Ukrainians’ Displacement Reveals Orientalist Discourse in Western Media Coverage

On Thursday, Feb. 24, Russian military vehicles made their way into Kyiv following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s de facto declaration of war against Ukraine through a “special military operation”. The war in that part of eastern Europe soon became the highlight of most media outlets worldwide, with all eyes now on Ukraine.

Correspondents and reporters for channels, newspapers, and radio stations from different parts of the world traveled to the country to cover developments as they happened on the ground and to highlight the suffering of Ukrainian citizens and residents. They showed live footage of women and children as they fled to areas far from intense fighting or to Poland, which opened its borders to refugees, among other countries.

The whole world has become rightly sympathetic with refugees, who were welcomed from multiple countries with open arms, but a number of reporters in Western media outlets chose to highlight these refugees’ experience in contrast to refugees from the Middle East and Central Asia, including Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Various Western channels and newspapers highlighted the shared values between Ukrainian refugees and other European nations to explain the support and sympathy they received in lieu of the ‘fear’ they felt when Europe was faced with refugees from ‘third world’ countries. These values included shared religion, culture, lifestyle, and other values, which, according to some of these reporters, are markers of ‘civilized’ people. Unlike Ukrainians, war-ravaged countries in the Middle East are ‘poor’, uncivilized, and do not deserve the same level of empathy, as implied by the narrative presented in media coverage, cases of which will be reviewed in detail below.

We can rightly describe this coverage as racist by relying on the theory of Othering, a postcolonial concept that provides a critical analysis of racism.

The theory of Othering is defined as a process in which different and dominant themes are formed through speech practices that determine their relevance and importance (Velho and Thomas-Olalde, 2011). This theory bears philosophical dimensions, which began in the 17th century with German philosopher Friedrich Hegel, who saw that the concept of the Self calls for the existence of the foundational Other, as the corresponding entity required to define the self.

It also bears psychological, ethical, and critical dimensions expressed by the French philosopher of Algerian origin, Jacques Derrida, who considered the logic of reciprocity (the Other) as negative, especially in terms of human geography. He argued that despite knowing that it is his moral right, othering deprives the “other” of deciding his or her own destiny and participating in the geopolitical speech of his or her own country, and limits this right only to colonial countries. Derrida, who was the first to systematically adopt the concept of the Other in 1985, addressed the issue with the aim of advocating for pluralism and openness to other societies.

According to the discussion above, the image of the “blond” refugee “with blue eyes” becomes understandable as it was woven into a number of Western narratives. These narratives are based on linking the Other to the Self to highlight markers of resemblance. For example, former Georgian Deputy Chief Prosecutor David Sakvarelidze stated on Feb. 26 to BBC that it was difficult for him to watch white people fleeing the conflict. He said: “It is very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair being killed…,” to which the announcer replied, “I understand and respect the emotion.” A similar exchange occurred between NBC News anchor and correspondent Kelly Cobiella, who said: “these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from neighboring Ukraine...these are Christians, they are white, they’re very similar…”

These speech practices affect public opinion and content receivers. They lead to the formation of misconceptions about themselves as well as about non-Europeans and Middle Eastern populations and their home countries. These misconceptions communicated by journalists serve only to create stereotypes and confirm biases and prejudices without helping the Ukrainian cause. It only promotes the predominant narratives imposed by the strong against the weak and marginalized, based on ostensibly differing cultural values.

The war on Ukraine comes to highlight research on the stereotyped image that the West has always formed about the East through the accumulation of misleading narratives and the creation of unreal and complex concepts that could not be further away from reality. This also calls for genuine discussions to counter and overcome these prejudices. Here, the late Edward Said, who was a professor at Columbia University and the founder of postcolonial studies, must be invoked.

Said is quoted in Derek Gregory’s The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq as saying: “to build a conceptual framework around the notion of us-versus-them is in effect to pretend that the principal consideration is epistemological and natural - our civilization is known and accepted, theirs is different and strange - whereas in fact the framework separating us from them is belligerent, constructed and situational.”

It means that the propagated difference—being between Western and Eastern civilizations—is not but an excuse that carries with it colonial and instantaneous goals, which aim to legitimize the invasion of the Other because they are different. Thus, without examining Orientalism as a discourse, it is not possible to understand the broad and organized discipline within which the European culture was able to manage and even produce, the East politically, socially, militarily, and ideologically, during the post-Enlightenment period. An example of this is the comparison that CBS chief correspondent Charlie D'Agata made in Kyiv last Friday, between Iraq and Afghanistan on the one hand, and “civilized” European countries on the other, “But this isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European—I have to choose those words carefully too—city where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen…” In addition, the British ITV correspondent in Poland said, “This is not a developing third world nation. This is Europe.”

Looking at the features of the Ukrainian-European refugees compared to their Middle Eastern counterparts, if you will, it seems clear that in the midst of this immense suffering, displacement, horror, and anxiety, refugees still come in catalogs, a la carte. 

The media deliberately creates this image of why this suffering far exceeds suffering experienced by the Other. In his 1975-written and 1979-published book on Orientalism, Edward Said said: “In brief, because of Orientalism the Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of thought or action. This is not to say that Orientalism unilaterally determines what can be said about the Orient, but that it is the-whole network of interests inevitably brought to bear on (and therefore always involved) any occasion when that peculiar entity ‘the Orient’ is in question.”

The pattern in western media coverage is not that different from the coverage of similar issues in the past that were, at some point, considered of concern to the public.

Several issues gained a similar level of attention and coverage from Western and Arab media, including the case of Palestinian child Ahed Tamimi, who was outspoken and bold in her confrontation with the Israeli army soldiers, who arrested her mother. However, Ahed, a blonde girl with blue eyes, is similar in her features to Europeans, which, again, is a definitive narrative marker. Therefore, she deserves sympathy, not because she is a Palestinian subject to violence in its various forms, but rather because she has the features ‘deserving’ of solidarity. Black people have also experienced racism and brutality, often at the hands of the police, including in the United States and Spain in recent years.

The argument in this article does not aim to generalize or create a stereotype about western media outlets; there are outlets and voices that do cover these issues with professionalism and objectivity, without resorting to discrimination between individuals or groups. Some of them have apologized for the mistakes committed by their media professionals, and other journalists have apologized about their statements in this regard. For example, the English-language Al-Jazeera channel has taken action against one of its news anchors who made similar racist remarks. The channel did not shy away from apologizing for violating the professional code of ethics. In a tweet, Al Jazeera wrote that it is taking the necessary action against the news anchor.

Finally, while some media theorists consider media representation either a reflection or distortion of reality, theorist Stuart Hall defines it as a synthetic process of reality that crystallizes after exposure to several factors. In his opinion, the media represents people, situations, and issues, and in its representation of them, it gives them the meaning it wants. This meaning does not embody the truth because it is only a reflection for those with power. On this basis, the scenes, speeches, and texts that we see and read in the media today regarding refugees are only a reflection of how these groups are represented in the eyes of decision makers and people in power.

This article is written by Kafaa Msaed
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri

Misbar’s Sources

Media Ed Foundation
Gregory’s The Colonial Present
MARIE-EVE MORIN
The European Graduate School
Aalborg University
Innsbruck University
The Washington Post
Miguel Angel
Al Jazeera English
Edward Said’s Orientalism
Jstor Cambridge University Press
Misbar