I fear this won't be as polished a post as I would normally
put out, but that's because all of this stuff concerning the Paris attacks (and
the lesser publicized Beirut attack) is still visceral and raw. I will address several
complaints and concerns that have arisen nationally and internationally in
bullet form.
·
The fact that the Paris attacks overshadowed the
attacks in Lebanon
o
There was a horrific suicide bombing in Lebanon
the day before the Paris attacks in which 250 people were either killed or
wounded. This is as much a tragedy as when it happens anywhere else in the world
– but we barely heard anything about it in the US, it was like a blip of a CNN
headline. Then Friday all that shit went down in Paris and the Beirut bombing
was basically forgotten – and the Lebanese people were fairly pissed off about
that. I will say this – they have a right to feel forgotten. In the West, they
basically were overlooked by the media. It is very depressing to assert this,
but in the USA we are so used to awful acts of carnage happening in the Middle
East that even something as large as this attack in Beirut is practically
run-of-the-mill. It's the opposite of shocking. So while these poor people are
suffering – and their losses are just as real and hard as those who are
suffering in Paris – they're basically suffering on their own. However – Paris self-identifies
as a cosmopolitan place and generally thought of as safe, even in light of the
Charlie Hebdo killings earlier this year. So for this to happen - coordinated
attacks in multiple locations – it's fairly shocking to the West because this
sort of thing is NOT run-of-the-mill in France. Does that justify Paris getting
all the press and Beirut getting barely any? No – but it does explain why it
happened that way.
·
Leaders in the USA (and presumably other
European nations) refusing to accept Syrian refugees
o
As of today 27 governors in the US have said
they won't accept Syrian refugees in their states – BIG SURPRISE they're all
(save one) Republican. World leaders in Europe have been resistant to accepting
refuges before this terrorist attack happened so it's not a stretch to suppose
that they will be using this example to justify their position and close their
borders. On the one hand – I immediately understand why. The theory is at least
one of the ISIS terrorists snuck into France by posing as a Syrian refugee with
the intention of carrying out this attack. He got through 3 separate nations
with a falsified identity. EXCEPT THAT GERMAN INTELLIGENCE NOW SUGGESTS THAT
THE PASSPORT WAS FAKED AND THE TERRORIST ACTUALLY ENTERED FRANCE FROM GERMANY. If this is true then ISIS really is trying to
help scapegoat refugees as punishment for not joining them in their mad
ideology. Sadly, though, the fear that there are ISIS agents posing as refugees
is a real fear – it can happen and precautions should be taken when screening
people, period.
o
That being said – it is my strong belief that by
alienating and vilifying millions of people displaced by a brutal civil war,
stuck between hostile factions in the Middle East and racist elitist nations in
neighboring Europe – we are going to create a new version of ISIS. If we do not
offer assistance to these people – most of whom were regular everyday people
with jobs and families and hobbies and boring home-lives – we are going to breed
a generation of men and women who are going to resent and hate the West for
refusing them in their time of need. Even if we manage to come together and
form an effective coalition with Russia and Iran and other NATO allies and do
basically stomp out ISIS – years from now we will be dealing with a similar
problem because we refused to help the Syrian expatriates abroad.
o
I don't pretend to be a brilliant politician or
humanitarian, so I can't speak to logistics, but I think every nation belonging
to the largely ineffective United Nations (that isn't in the midst of a civil
war or other violent border dispute) should have to take in a minimum of 10,000
refugees. I think the refuges should be given designated areas in less
populated regions to occupy and that they should be restricted in their
movement - no visits to crowded cities
or access to mass transportation until it has been established that they aren't
behaving suspiciously (via the internet or on cell phones or buying
questionable materials). People who provide services to the refugee camps
should all be screened themselves to make sure they aren't radicalized or enabling
terrorism to turn a profit. I'm not suggesting the refugees be marked with
yellow stars or monitored in a dystopian-fantasy novel sort of way, but
security measures should be taken to prevent people getting lost in the
shuffle. All the while the children
should be enrolled in camp schools, hopefully to be run by former Syrian educators
as well as local teachers who can teach the lingua franca as well as national
culture to familiarize the refugees with their new surroundings. Adults should
be interviewed to assess their skill sets to match them up with roles they can
provide in the camps and if relevant in local communities so they aren't
sitting idly with their grief and anxiety.
o
My ideas are all well-intentioned, but I admit
to enact this will be impossibly difficult financially and socially (nearly the
world over) because most governments and individual people are dysfunctional xenophobes,
so hosting nations do face quite a burden. But come on – did you flee your home
recently to escape religious and political extremists and daily drone bombings only
to be met with cold rejection by a country that is much less fucked up than
yours? Eleven million Syrians have done this recently – 11,000,000! That's like
the entire population of NYC plus Nassau County up and leaving – it's a staggering
amount of people. I have a strong case when I say by leaving these people out
in the cold you're making a fictional narrative provided by an insane despot in
the near-future sound really attractive to these refugees – it's better to
provide relief now so that 10 years down the line we don't have wandering
Syrian militias seeking vengeance on the decadent heartless West.
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