“If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.”
-Noam Chomsky (renowned linguist, philosopher, and political commentator)
It is clear to me now, more so than ever, that American foreign policy-makers have elected to live in a world of illusion, in which our Great country, the world’s hegemony, has no obligation to the suffering and misfortune of those who do not reside within our borders. We are in the midst of one of the greatest refugee crises in human history, as more than 11 million Syrian nationals have fled their homeland since 2011. To put this number in perspective, that is roughly the population of Ohio.
For the purpose of this article, here is a brief history of the conflict in Syria. The ethnic make-up of the state is heterogeneous to a detrimental degree; the Sunni and Shi’a sects of Islam divide the Muslim people across fundamental lines, lines which often ordain violence and disunity. Syria has been ruled by the harsh Shi’a dictator Bashar al-Assad since 2000, under whose regime the country has fallen into severe poverty as the wealth disparity rises and the Assads gift assets and state resources to those closest to them. The Arab Spring movement sparked protests led by the Sunni majority in 2011, and by early 2012 the conflict escalated into civil war: armed rebel groups combating violent and militarized government forces. Sunni rebels attracted the support of extremist Islamist groups, like Al-Qaeda (in part funded by US ally Saudi Arabia), and in turn, the predominantly Shi’a state of Iran intervened in support of the Assads. No side of this conflict does any less damage to the civilian population than the other; ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, fundamentally derived from the breakdown of Al-Qaeda) takes over small towns and militarizes them like prison camps, while Assad’s governmental forces lay siege to civilian populations via chemical weapons and air strikes. It is estimated that half of the country has been displaced since the Arab Spring, and many more impoverished, imprisoned, or killed. Neighboring countries which boast political stability, Lebanon and Jordan, have taken in more refugees than they can now handle, according to state officials, and borders are being erected. (In Lebanon, 1/3 of people are refugees, and Jordan has had to cancel World Food Program aid due to domestic economic factors.)
This tale of profound conflict brings us to today; 4 million Syrians have fled their homeland since the beginning of this year, most of whom have been denied access to Lebanon and Jordan, their once-considered safe havens. Thus, the borders of Europe have experienced perhaps the biggest influx of refugees the continent has ever seen. The UN estimates that 300,000 refugees have made it to Europe so far this year, and have been greeted with both helpful policies and resentful xenophobia.
Two major events occurred which have sprung into motion Western sentiment regarding the mass exodus. First, on Thursday, September 3, an abandoned truck was found off a freeway in Austria, in which 71 dead bodies were accounted for. It is believed that the nationality of most, if not all, of the deceased is Syrian, and that those aboard were being smuggled into the country from Hungary (many groups in Eastern Europe run high-profit smuggling endeavors, often clumsily-operated and resulting in such tragedies). The deceased are said to have died by suffocation, though details are still unknown.
Second, a drowned Syrian two-year-old, named Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a beach not far from the resort city of Bodrum, Turkey last week. A controversial image depicting the tragedy has been circling popular media for days: the child’s body washed ashore, next to a civil servant. For many, this image was the first wake-up call, summoning Westerners out of illusion and into the realm of devastating reality: a visual, haunting embodiment of the dangers of exodus. Last year, over 3,000 people died in the Mediterranean Sea aboard ships bound for European coasts, bearing the hope of a new life. Often, ships used to transport refugees are old and decayed, and therefore subject to deterioration and capsizing in rough waters. This year, that death toll is estimated to be 30,000; that is ten times the amount of people who died at sea in the previous year. These numbers exemplify the growing desperation refugees face, in which the risks of an incredibly dangerous, perilous journey to safety are worth escaping the horror engulfing what used to be home.
On Saturday, September 5, roughly 10,000 Syrian refugees arrived in Germany, perhaps one of the most welcoming of the EU states. This new influx includes middle-upper class Syrians: families who, until now, could afford to remain in their homeland in relative safety. This situation is no longer feasible, and migration appears to be the only option. The status is of no matter to some Europeans, who protest that the acceptance of refugees of war will result in negative domestic repercussions. This xenophobia is juxtaposed with the thousands of Europeans who greeted refugees with applause, gifts of basic provisions, such as bottles of water, and “welcome.”
The United States has vowed to accept 2,000 refugees by fall 2015. (Currently, 11,000 Syrians are being vetted by US officials, in the hopes of being granted access into a country most will never see.) Let us examine this number in relative terms: the United States, the most powerful country in the world, which boasts the highest GDP and the most dominant military, will, in one year, accept 20% of the refugees that Germany has accepted in one day. This dichotomy is almost unfathomable.
In a column written by New York Times reporter Roger Cohen, some cultural indicators may help us understand the role European vs. American ideologies play. In a Pew Global Attitudes survey, respondents in America and continental Europe were asked which was more important: “freedom to pursue life’s goals without state interference” or “state guarantees that nobody is in need.” The majority of American polltakers (58%) preferred the freedom to pursue their goals, while the majority of Europeans (62%) preferred that government eradicate neediness. It is important not to misread this survey; it is not to say that Americans are inherently greedy, self-serving people, and that Europeans are charitable by nature. This simply is not the case. However, there is a fundamental ideological difference between privileging the individual vs. the collective. America was founded on the principle of small government, individual-realization of potential, and the establishment of basic liberties protecting the citizen from the state. This is a cultural phenomenon very unique to the United States, and, while many admire this rhetoric and positively reinforce it with words like “rights” and “opportunities,” there is a dark shadow it seems to cast on those who were not born into said rights and opportunities, but nonetheless seek those ideals out.
Xenophobia in the United States has reached a critical moment, in which it renders the one necessary act of human kindness to be outside of the realm of possibility, for the country (US!) most able to provide it. Because the United States is unwilling to open our borders to those most in need, we are failing, on the most basic level, in our role as hegemony. With great power comes great responsibility, and ignoring that responsibility on grounds of stigma, prejudice, covetousness, and ignorance, is to live in a backwards illusion. Human beings, who did not elect to watch their homeland literally crumble, have almost no hope if the most powerful country in the world, the one most capable of providing effective aid, refuses to welcome them.
This is no longer a political issue; the crisis stretches beyond partisanship. It is a human catastrophe, and I refuse to misconstrue this as the burden of another. It is time for the United States to exemplify the qualities we purport so much and accept that this burden is one that confronts the human species, without preference for nationality, ethnicity, or religion. The suffering of millions of displaced people is the suffering of our humankind.
To support the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the US, please sign this petition.
