obsessing over europe<u+2019>s refugee crisis while ignoring africa<u+2019>s is white privilege at work mehdi hasan, washington post, november 3, 2016 




have you not heard? europe is in the throes of a refugee crisis. hosting asylum-seekers from syria is a <u+201c>historic test of europe,<u+201d> says germany<u+2019>s angela merkel. <u+201c>the most responsibility [for refugees] is and will continue to be placed on europe,<u+201d> adds european council president donald tusk. 




for president obama, <u+201c>uncontrolled migration into europe<u+201d> is a <u+201c>major national security issue<u+201d> for the united states. even the dalai lama agrees that there are <u+201c>too many<u+201d> refugees inside the european union. 




really? <u+201c>too many<u+201d>? <u+201c>historic<u+201d>? consider these facts: more than 65 million people were forced from their homes by conflict or persecution in 2015, according to the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) , including 21.3 million people classified as refugees living outside the borders of their own countries. 




admittedly, a record 1.3 million refugees sought asylum within the european union last year, with thousands more applying for asylum every month. yet what of sub-saharan africa, home to 4.4 million refugees and a whopping 19.5 million <u+201c>people of concern<u+201d> to the un high commissioner for refugees? 




we don<u+2019>t often hear about these particular refugees or asylum-seekers, do we? they are, to borrow a term from british historian mark curtis, <u+201c>unpeople,<u+201d> the poor, nonwhite residents of the developing world who tend to be ignored by the western media. 




where is the rolling coverage of kenya<u+2019>s dadaab camp, for example? dadaab is the largest refugee camp in the world, but in a move that could displace as many as 300,000 people , kenyan authorities are in the process of closing it down. it puts the recent british media frenzy over the so-called <u+201c>jungle<u+201d> camp in calais, france, with its 10,000 migrants, into some perspective, doesn<u+2019>t it? 




{snip} 




yet europe<u+2019>s refugee crisis continues to suck up all the oxygen of global publicity. the unhcr fundraises for a whole host of <u+201c>special situations<u+201d> involving refugees. as of the end of october, the <u+201c> central african republic situation <u+201d> was 17 percent funded; the <u+201c> somalia situation <u+201d> 21 percent funded and the <u+201c> south sudan situation <u+201d> 25 percent funded. the <u+201c> crisis in europe ,<u+201d> however? fifty-six percent funded. 




the double standard is as brazen as it is shameful. remember: the european union accounts for 17 percent of global gdp ; sub-saharan africa accounts for a little more than 3 percent . 




{snip} 




this is not just navel-gazing hyperbole but white privilege, plain and simple. how else to describe a collective tendency to obsess over a refugee crisis in (rich, white) europe, rather than in (poor, black) africa? in what warped world are thousands of penniless and homeless refugees considered to constitute a crisis only when they wash up on the shores of western europe?
obsessing over europe<u+2019>s refugee crisis while ignoring africa<u+2019>s is white privilege at work
henry wolff