^[1]Everything we write and say is too little, and above all, the moment we write and say something specific, we will not write and say something else. We condemn imperialist wars of aggression without any doubt, but at the same time we know that we are not directly involved in the war, that we do not have to suffer bombings and missile attacks, nor the misery in the cities encircled by Putin's military power. We can also write such lines and publish them here without having to fear marks and without the threat of punishment from state authorities.

I stand on the sidelines, I watch - and I also suspect that the effectiveness of my lines is close to zero.

Nevertheless, I have the impression that we should not remain silent.

There are also professional reasons for this. As educationalists and social pedagogues, we deal with racism (and nationalism). And especially for approaches in the fields of education, pedagogy and social work, we believe it is important to make it clear that we should not only claim to be working against a single form of racism (or nationalism), but also fundamentally against racism (and nationalism) in general, as well as against other systems of oppression, specialisation, discrimination, exploitation, persecution and extermination.

I would therefore like to pick up the thread of our first contribution to the discussion on the war in Ukraine again: "Anti-Russian racism or anti-Russian resentment would be completely out of place: it is Putin's regime and its power apparatus that have planned and prepared this war and are now carrying it out, it is not the Russians!"^[2] It is absurd when people in Germany who themselves or whose parents or grandparents immigrated from Russia have to reckon with suspicions, hostility and attacks; and it becomes even more absurd when people who are themselves against this war and make this clear become the target. The mechanism of dichotomisation, which creates the image of homogeneous groups on both sides of a dividing line, is highly problematic, but unfortunately particularly popular in times of war and crisis. We must oppose this everywhere, even in everyday life, even in the seemingly small 'circumstances' of our lives.

At the same time, we must realise that Putin's justification for the war, that he has to defend himself against an allegedly threatening "Nazi junta" in Ukraine, is not only completely inappropriate in view of the political conditions in Ukraine, but also represents a complete trivialisation of what National Socialist rule between 1933 and 1945 in Germany and the territories occupied by the so-called Third Reich actually meant.^[3]

However, while we need to criticise Putin's regime and his power apparatus, which in a specific way means a lot of suffering and misery for people in Ukraine as well as for people in Russia, we should not be completely uncritical of other nationalisms and racisms that are currently emerging.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyi is making political statements that we could describe as defensive nationalism - which is quite understandable given the murderous attack from Russia. He combines these appeals to his Ukrainian people with a clearly different presentation of masculinity than Putin does. While the latter represents an appropriating racism and imperial nationalism and combines it with a staging of authoritarian and domineeringly distanced masculinity, the coupling of defensive nationalism and masculinity in Zelenskyi's case is more of a modern heroism, as analysed by historian Claudia Kraft in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung:

"After all, Zelenskyi does not appear martial, but as a good friend from the street who speaks to his people. In contrast to Putin, who is detached from the people and represents a completely different kind of masculinity. (...) The poses of defence (in Selensky's case) are then all the more effective in their effect. It is shown: The men in Ukraine (...) have just not waited to play military, hypermasculine roles. But they are now getting into it through the invasion."^[4]

Defensive nationalism and modern heroism are not only well received in democratic societies, but are also clearly different formations of nationalism and masculinity, whereby the fabric of their connections with aggressive-imperial nationalism and authoritarian-distanced masculinity is immanent: defensive nationalism also remains nationalism, and modern heroism is also a doing masculinity that is located in the field of hegemonic-soldierly masculinities and articulates itself in war and armed struggle.

At the same time, however, Selenski repeatedly attempts to point out the close connection between Russia and Ukraine in a non-assimilatory way, addresses the soldiers of the Russian army and the mothers of these soldiers in Russia in Russian, emphasises the peacefulness of his politics and the senselessness of war - all this while simultaneously defending the democratically legitimised independence of his country.

Let's take a look at the rest of the interview with historian Claudia Kraft:

"Of course, an incredible shift in the image of men takes place through the arming and mobilisation of soldiers. And while women are very much in demand as actors, they are also often victimised. This victimhood is also used as a propagandistic stylistic device, in the sense of the demand: 'We must protect our women'. But the real upheavals tend to occur in the post-war period."

SZ: "In what way?"

Claudia Kraft: "The return of militarised men to civilian life, as we saw after the Second World War, is a difficult process. Especially with inferior armies. Male supremacy was then re-established in peacetime at the expense of women and families."

SZ: "A woman who has fled is seen differently to a man who has fled, right? "

Claudia Kraft: "Yes, we're experiencing that to an extreme at the moment. The incredible willingness to help in Poland, for example, certainly has a lot to do with the fact that the people coming here are mainly women, children and old people."

