss of a thunderous war, people are struggling with missiles falling, sirens blaring, martial law declared, toddlers in one arm, the search for bread with the other, tears in eyes, fear on the face, resilience in heart, and anger on the mind. They all move in a different direction but the reason renames the same.
There is grief, anger, terror, fear, and anguish at the injustice being done to those leaving. But ironically, even in the injustice, there is more injustice as news emerges of south Asians and Africans being unable to escape reportedly due to racial discrimination. The world is sympathizing with Ukraine right now, where the value of human life has been reduced to nothing. But it is even crueler for African and Asian students not to be allowed to leave a country where they do not belong.
Some sections of western reporting have reflected a deep-seated bias, which can be defined as a preference for a person or group of people. CBS foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata said, ‘This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European city”. The irony was that he said he would choose his words carefully, but he eschewed all sense of being “politically correct’.
This explicit bias reveals an orientalist, Europhile view of the world. It assumes that dystopia, war, chaos, famines are indigenous to non-Caucasian lands in the Middle East, Africa, and other parts of Asia.
This is “Europe”, she said, forgetting that this was the same Europe that gave us two wars termed as, “World Wars”. The continent of horrific genocides has taken place. She perhaps forgot that the genesis of Putin’s assault has been a recreation of a decade-long geopolitical standoff dubbed the “Cold War”.
But it is not the ignorance of history that’s troubling, it’s the sordidness of assumption and the brazenness of stereotypes. Thus, the western media should stop being “biased” reporting and focus more on neutral stances.
The monopoly of the West has created a discriminative ideology in the world that is ruling. “Society builds our ideology”, and the western monopoly of all the influential markets has created an ideology of discrimination, racism, and hatred towards the third world countries.
