Racism comes in all shapes and sizes. It is just another type of discrimination. The most common form of it is, of course, the one where ‘white’ people are at the top, with everyone down below. This is the type we are most familiar with for a number of reasons.
However, that type of racism seems to override the racism that exists within Europe, between the people of European countries. The idea of ‘whiteness’ came into being some centuries ago despite the internal differences and conflicts that existed in Europe, but it certainly did not erase them. Yes, racism against people of another European country does exist.
This form of racism does not necessarily focus all that much on the colour of your skin, although it does play a role, with the fairer northern Europeans considering themselves more ‘Arian’ than olive-skinned southerners. It also focuses on victories and competences, the differences of which are mobilised to set one’s own country’s exceptionalism off from another country’s shortcomings.
The stoic efficient northern Europeans criticising the south’s inability to ‘get its act in order’, and the southern Europeans attacking the north’s inability to feel emotion are just a couple of examples of all this. And let us not forget the role that World War II plays in the formation of people’s attitudes towards other European countries, too.
At what point did we Europeans find ourselves discussing whether or not it is a good idea to save people?
One thing the European Union aimed to do was to give all the people in Europe a way of imagining themselves as part of something together, rather than separate. Give a group of enemies a shared common goal and they will quickly put aside their differences and work together. That is something that works on paper and also in practice.
However, the EU has not been entirely successful in wiping out all of the internal prejudices that exist within it. It persists, albeit in the background in most countries. This is not the fault of the EU, but of each individual citizen.
When Greece hit rock bottom, the problem should have been faced with a neutral and helpful attitude, and not with jokes about ‘not trusting Greeks’. Too often the media, and the everyday man in the street, would mix fair and logical arguments with such unhelpful and in many cases offensive prejudiced statements.
Furthermore, we have similar sorts of sentiments found in the issue of immigration. We are shown images of Eastern European countries battling with immigrants, passing judgment on how those ‘Eastern Europeans’ treat the unfortunate, while simultaneously we hear about how the charitable and humane principle behind Germany’s open door policy has lost Angela Merkel votes.
And to top it all off, we see within the Brexit debate subliminal references to how hopeless Europe is compared to the ‘exceptional’ British population. All these judgements are passed without anyone taking into consideration the political issues faced by each and every country, issues that never had to be explained to others before.
The cause of all this, I believe, is that people expect the EU to behave in a way that it currently does not actually have the power to. Many EU countries seem to have suddenly decided that the EU is the go-to place for difficulties they would otherwise have had to deal with alone, and the EU is struggling to keep up with their demands.
They want a common EU border patrol, but every EU country is responsible for its own border, a fact that flies in the face of many Eurosceptics’ belief that the EU has taken that control away from them. Blame is assigned not just because of prejudice, but also because few people actually know who can do what and why. The EU must inform the people more.
There is now a plan to manage the refugees by sending them all back to Turkey, and then accepting only the genuine ones. How their authenticity is to be established can only be guessed at. How are they to prove that they are running away because they were raped? Or because they are homosexual? How does one prove their sexuality, anyway? There may well be respectful ways of going about these scenarios, but just the thought of having to prove this is enough to disturb.
And all this for what? So that people who scream and shout lies and falsities can be placated into silence? One has to ask at what point did we Europeans find ourselves discussing whether or not it is a good idea to save people.
When did that become something to debate at all?
Edward Caruana Galizia is an actor and studied psycho-social studies at Birkbeck University of London.