Governments across Europe have offered sanctuary to refugees escaping the war in Ukraine. The EU has announced that Ukrainians can enter without visas and a number of countries have granted them free train travel. It’s been heartening to see the generosity, but it has also been a stark reminder of the deeply-rooted racism of our global border regime. This cannot simply be explained away through cultural ties or shared borders – is Europe not inextricably linked to Syria and Afghanistan through its colonial past and imperial present?
Europe’s response to black and brown people fleeing danger has been worse than unwelcoming – it’s been deadly. Many crossing European borderlands have been pushed back to starve, drown and freeze to death on land borders and at sea. One Syrian refugee who slept in sub-zero conditions on the Polish-Belarusian border and faced violence at the hands of armed border guards, said: ‘How is it possible that on one border you beat people and yet on the other you give them soup and cookies?’
