Whose lives matter when politicians talk about refugees?
Slovak politicians continue to create a ‘hierarchy of otherness’ that positions different groups against each other according to various criteria.
“Slovakia has a heart.” This was how Igor Matovič began his press conference on the Slovak-Ukrainian border after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The then finance minister, alongside other government officials, proudly presented measures for temporary refuge and housing contributions. This stance, coupled with open borders and a significant wave of solidarity, raised many questions. What happened to the anti-migrant sentiments that intensified during the so-called migration crisis in 2015? Had there been a shift towards solidarity with those fleeing their home countries in need?
I sought answers to these questions during my research, which compared the responses of politicians during the 2015 migration crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In short, its findings challenge the notion of this 'shift’. In fact, it is quite the opposite—the contrasting reactions of Slovak politicians highlight enduring mechanisms that position people from the Middle East and Africa against those from Ukraine in a tragic dichotomy. While the loss of Ukrainian lives evoked grief and a sense of loss, similar feelings were absent for the lives of people from the Middle East and Africa. However, it is not that simple. It seems that the lives of migrants are constantly sorted according to various criteria, creating a hierarchy in how and whose life-threatening situations affect us.
Slovakia has a heart versus We protect Slovakia
According to the International Organization for Migration, foreign nationals with residency permits account for 5.13 percent of the total population, the third-lowest proportion in the EU. One-fifth come from EU countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Poland. Before the onset of the Russian invasion, the largest share consisted of people from Ukraine, reflecting a longer history of their movement as a workforce. Following the outbreak of war, this number surged to 56.3 percent.
In 2022, Slovakia, along with other EU countries, immediately opened its borders and enacted legislation ensuring temporary protection for refugees. At the time, Minister Matovič emphasised, “Slovakia has a heart, and we want to help people, people in need.” As of June this year, 122,427 individuals were registered in Slovakia with temporary protection status.
The acceptance of a large number of people from Ukraine sharply contrasts with the usual approach of our country towards refugees. Each year, only a few applications succeed. The exception was in 2015, when 167 applications were approved. This was during intensive discussions regarding a quota system for accepting migrants in response to the so-called migration crisis in Europe, when EU countries struggled to implement solidarity migration policies towards those arriving mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Albania, Pakistan, Eritrea, Nigeria, and Iran. In contrast, ‘Fortress Europe’ sought to limit their arrival.
Slovak politicians, along with other V4 countries, firmly rejected the EU’s proposal for mandatory quotas for accepting displaced people, portraying them as a cultural and security threat to Slovakia. During political campaigns, slogans such as ‘We protect Slovakia’ were used alongside hate speech against Islam. Ultimately, asylum was granted to only 149 Christians from Iraq, who were portrayed as culturally compatible and persecuted for their religion.
Grief, cultural racism, and the creation of symbolic boundaries
The differing reactions to the suffering of individuals raise the question of whose lives matter in our society. Judith Butler defines the concept of grief, which highlights the differing recognition of lives that are deemed valuable and worthy of mourning. While we consider the lives of some individuals as significant, seeking to protect them and feeling a sense of solidarity or loss in response to their endangerment, the lives of others, conversely, mean little to us, and we do not extend them the same protection.
The norms for recognising the lives we wish to protect are influenced by cultural racism, which is not solely based on skin colour but embodies ‘whiteness’ as a value system. Europe, presented as a centre of cultural progress and values of tolerance and democracy, contrasts with non-European countries, which it depicts as culturally backward. Cultural racism thus legitimises unequal relationships by emphasising the cultural and historical uniqueness of Europe. Within this framework of ‘whiteness’, a superior ‘Euro-whiteness’ is delineated from ‘dirty whiteness’, often assigned to people from Eastern Europe. Constructed hierarchies within cultural racism further contribute to the unequal global distribution of social, economic, political, and moral privileges.
To capture the process of distinguishing between lives, I draw upon the concept of symbolic boundaries. Through these boundaries, individuals classify reality, creating shared categories of places, objects, and people, thus dividing them into groups of ‘us’ and ‘them’. In this case, the symbolic boundaries created—boundaries of grief—segregate lives into those we are capable of mourning and those whose loss elicits no emotional response from us.
