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Ukrainian refugees (in Hungary): "Our people"?
Photo: Akos Stiller / DER SPIEGEL
It's war in Ukraine and it's Women's Day, so let's talk about Ukrainian women.
How people are treated in Germany who are fleeing this war is of course partly due to the fact that this war is closer to Germany than others, but also to the fact that there are a particularly large number of women and children among these people.
Do you remember the phrase “2015 must not be repeated” that was repeated so often six months ago when the Taliban took Kabul and people fled Afghanistan?
The sentence isn't falling these days as far as I can see, and that's the good thing;
but the bad thing is that the "overwhelming willingness to help" that the Federal Ministry of the Interior speaks of is not all that awaits the women who come to us.
In many places it is now pointed out that refugees are treated differently depending on whether they are white or black.
There are reports from African students who experienced discrimination and violence while fleeing in Ukraine and Poland.
The "Tagesspiegel" quotes a British medical student with Zimbabwean roots, who tells how she was attacked and threatened while fleeing: "The situation was terrible, long and dehumanizing." There are people who point out that "Die Zeit" at the Sea rescue asked: "Or should we leave it?" And on the war against Ukraine: "How can we help?"
And there are interviews with experts who are asked about all of this.
DER SPIEGEL interviewed a law professor, who found: "In my view, giving preference to helping Ukrainians is not racism." And "jetzt.de" interviewed a professor of communication science, who explained that the empathy that Ukrainians are now is "rather not" the same as with Syrian refugees: "The Ukrainians are Europeans and are therefore perceived as 'our people' by the white German majority society."
And she can clean too
But that doesn't mean Ukrainians are immune to racism because they're white.
At this point I would like to clarify a misunderstanding.
In 2018 I wrote a text about the fact that there is no »racism against white people« and no »sexism against men«.
The main thesis was that men and whites can certainly be discriminated against, »they just cannot be discriminated against sexistically as men or racistly as white people«.
The text is correct, but it was often misunderstood, because of course it is still the case that white people can also experience racism - but not because they are white.
But because racist thinking people not only differentiate between "black" and "white", but also see hierarchies within white people,
The racism that Ukrainians experience is anti-Slavic racism, particularly well-known in this country in the form of »Polish jokes«, mostly about Polish men stealing cars.
Slavic men and women are discriminated against differently, because racist and sexist thought patterns can combine in numerous ways.
Slavic women are sexualized differently than Italian, French, Japanese or Nigerian.
Where the Slavic man is a tough dog who grew up either in a prefabricated building or in a chicken coop and struggles through life with petty criminal machinations with a vodka bottle in his hand, the Slavic woman has to be the kind counterpart: the beautiful blonde, who is so brave how soft femininity performs, cooks non-stop and gives birth to children while always looking well-groomed, committed to tradition and yet self-confident - but not bitchy-feminist self-confident, but simply sexy self-confident - ideally religious and still greedy for western luxury.
And she can clean too.
People don't see a problem explaining to me when they find out that I was born in Poland: »We now have a Polish woman too.« Well, »have« then of course means »employ, illegally«, but that's so long , Is not it?
»You rascal (laugh emoji)«
I haven't kept detailed statistics, but when my readers refer to me as a "whore" or "slut," then in an estimated 95 percent of cases they are referring to my Polish origins: I'm then the "little Polish bitch" or "Polackenfotze". , who should rather tidy up their own country first (as I said: clean it) or »back to the Warsaw train station street«, »what’s wrong with you Polish whore, (...) you whore are only here because you want luxury like, filthy piece of shit!!«.
This isn't supposed to be about me, just for illustration.
You don't have to dig deep on the internet to find examples of how the Ukrainian women who are now coming to Germany are being fetishized by racists.
There are numerous tweets in which men declare that they would like to host "two young blonde and handsome Ukrainians" ("rather than an Afghan"), "finally you can date pretty Ukrainians".
Men write: "I'll get myself a blonde Ukrainian" or "I have room for some Ukrainians (laugh emoji)", others answer: "You rascal (laugh emoji)".
There is a video clip showing young women with long, straight hair and sexy party dresses getting out of a vehicle, someone has pasted the text on it: »First Ukrainian refugees arrived in Munich.«
If you google "German women," the first results you get are: the German national soccer team, the German women's council, journalistic articles about emancipation.
If you google "Ukrainian women" (and enter "by 2021" as a search option to see pre-war results), you will find articles about poverty and forced prostitution.
If you google "slavic women" you will find pages of matchmaking agencies and texts about beauty.
And the war is now on top of this already existing fetishization.
Wars particularly bring out the ugliest side of outdated images of masculinity.
Protect from racist paws
When the »NZZ« writes that »this time they are real refugees« and explicitly distinguishes the Ukrainian refugees from the »many migrants who came to Europe in the past as supposed refugees«, then the roles are clearly assigned: the Ukrainian men fight and make sure »that their wives and children get to safety«, the other migrants – »a strikingly often young man« – left »their families behind«.
And when AfD politicians demand "not to accommodate refugees from Ukraine in conventional collective accommodation with other asylum seekers" like the district parliamentary group from Lüneburg, then this demand is of course shared with a picture that shows a beautiful blonde woman with a blonde child in a sunny meadow shows, and then it speaks very blatantly of a desire not to mix the good with the bad, the pure with the impure, and the innocent with those of whom one never knows.
The Ukrainian women and children must be accommodated separately from the "African and Arab refugees socialized in backward structures" in order to protect them, it says.
(Needless to say, there are screenshots of an AfD party colleague praising Ukrainian "girls" on Facebook,
The danger for the Ukrainian refugees does not come from people in collective accommodation, but from racists and human traffickers.
"Ukrainian refugees, especially young people and women, are said to have been given dubious sleeping arrangements at the Berlin Central Station," writes the editorial network Germany, citing the police.
The journalist Jeja Klein wrote on Twitter about the demand not to put Ukrainian refugees in collective accommodation: "It is really impressive how sexual fetishization of Slavic women and a deeply felt 'on the occasion I want to do it' here in protection demands articulate the bad men and their digging fins.« The search queries for »ukraine porn« (from Germany) »jumped right through the roof with the beginning of the war (...), as can be seen via Google Trends, among other things«, wrote Klein.
There are those who help and those who drool.
As great as the willingness to help and donate among Germans is now, the challenge of protecting Ukrainian women and children from those who are now stretching out their racist paws at them is just as great.
Hands off, you disgusting ones!
