I can no longer remain silent about the fear and, in some cases bigotry, being propagated by prominent Alaska and national political leaders against admitting Syrian refugees into our country.
To recap briefly: Some 4 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homeland, which has been bitterly divided by civil war in which more than 200,000 people have been killed. Of these refugees, more than 3 million are now in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Germany has already accepted some 350,000 Syrian refugees; Canada has agreed to accept up to 25,000 by 2017; and the Obama administration announced its intention to accept up to 10,000 this year, unleashing a firestorm of opposition among politicians, local and national, about the “invading hordes” of “mad dog” “jihadists”.
These efforts to whip up hysteria should be added to our national hall of shame, equal to those other modern blights on America’s identity as a land of the free and home of the brave: turning our backs on Jewish refugees on the eve of World War II; our internment of Japanese-American citizens; the McCarthy red-baiting era; and our national blindspot on racism. If there is room for any intolerance it should be against those politicians who, offering a “compassionate” alternative, suggest that we impose a religious litmus test for admission.
It is ironic that two of our leading candidates for the Presidency are children of refugees who fled Castro’s Cuba along with hundreds of thousands of their countrymen in 1960-61 (more than 1 million eventually settled in the United States). Of course, there were foreign agents among these refugees, but our response then was to openly accept that our principles as a nation involve some risk. Our country has been immeasurably enriched by its embrace of these and countless others escaping oppression and war.
Of course, there should be and are rigorous screening mechanisms in place today to ferret out those who would do harm to our country. But let us not sully our national identity by demeaning the countless families fleeing from war. Let us speak out and let us give support to elected officials, like Gov. Bill Walker, who have not bowed to the pressure from other elected officials to buy into the destructive rhetoric that, stripped of its niceties, is hate speech.
Bruce Botelho,
Douglas