In this article, I present four main criteria by which politicians establish boundaries of grief in their public stances, thereby determining whose lives matter, whose are capitalised upon, and which are rendered invisible: 1) religious, racial, and ethnic proximity, 2) level of suffering, 3) economic contribution, and 4) contribution to the project of ‘European identity’.
Robert Fico: It is pointless to claim that a pear can grow on an apple tree
The first criterion that shapes the boundaries of grief is the demand for racial, ethnic, and religious proximity. Slovak politicians create a boundary for black and Muslim lives, while it is white, Christian, and Slavic lives that they consider worthy of mourning. This reinforces the notion of Europe as a ‘white’ space that must not be disturbed.
As early as 2015, then-Prime Minister Robert Fico warned that ‘Europe will turn black’. At the same time, he created a space for distinguishing between lives from the Middle East and Africa based on religious proximity. Alongside other politicians, he emphasised the otherness of Muslim lives and the acceptability of Christian ones, as indicated by his metaphor: “It is pointless to claim that a pear can grow on an apple tree when we know that only apples will grow there. This is a position we will hold until the very end.” Such statements create a hierarchy among lives from the Middle East and Africa, with black and Muslim lives remaining unnoticed.
In contrast, people from Ukraine meet the conditions of ‘whiteness’, and since they do not disrupt the ‘racial order of Europe’, the threat to Ukrainian lives evokes feelings of grief and loss. The highlighted criterion in the context of Slovakia has been the aspect of ‘Slavness’, which politicians depict as a fraternal bond. This bond creates an obvious obligation as to why Slovakia should feel a response of solidarity and extend a helping hand to people from Ukraine without any restrictions.
However, even among lives from Ukraine, there is a hierarchy when they do not meet the aforementioned criteria. When the extremist politician Stanislav Mizík was at the Ukrainian border, he focused on dark-skinned refugees: “I personally do not see any mothers with children here; I see Africa. (...) This is the absolute end of European civilisation.” Therefore, dark-skinned migrants from Ukraine are not perceived by politicians as a part of Europe. Moreover, many Ukrainian Roma are often segregated from others and excluded from receiving the same services. This represents a continuous differentiation among lives based on overlapping racial, ethnic, and religious conditions.
Igor Matovič: We are sorry you are poor in Africa, but live in Africa
The second criterion through which politicians create boundaries of grief is the degree of suffering. According to this, they differentiate lives based on whether they consider their level of suffering to be threatening, compared to those they view as suffering somewhat less.
In 2015, remarks emerged among politicians that labelled refugees from the Middle East and Africa as economic migrants, asserting that poverty was not considered a source of sufficient suffering to warrant assistance. This attitude is expressed in a quote from Igor Matovič, who restricts suffering solely to the aspect of poverty and therefore rejects the opening of borders: “... if we want to be sensible, we would say to economic refugees that, unfortunately, we are sorry you are poor in Africa, but live in Africa…” The perceived threat is thus not sufficient from the perspective of Slovak politicians to evoke concern and trigger solidarity-based migration policies. This, however, did not apply to Syrian Christians, whose suffering was acknowledged as they were threatened by persecution.
In comparison to political statements from 2015, the responses to the Russian invasion in 2022 create clear connections to the war. They emphasise people’s vulnerability to the conditions brought about by war—winter, hunger, flight, or psychological trauma. Since politicians stressed that this primarily concerns women or mothers with children, the gender aspect played an important role in recognising the degree of suffering. However, not all people fleeing from Ukraine are perceived by politicians as suffering. They do not acknowledge the suffering of individuals without Ukrainian citizenship and instead label them as economic migrants. This leads to the creation of categories of people whose suffering is acknowledged and who are entitled to temporary refuge, and those (often failing to meet ‘whiteness’) who do not represent ‘real’ war refugees and thus have no right to stay. The perception of suffering is therefore racially conditioned.
Peter Kmec: They are in need, and paradoxically, the job market needs them
In addition to perceived proximity and suffering, the ability to mourn is influenced by a neoliberal arrangement that views people as individual economic entities responsible for their contributions and for themselves. In political stances, refugees are thus seen through the lens of economic benefit. In 2015, politicians portrayed migrants from the Middle East and Africa as unskilled workers without benefits, additionally dependent on the social system, meaning that such an economic entity would not receive solidarity in neoliberalism.
