Even for me — born safely in America well after the end of World War II, three or more generations removed from my ancestors who joined the human tide out of Europe seeking the promise of the New World — the images and interviews coming out of the refugee crisis in Europe this month have been triggering.
The xenophobia and fear with which the Hungarian government has met these tired, desperate people reminds me of what happened in the run-up to World War II, when desperate Jewish families fled Europe and were turned away at border after border, including here in the U.S. when they tried to enter by ship.
Now it’s a fear of Muslim people that is hardening the hearts of authorities grappling with a staggering number of refugees, most from Syria (some of whom are not Muslim but Christian), with some from Iraq and Afghanistan mixed in. Yet even the most cursory scan of the news from this crisis shows that these are not the kind of radical Islamic people of whom we in the West have just cause to be fearful.
These are clean-shaven young men and well-dressed young women, many with children and babies in their arms. Many are university students and aspiring professionals, young people whose parents and grandparents must have given everything they had to muster the resources necessary to send their sons and daughters on this dangerous journey to a safer, more prosperous part of the world.
As has been noted by many commentators, this is a refugee crisis manufactured by failed foreign policies of the West, starting with the murky CIA support of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s; the alliance with Saudi Arabia, which has supported radical Islamists with its vast wealth and regional power; and of course the disastrous invasion and destruction of Iraq, the failed war in Afghanistan, and the refusal to fully engage during the implosion of Syria.
The West has spent billions on war in this region, a violent approach that only seems to beget more violence. The Islamic radicals, morphing from the Taliban to Al Quaeda to the Islamic State, have only grown stronger, feeding on resistance to a West that can easily be painted as a hostile aggressor.
The exhausted people trying desperately to get to safe haven in Europe — with too many dying along the way — are part of the solution, not part of the problem. If they liked and respected the Islamic State, they would be staying in their homes, not fleeing into the chaos of the unknown.
These young men and women, seeking education and opportunity in the West, might be our allies in the necessary struggle to isolate and delegitimize the Islamic radicals — the ones who have been perpetrating ethnic cleansing, sexual slavery and beheadings, blowing up priceless archeological sites, and trying to return the region to a Medieval-style Islamic Caliphate.
The young Muslims fleeing the destruction of their countries deserve kindness and helping hands, and many on the ground in Europe, including Iceland, have been showing just that. I want to know why the U.S. has not been more engaged in offering asylum to some of these people, as we have to previous streams of refugees coming out of Somalia and Sudan. Canada, too, has been very slow to perceive a need for involvement.
How, I wonder, would we in the Berkshires respond to a sudden influx of several thousand newcomers from a faraway war-torn land? I want to believe that we would be as open-hearted and generous as the Icelanders, thousands of whom have offered to house the refugees in their homes until permanent housing can be arranged.
It’s clear to me from the news reports and the photos coming out of Hungary, Austria and Germany, which have been receiving thousands of refugees per day for the past several weeks, that these are the kind of ambitious young people who will go far and do well wherever they’re planted, once they’re given a chance to succeed.
The sad photo of little Aylan Kurdi, drowned at sea with his mother and brother, has finally succeeded in penetrating the detachment of all of us who have the luxury of watching the news from the safety of our living rooms. If we imagine Aylan multiplied by thousands of children, and indeed millions when we consider the violent destruction that has been wreaked on Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria over the past decade, our hearts must truly break at the waste of these young lives, and the callous disregard with which the world has let this tragedy unfold.
As John Lennon famously wrote, before he himself was cut down by violence, we need to begin to use our imaginations to envision and then create a better world than the one we’ve inherited from the past. There is such wisdom in Aesop’s fable of the Sun and the North Wind, who compete to control a man by making him take off his coat. No matter how violently the Wind blows, the man is not persuaded to remove his coat. But the Sun, through kind, gentle warmth, easily charms the coat off the man.
The moral of the story: if we want peace and harmony, we must employ the gentle arts of diplomacy — communication, empathy, respect — rather than the harsh arts of war. The young men and woman so fervently seeking safe haven in the West may be the diplomats of tomorrow, who can help bring peace to their war-torn homelands. They deserve a warm welcome and a leg up as they re-establish themselves in their new countries.
I wonder whether it might be possible to create an American “sister city” movement for the Middle East, as we have “sister cities” in Europe and Latin America? Could my town of Great Barrington reach out to a town in Syria and try to establish communication and a helping hand? Can we begin to imagine and work towards a day, as Lennon wrote, when “the world will live as one”?
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The weekly EDGE WISE column is curated by Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D., associate professor of comparative literature, gender studies and media studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and the Founding Director of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers. Women writers interested in publishing in EDGE WISE can find writers’ guidelines on the Festival website, or may submit queries or columns to Jennifer@berkshirewomenwriters.org.
