After pushing back Middle Eastern refugees into the forests on its northern border with Belarus, Poland is now welcoming an unprecedented number of displaced Ukrainians. Deep racial and gender stereotypes are at play in this double standard, and an idea of heroic patriotism that doesn’t understand the people who don’t have a state to fight for.
Lidia Zessin-Jurek (Unlikely Refuge?) published her powerful comments on the Polish response to the incoming refugees from Ukraine in Eurozine (accessible here in English) and in Gazeta Wyborcza (here in Polish).