Refugees Welcome

 

I’ve tried writing this post for several weeks now—since attending a rally at the Idaho Statehouse dubbed “Refugees Welcome in Idaho.” It was a nice event. Nothing fancy — just a bunch of people gathering on the Capitol steps for a photo, in an attempt to show support for refugees in Idaho — both those who are already here, and those who will likely be heading here in the wake of the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis. This seemed like a simple enough story to write—a humanitarian “feel good” piece, if you will—although as I thought and read more about it, it proved to be anything but simple. First, a little context: 

While it might surprise some, taking in refugees is nothing new for Idaho, which has been doing it since 1975, beginning under then-Governor John Evans. Idaho now accepts roughly 1,000 refugees per year from a variety of nations — including some predominantly Muslim countries—three-fourths of whom settle in Boise. By and large, there have been few problems. Boise continues to enjoy low unemployment, low crime, and a high quality of life. There have been no notable clashes, no serious violence that I can recall in my nineteen years of living here. If anything, Boise’s refugees have added value and diversity to our community, and a great many have worked hard while eventually becoming U.S. citizens.

Despite this history, however, there were reasons to rally in support of refugees. Anti-Muslim sentiment is at a fever pitch in Idaho’s Tea Party-dominated legislature, which, just earlier this year, made national news for killing a bill to enforce child support judgments on inarticulable concerns that passing the bill might somehow jeopardize Idaho’s sovereignty and impose “Sharia law” on Idaho’s citizens. Thankfully, a special session was later called and cooler heads prevailed. However, it wasn’t long after that citizens of Twin Falls, a small city roughly two hours East of Boise, began lobbying for the closure of its smaller refugee center located there, due to fears of importing Muslim extremists.

And then there are the public comments that appear in the op-ed pages, much like those appearing beneath the news stories covering the Statehouse rally. Comments like “we don’t want terrorists in Idaho. Send them to California with the rest of the scum,” and “no we do not welcome you! Not in idaho and not in the USA!! We’re full!! Stay in your country!!,” and worse, still: “f**k Islam (sic) and there (sic) muslim refugees. Idaho dose (sic) not need you . . . (deleted due to sheer obscenity) . . . You are not welcome. Go the f**k home  you (deleted) pice (sic) of sh*t. The only good Muslim is a dead one back in their country.”

And the deeper one digs, the darker and stranger it gets. It took only seconds, for example, to find a blog headline proclaiming that the Obama administration was planning to “colonize” Idaho with “thousands of Muslim refugees from Syria.”

While this type of hysteria has only deepened my desire to address the issue, it hasn’t made writing about it any easier. For it would be easy to simply cherry pick the most extreme examples of anti-refugee sentiment and hold them up as indicative of the views of everyone harboring concerns about refugees. We see this tactic all the time in modern political “discourse,” and it accomplishes little, other than to incite anger and further entrench people in their beliefs. The real challenge is in attempting to find common ground.

But finding common ground seems a near-impossible task. Americans are farther apart in their beliefs, now, than at anytime I can recall. Hateful rhetoric has become commonplace, thanks in no small part to Super PACs pumping billions into public outrage campaigns, shameless politicians using fear to scapegoat and gain political advantage, and media outlets perpetuating and exploiting hatred and paranoia under the guise of actual “news.”

The result is that facts are no longer germane to political debate. Whereas we once debated policies and positions in the context of mostly agreed-upon facts, today, facts and reason are largely moot. Everyone has their own “facts,” and believes that everyone else’s are biased and contrived. We now exist in alternate, parallel realities, defined largely by our predispositions, the people we surround ourselves with, and the information bubbles we choose to dwell in. Public opinion festers and breeds in this post-academic, post-journalistic backwater, where beliefs are formed not from rational thought and honest debate, but naked, often unsupported ideological assumptions. Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the realm of issues involving immigration, refugees, or anything touching upon Islam.

So what, then, does this leave? If calling out the most obvious bigots and haters is oversimplified and self-defeating, and attempting to engage in a discussion of facts is pointless, what ground is left to turn? Are we doomed to simply exist in separate, isolated camps, yelling at each other from across an ever-widening divide? Is there any point in trying to write about it at all?

After struggling with this last question for weeks, the answer finally struck me, and it is an unqualified “yes.” Moreover, it was staring me in the face the entire time. On a small coffee table across from where I write, sits a framed photo of my “step-niece,” “L,” who recently turned one. She’s wearing a little headband with a knitted bow to one side, and is looking directly at me with innocent, trusting eyes. She’s a little American beauty, by any measure.

