While it may be heartwarming to see how quickly the EU is mobilizing to take in Ukrainian refugees, it is hard not to feel a strong aftertaste when we know how far the EU has gone todo not welcome people from the Global South with exactly the same demands for protection that Ukrainians have today. That said, as always, it s important to strive to have at least two thoughts in your head at once. After all, there are also very good reasons why the war in Ukraine gets so much attention from journalists and politicians. The first is obvious.
This is a war in the EU and NATO s immediate neighbourhood. Perhaps the most important reason, however, that a war in Europe is treated as exceptionally serious is not that Europeans are more worthy or more peaceful than others, but that European wars have repeatedly had enormous whatsapp mobile number list consequences for the whole world. The attempts to achieve peaceful coexistence both in Europe and internationally have largely stemmed precisely from the fatal lackin order in a European context, which has both led to brutal colonization races and two world wars.
A war in Europe is then seen rightly both as a threat to the European peace project to prevent a new global superpower war, and as a direct attack on one of the most fundamental principles for such an order to exist namely that of states sovereignty. What now Any narrative about the ongoing war must center Ukrainian civilians first and foremost. At the same time, the war naturally also arouses justified fears of further escalation internationally especially with an unpredictable Putin who is increasingly pushed into a corner after having so far not achieved any of his supposed goals.