Our Engagement with the ˝Faces˛ of the ˝Other˛ and the Ethical Quandaries in Refugee Protection

5 seekers from the Middle East and the Global South have faced scrutiny and apprehension from the general public, with the majority of the sentiments leaning towards exclusion and opposition.8 For example, scholars have shown how the post-9/11 fear of refugees from the Middle East and the impact of the war on terror rhetoric have framed Muslim refugees as a threat.9 Refugees from the Middle East a. [...] Although Agamben’s theories on the state of exception could explain some of the processes and responses by Canadians and the Canadian government, we can take this further when looking at the narratives, discourses, and the engagement of people, the media, and the general population. [...] So, what underlines this difference, and why is it easier to engage with the suffering of certain people? Levinas, the “Face” and the “Other” Levinas uses the idea of the “face” and our relation to the “other”20 to understand our innate sense of responsibility towards another person.21 The “other,” which Levinas also refers to as alterity, is the whole construction of otherness, of being someone o. [...] Butler states that the framework of understanding the violence in Afghanistan by the United States, explained by the language of the law, excludes certain kinds of questions and historical contexts and instead functions as a justifiable and moral reason for retaliation.55 With Afghanistan and other countries in the Global South, the violence, the conflicts, and the refugees are all blurry; because. [...] Levinas, Butler, and (“Radical”) Proximity During the Ukraine crisis, the media and news outlets constructed the lives of Ukrainians as grievable and precarious by framing the war in relation to the general public and closing the proximity between Canadians and Ukrainians.