In contrast, Ukrainian migrants are viewed by politicians not only as hard-working but also as necessary for the job market. As stated by Peter Kmec from the Hlas party: “They are in need, and paradoxically, the job market needs them.” Acknowledging suffering thus overlaps with the possibility of significant economic benefit.
For Slovak politicians, people from Ukraine embody the ideal economic entity—highly educated yet willing to take any job. The application of mourning for Ukrainian lives is strategic in this sense, as the positive framing of economic benefits correlates with the demand for filling poorly paid, insecure, irregular, and unattractive jobs. Politicians perceive this as an opportunity to relieve the Slovak population of harsh working conditions while simultaneously supporting the country’s economic growth.
Furthermore, they strategically frame this as preparation for the economic development of eastern Slovakia. Ukraine would thus become a ‘site of compensation’ for the losses of European capital, as was the case for Central and Eastern European countries during their integration into the EU.
The emotional response to threatened lives is closely linked in this case to politicians’ demands to strengthen Slovakia’s economic position. This does not aim to disrupt global hierarchies, but rather reproduces them through the imperative of ‘catching up with the West’ by applying neoliberal logic.
Eduard Heger: They are fighting for us too, because they are fighting for the values we live by
Another criterion for mourning is contributing to the project of ‘European-ness.’ This project builds a narrative around Europe as the superior guardian of democracy, progress, and humanitarian values, thereby supporting the idea of European uniqueness and reproducing cultural racism. Slovak politicians adopt this narrative, dividing lives into those that fight for ‘European-ness’ and must be protected, and those that threaten this project and therefore must be kept outside the European space.
In 2015, as migrants from the Middle East and Africa were often associated with terrorism, they became a risk and potential disruptors of the ‘European-ness’ project. The image of danger, which is not affixed to a specific subject but to migrants from the Middle East and Africa as a whole, obstructs the ability to recognise the threat to their lives as worthy of mourning and to implement policies for their protection and care.
Although Ukrainian women and men are often classified through ‘dirty whiteness’, which translates into their systematic exploitation as cheap labour, Slovak politicians reinforced their ‘European-ness’ after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In particular, the then-government parties framed the resilience of the Ukrainian population as a broader struggle for ‘us’, Europe, and its values. Such statements were frequently made by then-Prime Minister Eduard Heger: “... they are fighting for us too because they are fighting for the values we live by, namely freedom, democracy, and the right to decide about our future…” By elevating the Ukrainian struggle to the level of contribution to the ‘European-ness’ project, they present Ukrainian lives as those that matter, lives that have demonstrated their democratic character and thus deserve to be a ‘part of Europe’ and to receive assistance. This attitude introduces elements of cultural racism into the evaluation of which lives matter—lives must demonstrate the values of ‘European-ness’ and contribute to this project for us to recognise them as worthy of mourning.
Simultaneously, the application of mourning acts as a strategic step to strengthen Slovakia's position in the ‘European-ness’ project. By emphasising the hospitality and humanity with which Slovakia has welcomed Ukrainian migrants, politicians publicly align themselves with the solidarity attributed to ‘European-ness’. This response highlights that supporting only certain lives enhances Slovakia's humanitarian image.
Radical mourning
The division between lives whose threat or loss is worthy of mourning and those that are not reinforces Europe as a ‘white’ space and serves to bolster Slovakia’s economic position and its overall standing in the ‘European-ness’ project. Thus, comparisons of politicians’ reactions from 2015 and 2022 indicate that there has been no shift in solidarity, creating a ‘hierarchy of otherness’ that places different groups against one another based on various criteria.
In this hierarchy, it is precisely black and Muslim lives that politicians not only disregard but wish to keep outside the European space. While they depict Ukrainian lives as worthy of mourning, they subordinate their suffering to Slovak interests. The connection with other research confirms that these findings are not limited to the Slovak context; they must be understood within the framework of a broader racial and neoliberal order, as well as Slovakia’s position within the global hierarchy.
The uneven application of mourning further influences whom we protect and to what extent, and whom we do not. Therefore, this article calls for radical mourning that acknowledges the interdependence of people and the need for protection and solidarity for all.
© fjúžn magazine
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