We should stop islamophiobia

  

Islamophobia Adds to he Syrian Refugee Crisis 

 Immigration and turmoil in the Middle East have always been “hot topics” that resurface in every American presidential election. Even though there are many other presidents who have taken discriminatory actions against certain minorities of people, such as internment camps for the Japanese in World War II, Donald J. Trump, the 45th president, let loose his Islamophobia to such an extent that he has proposed an unconstitutional ban an entire race of people (Muslims) from entering the U.S., because he assumes that all Muslims are terrorists. In other words, amid all the Islamophobic hysteria, the U.S. is trying to deal with an unprecedented number of Syrian refugees coming into the country, who are trying to escape the Syrian civil war that has raged since 2011. 

Although we are called upon to act, our political parties are very polarized; some do not believe that the U.S. should play much of a role in helping refugees directly or indirectly. Congress is extremely divided on this issue. There can be some resolution to this humanitarian crisis if Western nations and the world come together regardless of their differences. One approach to ending this crisis would be to create solutions through a worldwide collaboration of countries sponsored by the UN. However, to find solutions to the address the social barriers faced by Syrian refugees, Islamophobia must be overcome. Even though Islamophobia is not the direct cause of the crisis, it is still a strong barrier to finding solutions to this social problem. 

      To understand the severity and the extent of this humanitarian crisis, we need to create a context in which people can study the history of Syria. This allows people to discover what factors led to the Syrian refugee crisis. As a result, people need to analyze the roots of the Syrian refugee crisis, because Syrian refugees are a result of the Syrian civil war. There are many causes of the Syrian civil war, which was inspired by the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya (the Arab Spring in 2011). Like the nations that were part of the Arab Spring, many Syrians wanted to overthrow the dictatorial Assad regime who founder ruled with an iron from March 1971 until his death on June 2000). 

Due to the lack of freedoms and economic woes which fueled public anger and resentment of the Syrian government. Conflict began with antigovernment protests that divided Syrians into two groups. One group remained loyal to their President Bashar al-Assad, while the other group opposed Assad’s regime and fought for democracy in Syria (BBC News 2016). However, the conflict escalated to a civil war

 

An increase in Islamophobia and an irrational belief that all Muslims and refugees are terrorists is now causing an unprecedented ban on Muslims entering the U.S. Such a belief is irrational because it labels and stigmatizes all Muslims, including the majority who practice the actual religion of Islam correctly and peacefully. Muslims are not radicals who justify the killing of innocent people. The Quran absolutely prohibits the killing of innocent people (5:32). 

With an increase in Islamophobia, and an irrational belief that all Muslims and refugees are terrorists, many politicians, especially Republicans, wish to stop accepting Syrian refugees into the U.S. This chauvinistic action is simply based on the stereotype that all Muslims are radical extremists like ISIS, which is a politically motivated organization of radicals who justify killing their own kind. To cure Islamophobia, people need to become educated and have a cultural education of the Islam and its actual teachings. “Muslims” “practice the peaceful religion of Islam and renounce the violent practices of radical extremism. If people could address and recognize their Islamophobia, there would be no reason for people to fear Syrian refugees and stop them from coming to the U.S. Because a great many Americans have misconceptions about Islam, many politicians, especially Republicans, wish to stop accepting Syrian refugees into the U.S. If the American people could join with the worldwide, peaceful Muslim majority and get past their Islamophobia, there would be no reason to fear Syrian refugees or need to stop them from coming to the U.S. There have been many studies on the political, social and economic status of Syrian refugees who have been living in countries such as Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011. These studies include one by Susan Bartels and Kathleen Hamil; the authors discovered the fact that 500,000 refugee children have been living in Lebanon for more than 10 days since November 2013 (Bartels & Hamil, 2015). The researchers reported two main findings in this study. First, parents must decide if they should send their children to work in potentially dangerous environments in order to support the family or if they should send them to school. However, even families who want to send their children to school have very limited opportunities or resources such as food and income if any, to find a school to attend. The lack of opportunity and education for the children resulted in a second finding for Bartles and Hamil who found that these constraints and limitations deprive children of adequate food, education, health care, and play. As a result, many Syrian refugee children have suffered both short- and long-term physical and psychosocial development issues (Bartels & Hamil, 2015). 

This finding is significant because it shows that the safety and well-being of Syrian refugees is compromised. Furthermore, these findings show the internal and external struggles that Syrian refugees face, shedding light on the complicated dimensions of the refugee crisis that western society has never witnessed or taken into consideration. This is why the refugee crisis is now a serious global phenomenon that has not only affected Syria, but also the entire world. Western countries must expand their constrained perspectives on the Syrian refugee crisis and realize that they might be the refugees’ only chance at survival. In order to truly to help these refugees, westerners must overcome their emotional disengagement from problems other people face. Unlike the westerner who can turn off the TV news or choose a cartoon instead, the refugees face violence every day from which they cannot escape on their own. Westerners are so alienated from other people’s problems that they do not see that war, economic livelihood and the emotional and educational needs of children are interlinked.

Western nations have a capitalist ideology, which makes most people react to foreign problems with indifference, and hostility. This is the case with the Syrian refugees because people in Western nations do not realize that they have a false conscientiousness about issues that do not directly affect them. They do not react to facts, or problems, that do not fit into their personal worldview (Rizzo, 2016 – The Syrian Revolution Debate | We Write What We Like. Retrieved October 22, 2016, from 

"Syrian Humanitarian Crisis: SOLIDAR Members in Action in crisis .) As a result, it is important to know how to frame Syrian refugees and the refugee crisis in positive ways in order to find solutions. Therefore, even though the European Parliament think tank supports the admission of Syrian refugees (Selby,49 ), the negative way they frame the refugee crisis as a simple migration issue thereby belittles the seriousness of the refugee crisis. At the same time, this type of rhetoric and bad media representation of Syrian refugees is sending an extremely negative message to the word that the refugee problem is not an important enough issue to solve.   

Furthermore, Islamophobia is creating a fear of Syrian refugees as terrorists, causing the problem to get worse rather than being solved. To solve the refugee crisis, people need to stop hiding behind their fear of terrorism and Islamophobia to understand that the majority of Syrian refugees actually are innocent people who are escaping their countries because of conflict. After all, refugees are not seen as terrorists but as innocent people in need of protection. Therefore, people need to change how they view refugees because the only way to solve the refugee crisis is to correctly identify the roots of the problem which not only lie in Islamophobia, but also how refugees are depicted. Generally, people identify refugees as people who need protection and a safe place to live not as terrorists. However, Syrian refugees are assumed terrorists rather than innocent people. If Western nations view the Syrian refugees the same as other refugees the world could find solutions for crisis. This approach would be the right and ideal one instead of our current approach of banning innocent Syrian refugees because they are falsely being lumped into the same category as terrorists, which is creating a a big problem

  

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