As I look at baby “L,” it occurs to me that our problem is not an incapacity for love or compassion. Even the most ardent of apparent haters is capable of love, and presumably loves their own children, their own nieces and nephews, families, friends, etc. The problem is that we tend to reserve our love, our compassion, for those we consider our own. To most everyone else, we are indifferent. And if we perceive the other as a threat to the people and beliefs we hold dear, that indifference is transformed into something stronger, like hate.

Hate is thus a very human emotion, and as such, is incredibly easy to manufacture. It’s the simplest of formulas, really: (1) tell people the things they love and value are being threatened, (2) tell them who is threatening those things, (3) lump the threateners together into a single faceless heap, and (4) depict the entire lot of them as something vile, grotesque, and subhuman. It has worked time and again throughout history. It has been used to start and rationalize wars. And it works particularly well today, in a world where people already predisposed to certain viewpoints can receive 24-hour-a-day media reinforcement and validation of their fears and beliefs.

But a decent society cannot remain so if hatred, objectification, and dehumanization are permitted to expand beyond its fringes and embed themselves into mainstream thinking. Morality and justice demand that racist, xenophobic thinking be challenged at every turn — that it not be allowed to become “legitimized” by blowhard “news” commentators, soulless politicians, millionaire televangelists, and industry CEO’s, all of whom profit immensely from perpetuating the types of fear, misinformation, and hysteria that result in things like increased militarization, mass incarceration, and a perpetual state of war.

And the only way to do this is to return the focus to humanity — to deconstruct the cartooned stereotypes and shine light on what truly lies beneath, which of course are actual human beings, not unlike ourselves. People, with children and families of their own who they love and want to protect; people, who want to live freely and work and be part of a community; people, who yearn for nothing more than an opportunity to live simple, peaceful, happy lives.

Confronting the humanity of others forces us to confront and engage our own humanity. And when we are engaged with our humanity, we can likewise engage in intelligent and meaningful discourse and find ways to work together to solve complex problems.

What is the role of the U.S. and other developed countries in an international humanitarian crisis such as the Syrian refugee crisis? Do we have a moral or other obligation to assist? What is an appropriate number of refugees for the U.S. to accept? What might the effect be on the economy, our taxes, our infrastructure, the unemployment rate? What measures can be adopted to ensure our collective safety?

These are fair subjects for debate, and reasonable minds might disagree on some or all of them. But we can only engage in this discourse after cutting through the fear, hysteria, and paranoia that has currently holds so many in its grasp. Put another way, we can only begin to solve our problems when we come to the table with our humanity in tow.

International public opinion concerning the Syrian refugee crisis, once tepid at best, took a dramatic turn after the publication of photos of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after capsizing in an overcrowded rubber boat, attempting refuge on the Greek island of Kos. The photos, though horrific, cut through the mountains of misinformed xenophobia standing between humanitarian action, on the one hand, and cold indifference, on the other. They did so by revealing the refugee crisis for what it truly is: a human crisis of epic proportions. Innocent families fleeing for their lives — running away from the very things many are attempting to depict them as, i.e., fundamentalists, extremists, jihadists. Innocent children crammed into tiny boats with makeshift life jackets, some washed ashore, their lungs drunk with sea water, their bodies bloated, their lives extinguished for no reason at all, other than that those that could have helped, didn’t.

So, before I sign off, let me tell you a little more about little baby “L.” Her father is my step-brother-in-law, a born-and-raised Idahoan. Her mother was also raised in Idaho, although she wasn’t born here. She moved here as a child, along with her parents and brother, as refugees of the Bosnian War.

The Bosnian War was the worst armed conflict in Europe since World War II. Over 100,000 people were killed, and manyfold more wounded and maimed. Over two million innocent people were displaced, many separated forever from their families, their homes, and all they ever knew. It was a war in which rape was used as a military and psychological weapon, resulting in an estimated 20-50 million women being systematically raped, mostly by orthodox, supposedly “Christian” forces.

The family eventually made their way to Boise, some 9,000 miles away, where they began a new life in a new and foreign land. One of baby “L’s” grandparents is of Muslim descent. I’ve never seen an ounce of fanaticism from either of them, unless you count shedding tears at their daughter’s wedding, or lighting up like a Christmas tree in the presence of baby “L.” (They also once took a carving knife to a lamb, but only because they roasted one for a gathering, when they opened their home to friends and extended family to celebrate baby “L’s” birthday).

Baby “L’s” mother and father now live in Seattle and are proud and loving parents. Baby “L” is bright and curious and full of life and love and wonder and potential. Like I mentioned earlier, she’s a little American beauty, by any measure.