Tag: refugees

Syria: Between a rock and a hard place

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author, Michael Corgan

Does the ongoing Syrian civil war have echoes of the Spanish civil war of nearly 80 years ago?

Unnamed grave with teddy bear for fallen children in Syria.
Unnamed grave with teddy bear for fallen children in Syria. