Refugee "Whataboutism" in Europe

Double standards and contrasts

Photo by Arthur Mazi on Unsplash

There's a strong humanitarian vibe surrounding all of us regarding the refugees from Ukraine, which of course, is welcomed and wanted. The problem I have is with the double standards that many of us fail to notice.

Since we're all caught up in the current Russian war with Ukraine, it's easy to lose perspective of the bigger picture. So let me frame this for you.

Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, retrieved from Refugee Country of Australia

There are millions of refugees.

And if you look on this official website of the UN Refugee Agency, you'll see more statistics. What strikes me is that 68% of the refugees originate from just five countries. Do you know which is the biggest one? The Syrian Arabic Republic that counts 6.8 million refugees. Do you know why? Because of the Syrian civil war that lasted for the past 11 years. You can read more here.

The next one on the list is Venezuela, with 4.1 million refugees. Here, people left the country because of poverty and corruption. Recently, the US interestingly started contemplating tawing their relationship with Venezuela for exporting oil through China. Considering the recent ban on Russian oil, which…