Many people are nervous about the influx of Syrian refugees, taking caution in whether or not they should be allowed to enter their country. These refugees aren’t here looking for a handout, they’re escaping a horrible situation in their homeland, and should be taken into whatever country that can afford to help them. Denying these asylum seekers the right of entry is discriminatory and usually based on stereotypes that are being perpetrated by International media.
The Syrian people are just that, people. They should be treated as such, and given the same rights as anybody. Banning them from entry for actions of a few people is not right, and honestly shameful. Obviously the rights of everyone should be protected, but that can’t be done when Germany is banning a group of people from a leisure centre after a sexual assault carried out by young boys. Germans have become increasingly uncomfortable with the presence of the refugees since New Years attacks in Cologne. Most of the suspects have been shown to not even be migrants, and make up only a small part of the sexual assaults in Germany overall.
Middle-Eastern people are stained with the stereotype that all of them are terrorists, which has been ingrained into many people’s minds since the 9/11 attacks, and has continued to exist even now. This makes people fearful of letting Syrian refugees into their respective countries, despite the fact that the stereotype against them is completely false. Mainstream media has blown Islam completely out of the water, portraying it as a religion of violence and terrorism, even though extremists are only a tiny fraction of people, and are not even considered part of the religion by many Muslims. We don’t let the Ku Klux Klan define Protestant Christianity despite their horrible organization that still exists today. Even the government’s anti-terrorism measures focused on Islamic people as a whole, rather than focusing solely on terrorist organizations– at least until 2011, when Obama reformed the Islamophobic practices.
Syria is being torn apart by the ongoing civil war, and many of the nations citizens are looking for any way to leave the country. No one should have to go to sleep at night fearing that they’ll be blown up by one of the many air strikes. That’s no way to live, and we should be willing to help. Not just as Americans, but as humans. We all want to live out the American dream, and should be willing to reach out to those who wish to partake in that dream, even if they’re a brand new American.
Syrian refugees deserve nothing but equal treatment, as anybody should. A solution to look towards is ridding everyone of the Islamophobic notions that have run rampant throughout our nation, as well as many nations overseas. To reduce the amount of violence against refugees, perhaps they should only go towards those countries that actively want them, since moving from one home riddled with violence to another doesn’t offer a good life to those affected by the Syrian civil war. Asylum seekers are looking for a new home, attempting to distance themselves from the tragedies unfolding in their previous country, and we have to welcome them with our arms outstretched.
