It's been a while since I sat and put my thoughts down but I feel the need to do it about the Syrian refugee crisis, albeit quite late.
The Paris attacks just happened last week, and tragically (embarrassingly), from all the predictable corners, political gain and TV ratings are believed to be had. That's not really what's bothering me the most. Although it is bothering me that self-declared "leaders" are the first to light their hair on fire and start saying vile, stupid things into the teevee machines.
What's bothering me most is the reactions of real people who don't have to posture for the cameras. Otherwise nice people who put crosses and nativity scenes on their Facebook pages and front lawns. People who like to think of themselves as good (usually "Christian" follows that - Good Christian) people. People who read or watched stories about Paris and responded by demanding that America refuse to accept Syrian refugees.
Look, I get it - what happened in Paris is terrifying. What happened in New York on 9-11 was terrifying. What happened in Beirut the same day as Paris is terrifying. From our vantage point, all of that terror is coming from the Middle East, so the people from there bear a pall of terror imparted by distance. Everything looks blurred from far away. The fear is rational - I get it. It's not nothing. The fear is real and it's understandable.
But first things first. We don't react this way to young, white men who go on shooting rampages. We don't react this way to Christians who bomb abortion clinics. We don't react this way to old, white men who line up to stage a "revolution" against federal officials over nonexistent land rights. We only react this way to The Other. Syrians are Other. They're identifiably different. They're "there", they're brown, they wear head scarves and unusual clothes. They speak a different language. They're They. They're not Us.
And that's where it all breaks down. None of the Paris attackers were refugees. There was one passport found on the scene that suggested that one of them might have been, but there is some evidence that it was a copy used by several people around the world, but at any rate - it would be one of 7 - 9 (or more). The rest were legal residents of European countries - mostly France and Belgium. All of the 9-11 attackers were legal residents of America. All of the school shootings, clinic bombings, church fires, and theater massacres were American citizens.
And yet, our own people - many of us descendants of refugees of one kind or another - are so petrified by the possibility that one of THEM might mean Us harm, that they're demanding that America refuse to take in refugees who've literally risked life and limb to escape what we ourselves are at war to stop. We're bombing and fighting and constantly at war to impose freedom and democracy and American values around the world, but when the rubber hits the road, we quake. The Statue of Liberty (coincidentally French) literally carved in steel the American values of refuge and hope. Of safe harbor. But at the first test, we run weeping to our grandmas' skirts and hide our faces, too frightened to even consider living up to those values.
But here's the real bottom line. While we quiver and chew our nails over the possibility that one of Them might want to do harm if they're allowed onto OUR land, we're making a value choice. If They are turned away, They have nowhere to go but back to Syria where they serve as essentially marketing tools for recruitment. Daesh* sells itself to hopeless, angry, disenfranchised young people (mostly men) as a place to come for money, women, power, and control. But none of that works without someone to exert power and control over. That's why Daesh is so murderously opposed to letting people leave - they need someone for their angry young men to abuse to feel powerful.
If we turn Them away, They go back to Syria. They are then guaranteed to be kidnapped, raped, tortured, murdered, starved, mutilated, and all other manner of horrors that drove them to try to escape in the first place. So in our fear that something bad might happen in OUR somewhere, we make the choice to impose worse-than-bad things on millions of innocent people. Not only for their individual lives, but for the reinforcement of Daesh as a place where angry young men can do all of those things to other people with impunity, knowing that the world won't interfere.
And that's our value judgment. We choose to impose certain death and worse on innocent men, women, and children to cloak ourselves in the illusion of safety by keeping Them out of Our place.
As has already been illustrated, our greatest threats are our own people - not Them. How many thousands of American soldiers and civilians have died or been mutilated in wars to spread the American way? And now that we have to live those values and decide who we are as a people, what do we decide? That we are cowards willing to relegate innocent people to unimaginable horrors out of largely-unfounded fears, or that we are the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave - willing to stand up in defense of innocent victims and interject ourselves between desperate, helpless people and violent thugs?
I understand the fear - it's not irrational. But under the circumstances, it is unreasonable. And more importantly, that fear is not the final determinant. It is rational and so it should be part of the conversation, but has to be PART of the conversation - not the means to avoid having it. Fear is not the answer - it is simply a factor.
And They are people. They are Us. We have the means to save innocent lives or to destroy them. Do we have the will? Do we have the strength? Do we decide that our good, Christian people are willing to save innocents, even if it means taking a minuscule risk that one of the refugees might have bad intentions?
For my vote - if we want to continue wrapping ourselves in moral superiority, military might, national exceptionalism**, and collective ego-strokes about being the greatest nation on earth and so forth, then now is the time to put your money where your mouth is. These people need help. We help. If there is a threat, we meet it, deal with it, and protect the rest of the refugees from it right alongside our own people. We do not send innocent people to be tortured, raped, murdered, and abused for fun just because we're scared of the boogeyman.
Fear is rational. But it is not reasonable to let it be the only thing that makes decisions for us as a people.
*Daesh has become preferable to ISIS because it de-emphasizes both the group's legitimacy as a 'state' and its Islamic rhetoric. http://metro.co.uk/2015/11/17/whats-in-a-name-this-is-why-more-people-are-using-the-word-daesh-instead-of-isis-5507536/
**Although I continue to roll my eyes at the use of this phrase to imply that America is just somehow better. American Exceptionalism was a concept semi-coined by Alexis de Tocqueville and referred to the fact that America was founded deliberately, based on an idea. This contrasted with the historical reality that most countries were formed by land grabs, political alliances, or leadership changes of some sort. America was the first modern country that was designed conceptually - not merely taken.
