At the last G20 summit, European countries urged the Global South to commit to international law, and thus also to Ukraine. These are the same European countries (with positive exceptions like Ireland and Spain) that have supported and financed the total destruction and genocide in Gaza.

Despite the daily chilling images of loss, sorrow, and devastation; the destruction of centuries-old cultural heritage, universities, entire family trees that have been wiped out, children being shot at with live ammunition, the rapid, massive, ruthless destruction of everything Palestinian. Never before have we witnessed the horrific, relentless violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a global scale.

The support for genocide has destroyed so much. Many people, including myself, have watched in disbelief as victims who are not white and Western mean nothing to our governments. We have revolted at how beautiful words like 'democracy' and 'human rights' are only intended for the white West, not for Africa or the Middle East. We have, for the umpteenth time, seen that the so loudly proclaimed 'freedom of speech' is not as sacred as politicians have continually declared to legitimize their racist and Islamophobic sentiments.

This was called the 'free debate'. But a debate is not so free when you arrest people for inconvenient opinions or because they chant slogans you disagree with. Like the great absurdity that our politicians find the slogan 'from the river to the sea' worse than Israel, which, killing and bombing, steals land 'from the river to the sea' and murders and expels the original inhabitants.

The realization that people are unequal and international law is not for everyone has never been as painfully and ugly visible as it has been in the past one and a half years. We already knew, of course, when it became clear that our governments preferred to let thousands of defenseless refugees drown in the Mediterranean rather than save them and looked away from horrific suffering in Africa. But the bar turned out to be much lower than we thought.

If European politicians want to restore rights, they should not address African countries, but themselves. Their hypocrisy is breathtaking. If you spit in people's faces, look away when they fall prey to injustice and genocide – indeed, that injustice and genocide is loudly supported and justified – you cannot later claim their commitment to a system that excludes them.

It is thanks to the arrogant Western governments that we are entering a time of political and legal desolation. Africa sees it. The Middle East sees it. We, 'ordinary people' see it.

Europe is now discovering that it too is vulnerable and not just the countries and peoples it exploits and looks down upon.

It is simple: human rights and international law are for everyone or for no one; once you take liberties with them, we are all at the mercy of the capriciousness and sadism of despots.