Like onions, discrimination is layers-based!
Mamdouh Alqudsi
I help integrate Business Innovation into nonprofit solutions - 2037 UN Secretary-General
If you wonder whether discrimination is a behavior, well, you are not entirely wrong, or right! Gwendolyn Keita explained that discrimination "goes beyond that", the attitude of discriminating is "a reflection of a complex set of factors including their history, sociocultural practices, economic forces, sociological trends and the influence of community and family beliefs".
In this article, I debate one form of expressed discrimination: distinguishing the difference in treatment between Ukrainian children compared to the Treatment of Syrian children in Polish schools. The debate is formulated based on media coverage of both forms of treatment. The analysis will be based on media coverage because I believe that:
Media, inevitably, impacts the public opinion, but not as much as it reflects the opinion of its audience! Both, impacting the public opinion and reflecting it can be demonstrated via the use of particular vocabulary in describing a phenomenon or an event by the agencies.
Public opinion, in this article, means the opinion of the readers whom the news agency publish for them.
The article approaches this comparison by researching keywords (online) including 1) integration, 2) discrimination, 3) welcoming and hosting, 4) response to migration wave or crisis, etc. Keywords will be associated as follows: 1) Positive keywords with Ukrainian children and 2) negative ones with Syrian children; then vice-versa.
Of note, this post does not argue the type of articles and whether they are false, fake, or true news. On the contrary, it presents the content for comparison purposes. This approach is significant because the audience that the news represents is the host community, and viewing the topic from this lens helps ease the understanding of the comparison and the justification of its results.
Media do not speak with one voice, particularly on controversial topics such as migration!
Yes, I do believe so, and here is a very exciting example: In 2016, Europe was talking about refugees and the immigration crisis response (article). The right-wing news agencies present arguments about how hard it is to host refugees (Le Parisien) (Le Figaro).
From comparing refugee crisis coverage, we pivot, instantly, to commence the main comparison topic.
A) Using positive keywords (in a Google search about media coverage)
Available online resources on the hospitality of the Polish schools to the Ukrainian refugees’ children produced news titles as follows:
The conclusion here is that “mental health”, “trauma”, “integration”, “response”, etc. are keywords mentioned in published articles and are associated, solely, with Ukrainian children in Polish schools.
Recommended by LinkedIn
B) Using negative keywords (in a Google search about media coverage)
Available online resources on the “discrimination against Syrian refugee children in Poland” produced news titles as follows:
What is astonishing here is that if you research the contrary, e.g., integration of Syrian kids in Polish schools, it will be almost impossible to find a data!
To sum up, it was easier to find online negative content about the negative treatment of Syrian refugee children or obstacles encountered by them rather than elaborative content that overviews the placed efforts by the international community to tackle these issues.
Post-excessive research to explore the type of treatment Syrian refugee children are receiving in Poland, it became clear that no matter what obstacle these children are encountering, they are not of significance to the Polish state nor to the locals.
This is a sweeping statement. Just because recent media articles do not address the issue does not mean that state or community concerns do not exist. You need to look at educational research that documents and analyses educational provisions to make this point, not media reports.
This statement is supported by the difficulty in finding any related news, given that such obstacles for Syrians are more severe, in terms of schools' capacity, curriculums, certificates, etc. in states such as Lebanon (compared to Ukrainians in Poland). It is vital to note here that when researching keywords related to the integration of Syrian children, in particular, the research shows results related to Lebanon.
To this end, it is understandable, to some extent, that the vast majority of the articles that explain the situation of Syrian refugee children talk about the situation in Lebanon. In line with this theory, the vast majority of articles about obstacles for Ukrainian refugee children talk about the situation in Poland.
Nevertheless, the noticeable difference between how the situation is being tackled shows advantages in favor of Ukrainian refugee children, given that the international community is seeking to ensure the maximum benefits for Ukrainians compared to the minimum benefits for Syrians; the question remains why these advantages and privileges are justifiable?
The answer could be elicited from looking at the host community through a different lens, the history lens. The Syrian army invaded Lebanon during the civil war there and committed genocides and war crimes that no mind can imagine. The justification for the discriminatory policies and actions toward Syrian refugee children in Lebanon could be possible the held grudge against Syrians from the host community in Lebanon. In stark contrast, perhaps, the Polish and the Ukrainians have a history of animosity towards each other. However, currently, in 2022, Polish and Ukrainian people share not only religion and race but also sorrow and suffering caused by the same enemy. Which makes them join joint efforts until further notice!
To this end, all these shared elements add up to justify the seductiveness in sympathizing with Ukrainian refugee children over Syrian refugee children, in Poland.