The Refugee Crisis

Terrorists Refugees and Racism

Syrian toddler found to have drowned and washed up on the coast of turkey.

TThe Syrian refugee crisis has been and continues to be an enormous headache for individual governments as well as international entities (like the European Union). The crisis arose from how the Assad regime in Syria has not been able to protect its own citizens from both rebel groups and Assad’s own military. Because of the constant violence throughout the country, the U.N. has estimated that 6 million people have been displaced within the country. In addition, approximately 3 million refugees have fled the war torn country[1]. Thus a problem has been created on finding countries to host all the refugees. It must also be taken into account that the violence and war in Syria has been by large a product of Western governments prodding where they should not; thus, they must take a responsibility to amend their transgressions against the Syrian people.

            Aside from Germany, who has pledged to take in a significant number of the refugees who have fled war in Syria by migrating to Europe, few Western nations have stepped up to take in refugees. In the United States, governors and senators are coming out to oppose letting the U.S. or their respective state taking in any of the refugees. Especially after the Paris attacks, people reject refugees on the basis of a fear that a terrorist may find him or herself an easy path to the United States by claiming to be a refugee fleeing the war in Syria. This fear-fueled sentiment is inherently racist as it falsely associates the people fleeing violence with those trying to perpetuate it merely because they are of the same “race”. We automatically categorize foreign, Middle-Eastern Muslims to be terror threats. This is a ridiculous generalization to make. It would be equivalent to looking at every white Christian in the same way as one look at a domestic terror threat like a KKK member or a school shooter.

            The social construction of race is so powerful that we inaccurately assign drastic behaviors to whole groups of people who share little to no similarities other than living in the same general region and sharing a religion (even the sects of the religion and the method of practice/ideologies can be very different). These racist notions blind us and restrict us from assisting those who need our help.

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[1] "Syrian Refugees." Syrian Refugees. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Nov. 2015. <http://syrianrefugees.eu/>.