A senior foreign correspondent at CBS News has apologised after he said on air that war in Ukraine is less expected because the nation is “civilised” compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Charlie D’Agata was reporting from Kyiv in Ukraine on Friday when he made the comments.
“This isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades,” he told viewers.
“This is a relatively civilised, relatively European - I have to choose those words carefully, too - city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”
The clip of Mr D’Agata's comments went viral, with one clip of his live cross amassing 6.1 million views on Twitter in a matter of days.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan are recognised by historians as some of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, with Mesopotamia - now modern-day Iraq – often called the Cradle of Civilisation.
Mr D’Agata has since apologised for his comments, which were widely condemned as racist, historically inaccurate and ethnocentric.
“I spoke in a way I regret, and for that I’m sorry,” he said.
Mr D’Agata told viewers on air that he was trying to convey that Ukraine hadn’t seen “this scale of war” in recent years, unlike other Middle Eastern countries.
“You should never compare conflicts anyway, each one is unique…I used a poor choice of words and I apologise for any offence I may have caused.”
Many online have said the comments show an inability to empathise with victims of conflict in the Middle East.
“My utmost solidarities with the Ukrainian people who are paying the highest price,” Sara Saleh, an Arab Australian writer and poet wrote on Twitter.
“But this deeply racist coverage and political double standards is cause for concern for us all.”
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a professor of African American studies at Princeton University in the United States also condemned Mr D'Agata's suggestion that war was a standard part of life in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Extraordinary racism and ethnocentrism on the mainstream news. It’s not just the “civilized” bit, but the notion that in Iraq and Afghanistan war is just a normal part of life and not a vicious imposition from places like the so-called civilized West,” she wrote on Twitter.
Iraq and Afghanistan were both invaded by US-led forces, experiencing years of unrest, devastation and violence as a result of the conflict.
But Mr D’Agata was just one of many correspondents and commentators using the comparison in their effort to convey the plight of Ukraine.
ITV News correspondent Lucy Watson in Kyiv called it “unthinkable” that it had happened to the people of Ukraine.
“This is not a developing third-world nation,” she said. “This is Europe.”
Similarly, David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s former deputy general prosecutor told the BBC: “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed”.
The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) weighed in on the reporting, urging news organisations to be conscious of the implicit and explicit bias in their coverage of the war in Ukraine.
“AMEJA condemns and categorically rejects orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is “uncivilized” or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict,” the statement read.
"This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in Western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and Latin America."
Social media users said that years of “dehumanising refugees” had led to the shock that refugees could look European.
To a smaller audience, one TikTok user commented under a video: “I am Polish and we are scared also… This is not a joke – this is not a Middle East war.”
