news
11-25-2015, 04:17 PM
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-11-25-1448409857-7673265-ScreenShot20151124at6.02.45PM-thumb.png (http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2015-11-25-1448409857-7673265-ScreenShot20151124at6.02.45PM.png)
Picture this: You are in a boat in the middle of the Atlantic. It's freezing. As you close your eyes in an attempt to get away from the misery surrounding your life, you think of your destroyed home in Damascus. Home, the term seems so foreign. You wonder, will I ever find a safe place in Europe that I can finally call home?
Screaming, you hear screaming. Too small to fit its 70 passengers and so weak that it succumbs to the merciless waves, your boat has begun to capsize. Before you know it, you are all in the water.
As you cling to your lifejacket, begging it to help you stay afloat, you realize that half of you don't have one because they had to be bought in Libya and the smuggler promised the boat would be safe. He promised.
As you struggle to locate your family members you notice that people are now clinging to dead bodies. You see your wife yet as you reach out to grab her desperate shivering hand, you are both separated by a wave.
With each wave you see your children disappear. You are now screaming. Several hours pass and you are finally rescued. Your wife and children were never located, they remain lost somewhere between life and death. You are brought into France only to hear that Syrian refugees are now a demographic threat.
Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet writes (https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/no-one-puts-their-children-in-a-boat-unless-the-wa/), "You have to understand, no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land." According to the UN Refugee Agency, it is estimated that there are over 4.2 million Syrian refugees, each one fleeing the same terror that the world is unjustly accusing them of.
A recent poll (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-11-18/bloomberg-poll-most-americans-oppose-syrian-refugee-resettlement) shows that 53 percent of Americans are against accepting Syrian refugees into the United States. This Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will sit down with their loved ones and spend more on Thanksgiving dinners in one day (http://www.fb.org/newsroom/news_article/369/) than the average Syrian refugee receives in food assistance per month (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/syrias-refugee-crisis-in-numbers/). Ironically, this is all done in celebration of the first refugees to be accepted into the United States.
The Paris attacks were a tragedy, there is no belittling that. As a Muslim, I took it upon myself (https://twitter.com/WeTeachLifeSir_/status/665312807479435265) to make it clear that Muslims condemn terrorist attacks just as loudly and unhesitantly as anyone else. My tweet was seen by over six million people worldwide (more than total number of primetime viewers CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC has combined) yet Muslims have continued to receive unjustified hatred following these attacks, most clearly seen with the Syrian refugees. I believe this is mostly because the discussions about the Paris attacks and the Syrian refugees are not being held on any sort of intellectual or factual level.
So let's discuss the facts:
1. Not a single one of the Paris attackers were Syrian refugees. This is according to top European Union officials (http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/16/3722838/all-paris-attackers-identified-so-far-are-european-nationals-according-to-top-eu-official/).
2. The Syrian passport found at the scene of the Paris attack is either stolen or fake (http://www.nytimes.com/live/paris-attacks-live-updates/syrian-passport-reportedly-was-stolen-or-fake/), according to the Agence France-Presse. Not only that, but another fake copy of it was found (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/serbian-police-arrest-man-with-syrian-passport-matching-paris-attackers) on a man arrested by Serbian officials.
3. Of the 750,000 refugees resettled in America since 9/11, not a single Syrian refugee (http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/10/economist-explains-13) has been arrested on terror charges. In fact, not a single refugee of any nationality from the Middle East has been arrested on domestic terror charges in the United States in the past fifteen years.
4. Nearly 90% of Syrian refugees do not support ISIS (http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/40ebdf12-8960-4d18-8088-7c8a077e522e). Additionally, it is evident that the United States places itself at a greater risk (http://www.michael-findley.com/uploads/2/0/4/5/20455799/ii_2013_refugees-terrorism.pdf) by not accepting the Syrian refugees and thus forcing them to resettle in unstable Middle Eastern countries where they could become radicalized.
5. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php), 25.4% of Syrian refugees are women and 51.2% of Syrian refugees are children. This means that 76.7% of Syrian refugees are women and children: people who pose no threat or danger. The United States State Department itself has noted that only 2% (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/state-department-only-2-of-syrian-refugees-in-us-are-militar#.tipW56BLp) of Syrian Refugees in U.S. are military-aged men with no family that would pose a threat.
There is a painful irony about how the majority of Americans who oppose providing aid and assistance to the refugees are currently preparing to celebrate a holiday commemorating the aid and assistance religious refugees once received from the natives of this nation.
Our Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Such is the foundation upon which our nation was built: one of welcoming fellow human beings seeking a safe haven from their oppression. It would be antithetical for us as Americans to reject Syrian refugees when our founding fathers sacrificed dearly to establish a nation in which all humans are granted the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The President of France has promised to welcome 30,000 refugees over the next two years despite the attacks which occurred in his own country, because he understands that it is wrong to blame the refugees for the same terror they are dying to escape. More importantly, he noted that he would not allow terrorists to scare the French people from staying true to their values.
We as Americans cannot allow unjustified fear to prevent us from helping a suffering people. We are stronger than that. As you sit with your loved ones this Thanksgiving, please ruminate about the fact that you would not be having that Thanksgiving dinner if your family or forefathers were not once welcomed into this nation just as the Syrian refugees have every right to be. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/1/rc.img (http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/1/rc.htm)
http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/2/rc.img (http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/2/rc.htm)
http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/3/rc.img (http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/3/rc.htm)
http://da.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2.img (http://da.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2.htm)
http://adchoice.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/ach.img (http://adchoice.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/ach.htm)http://pi.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2t.imghttp://pi2.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2t2.imghttp://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677045/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/mf.gif
More... (http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677045/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/l/0L0Shuffingtonpost0N0Comar0Ealnatour0Cthe0Ehypocri tical0Ethanksgiving0Eturkey0Ib0I86427160Bhtml/story01.htm)
Picture this: You are in a boat in the middle of the Atlantic. It's freezing. As you close your eyes in an attempt to get away from the misery surrounding your life, you think of your destroyed home in Damascus. Home, the term seems so foreign. You wonder, will I ever find a safe place in Europe that I can finally call home?
Screaming, you hear screaming. Too small to fit its 70 passengers and so weak that it succumbs to the merciless waves, your boat has begun to capsize. Before you know it, you are all in the water.
As you cling to your lifejacket, begging it to help you stay afloat, you realize that half of you don't have one because they had to be bought in Libya and the smuggler promised the boat would be safe. He promised.
As you struggle to locate your family members you notice that people are now clinging to dead bodies. You see your wife yet as you reach out to grab her desperate shivering hand, you are both separated by a wave.
With each wave you see your children disappear. You are now screaming. Several hours pass and you are finally rescued. Your wife and children were never located, they remain lost somewhere between life and death. You are brought into France only to hear that Syrian refugees are now a demographic threat.
Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet writes (https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/no-one-puts-their-children-in-a-boat-unless-the-wa/), "You have to understand, no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land." According to the UN Refugee Agency, it is estimated that there are over 4.2 million Syrian refugees, each one fleeing the same terror that the world is unjustly accusing them of.
A recent poll (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-11-18/bloomberg-poll-most-americans-oppose-syrian-refugee-resettlement) shows that 53 percent of Americans are against accepting Syrian refugees into the United States. This Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will sit down with their loved ones and spend more on Thanksgiving dinners in one day (http://www.fb.org/newsroom/news_article/369/) than the average Syrian refugee receives in food assistance per month (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/syrias-refugee-crisis-in-numbers/). Ironically, this is all done in celebration of the first refugees to be accepted into the United States.