In the interview, Claudia Kraft points to a re-taditionalisation of gender relations in the context of war, but also emphasises that the women refugees show a lot of courage, independence and take on responsibility: "You see women who take risks and look after their neighbours." She believes that the "heteronormative distribution of roles" is therefore not "fundamentally fixed" for the future. In the interview, she also points out that women have achieved a great deal in Ukraine and hold equal positions in many places. And - we could add - many of them are also involved in the military and take an active part in the fighting.

It is striking that Claudia Kraft does not mention in the interview that it is not only women, older people and children who are fleeing, but that young and middle-aged men are not allowed to do the same. One can understand why the Ukrainian state is resorting to this measure. However, I myself would treat with the utmost respect any man from Ukraine who flees, i.e. - as Claudia Kraft puts it - "takes a risk", looks after his children and elderly parents and leaves his wife behind, as she has an important function in an authority in Ukraine or is even a soldier.

It is difficult to say anything about the "return of militarised men" and how this will affect future gender relations after the war in Ukraine (and perhaps also in Russia). There are quite different developments that are possible here. In particular, the comparison with the Second World War is problematic from a German perspective: men often returned to German who had been traumatised by war and captivity, but who at the same time had actually represented National Socialism and its imperial, racist and anti-Semitic ideas and practices. The respective doing masculinity is at the same time - questioning and pointing to intersectionality - also a doing race and doing nation.

Towards the end of the interview, Claudia Kraft then addresses the issue of flight and gender relations in a different way: It is about the reasons for the "great willingness to help in Poland", about the view that is directed towards the refugees. She formulates it carefully: the willingness to help "perhaps also has to do with the fact that they are Christians from the neighbourhood". I would add here - less cautiously: But perhaps a discursive sorting between acceptable refugees, who many Poles perceive as white, Christian and European, and unacceptable refugees, who are seen as non-white, Islamic and non-European - in short, as different - is also evident here.

However, this is not the only possibility: the great solidarity with refugees can also result from the current field of discourse, in which the war of aggression against the neighbouring nation state of Ukraine plays a major role, a neighbouring country whose existence is threatened by the nuclear-armed military power Russia, a power that also threatens its own existence as an independent country - and has already tried to put this threat into practice several times in history. Both discourse patterns can presumably unfold their effect separately, but they can also complement and stimulate each other.

The current solidarity with the refugees is contrasted with a rejection of refugees that was aimed at the side that was constructed as different: a few weeks ago - initially in autumn last year - people seeking protection from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan gathered at the Polish-Belarusian border, first wanting to get to Poland and then on to other European countries. The Belarusian ruler Lukashenko thus attempted to instrumentalise refugees in a cynical political game and use them as a 'threat' against Europe. And Poland promptly responded with drastic defence measures, erecting new border fences and barbed wire barriers. Incidentally, some mass media in Germany commented on these events with headlines that (in the usual martial manner) wanted to make it clear that this was about the EU's external border: "Flüchtlinge Belarus: Neuer Ansturm auf Europa" (Bild, 15-11-2021) and "Schlacht an der EU-Außengrenze" (Bild, 17-11-2021)^[5] Unfortunately, these (apparently unacceptable) refugees are still stuck at the border between Poland and Belarus today - while a massive new willingness to help (acceptable) refugees is emerging in Poland and Europe.

To be clear: we welcome a willingness to help and solidarity with refugees from Ukraine, Russia and many other countries (Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, etc.). And we hope that this will spread throughout Europe and also be more sustainable. However, we consider the described sorting between acceptable and unacceptable refugees to be extremely problematic. In Germany in 2015 - the summer of mercy, as our colleague Paul Mecheril described it - we experienced a very broad and comprehensive willingness to help, and one that was much less segregated. Perhaps we can build on this. However, this willingness to help - as we have unfortunately also experienced - was quickly and massively countered. Parties that claim to represent the political centre were not squeamish: refugees were referred to as "asylum tourists", migration as the "mother of all problems", the refugee policy of the time as the "rule of injustice", and it was announced that they would fight immigration into German social systems "to the last bullet".^[6]

Such and similar forms of racism and politics exist not only in Poland, but also in Germany and Europe as a whole. And when we hear recent reports,

• that in Ukraine "people from Africa (...) complain that they are held up longer at the border between Ukraine and Poland (...) than people from Europe"^[7],
• or that "students from Africa (...) are hindered in their flight from Ukraine" and are "subjected to massive racist discrimination by security forces" in Ukraine^[8],

then this depresses us and fills us with concern. However, it is also depressing that we can unfortunately imagine all too well that this will happen in similar situations in Germany and other European countries. This does not make the problem any smaller, but rather more comprehensive, more generalised and therefore even worse.

Let us hope that a new policy towards refugees will prevail in the EU and that there will be unity in this regard. And let us hope that what the new Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, said in relation to the flight from Ukraine applies to all refugees from all countries: The acceptance of refugees should apply regardless of origin and nationality: "We want to save lives. That does not depend on the passport."^[9]

Rudolf Leiprecht