No voice is louder than the voice of racism

“No voice is louder than the voice of battle,” was said by the Gamal Abdel Nasser regime after the June 1967 defeat to Israel. It was said to divert attention from the reprehensible defeat and silence the voices calling for freedom and democracy.

Today this quote is being replaced during the war between Russia and Ukraine by, “No voice is louder than the voice of racism.” The West, which dazzled the world with its civilised image and its defence of freedom and human rights, has been stripped of its mask and appeared as its hateful, racist self after dragging religion, race and ethnicity into its war. Few people are talking about democracy, freedom or any other human right; today, it is racism which has the upper hand.

Religion was invoked and used as a pretext for the invasion of Ukraine by the war criminal Vladimir Putin. In a speech delivered three days before the invasion, the Russian president said that one of his aims was to save the Orthodox parishioners of Russia whom Ukraine is persecuting.

The same dangers and existential threat that they face was mentioned by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview with RT. Lavrov claimed that Orthodoxy in the Western world is being sabotaged by Western Europe and America, not only in Ukraine but also in the Balkan and Mediterranean countries, a reference to Syria and Lebanon.

READ: Ukrainian president discuss prospects for Russia-Ukraine peace talks with Israel PM

This is similar to what Patriarch Kirill, the 16th patron of the Russian Orthodox Church, said in 2019. “Ukraine is not on the periphery of our church. We call Kiev ‘the mother of all Russian cities’. For us Kyiv is what Jerusalem is for many. Russian Orthodoxy began there, so under no circumstances can we abandon this historical and spiritual relationship.”

The Russian-Ukrainian war has exposed the true face of the West and its racist nature. Human rights and equality rhetoric rings hollow. The second in line to the British throne, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, implied the inferiority of Africans and Asians when he said, “It is alien to see war in Europe.” Really? What about Albania? Kosovo? Bosnia? Cyprus? Ireland? The Basque country? Greece? The Baltic States? World War Two? The Spanish Civil War? Austria? Hungary? Russia? World War One? And that’s just some of the wars and armed conflicts in Europe in the 20th century.

William also appears to have forgotten his country’s role in occupations and wars across Asia and Africa for centuries. The legacy of destruction ruin and tragedy remains in the former empire upon which “the sun never set”.

Has the Duke of Cambridge never heard about the religious wars within Europe between Catholics and Protestants? Does he not know anything about the European origins of the two world wars that destroyed the continent and engulfed countries colonised by European states? Surely his advisers have briefed him about the wars being fought in the Middle East with the strings being pulled by Europe and its allies?

He make take comfort from his ignorance, but that doesn’t excuse it. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is being spoken about as if it is unique; a first major conflict in Europe since World War Two, but such a view betrays the racist undertones. What about Bosnia? Or doesn’t that count, because the main victims were “only” Muslims?

Today Europe is getting a taste of what it has fomented in the Middle East for decades. The throne that William will one day inherit has sat in silence while its prime ministers have backed the Zionist cause ever since the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration. Today the British government decries the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine, but gives overt support to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. Westminster imposes no sanctions on Israel. Far from it. Instead, it gives preferential trading terms to the apartheid state and provides diplomatic cover for its crimes against humanity.

READ: Israel’s selective humanitarian façade 

Britain pretends to be appalled by what Russia is doing in Ukraine, and yet it remains unmoved by numerous massacres and atrocities committed by the Israelis in occupied Palestine. The reason is obvious; almost as obvious as the racism behind it.

The government of Boris Johnson continues to support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has been bombing Yemen for the past seven years with British-supplied armaments. America, meanwhile, pursues a similarly hypocritical foreign policy against Russia while ignoring Israel’s crimes and, indeed, its own crimes in the Middle East. Remember the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003? And the US massacre of Iraqis in Falluja, for example? No crocodile tears have been shed for them, because they are not Europeans with blond hair and blue-eyes.

War criminal Putin is not free of any blame in all of this. He has used internationally prohibited weapons in Syria, with impunity. Today, his army admits to using a vacuum bomb in Ukraine, causing the West to panic and describe it as a crime against humanity. The apparent use of cluster bombs by Russian troops has been condemned, and yet the West overlooks the use of such munitions by the Saudis in Yemen, and the manufacture and export of such weapons by Israel. Why? Look at who the victims are. It speaks volumes.

Today, the West is paying the price for its silence and complicity in Putin’s crimes against the Syrian people and Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians. That doesn’t mean that what is happening in Ukraine is to be ignored or downplayed. Humanity is universal and needs a universal approach. That’s what the West has been preaching to the world for decades, but it has appeared to have forgotten what it means.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.