The Paris attacks were a tragedy, there is no belittling that. As a Muslim, I took it upon myself (https://twitter.com/WeTeachLifeSir_/status/665312807479435265) to make it clear that Muslims condemn terrorist attacks just as loudly and unhesitantly as anyone else. My tweet was seen by over six million people worldwide (more than total number of primetime viewers CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC has combined) yet Muslims have continued to receive unjustified hatred following these attacks, most clearly seen with the Syrian refugees. I believe this is mostly because the discussions about the Paris attacks and the Syrian refugees are not being held on any sort of intellectual or factual level.
So let's discuss the facts:
1. Not a single one of the Paris attackers were Syrian refugees. This is according to top European Union officials (http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/16/3722838/all-paris-attackers-identified-so-far-are-european-nationals-according-to-top-eu-official/).
2. The Syrian passport found at the scene of the Paris attack is either stolen or fake (http://www.nytimes.com/live/paris-attacks-live-updates/syrian-passport-reportedly-was-stolen-or-fake/), according to the Agence France-Presse. Not only that, but another fake copy of it was found (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/17/serbian-police-arrest-man-with-syrian-passport-matching-paris-attackers) on a man arrested by Serbian officials.
3. Of the 750,000 refugees resettled in America since 9/11, not a single Syrian refugee (http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/10/economist-explains-13) has been arrested on terror charges. In fact, not a single refugee of any nationality from the Middle East has been arrested on domestic terror charges in the United States in the past fifteen years.
4. Nearly 90% of Syrian refugees do not support ISIS (http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/40ebdf12-8960-4d18-8088-7c8a077e522e). Additionally, it is evident that the United States places itself at a greater risk (http://www.michael-findley.com/uploads/2/0/4/5/20455799/ii_2013_refugees-terrorism.pdf) by not accepting the Syrian refugees and thus forcing them to resettle in unstable Middle Eastern countries where they could become radicalized.
5. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/regional.php), 25.4% of Syrian refugees are women and 51.2% of Syrian refugees are children. This means that 76.7% of Syrian refugees are women and children: people who pose no threat or danger. The United States State Department itself has noted that only 2% (http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/state-department-only-2-of-syrian-refugees-in-us-are-militar#.tipW56BLp) of Syrian Refugees in U.S. are military-aged men with no family that would pose a threat.
There is a painful irony about how the majority of Americans who oppose providing aid and assistance to the refugees are currently preparing to celebrate a holiday commemorating the aid and assistance religious refugees once received from the natives of this nation.
Our Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Such is the foundation upon which our nation was built: one of welcoming fellow human beings seeking a safe haven from their oppression. It would be antithetical for us as Americans to reject Syrian refugees when our founding fathers sacrificed dearly to establish a nation in which all humans are granted the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The President of France has promised to welcome 30,000 refugees over the next two years despite the attacks which occurred in his own country, because he understands that it is wrong to blame the refugees for the same terror they are dying to escape. More importantly, he noted that he would not allow terrorists to scare the French people from staying true to their values.
We as Americans cannot allow unjustified fear to prevent us from helping a suffering people. We are stronger than that. As you sit with your loved ones this Thanksgiving, please ruminate about the fact that you would not be having that Thanksgiving dinner if your family or forefathers were not once welcomed into this nation just as the Syrian refugees have every right to be. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. (http://start.westnet.ca/newstempch.php?article=terms.html/) It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/1/rc.img (http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/1/rc.htm)
http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/2/rc.img (http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/2/rc.htm)
http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/3/rc.img (http://rc.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/rc/3/rc.htm)
http://da.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2.img (http://da.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2.htm)
http://adchoice.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/ach.img (http://adchoice.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/ach.htm)http://pi.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2t.imghttp://pi2.feedsportal.com/r/244159570690/u/0/f/677045/c/35496/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/a2t2.imghttp://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677045/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/mf.gif
More... (http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/c/35496/f/677045/s/4bc91f48/sc/7/l/0L0Shuffingtonpost0N0Comar0Ealnatour0Cthe0Ehypocri tical0Ethanksgiving0Eturkey0Ib0I86427160Bhtml/story01.htm)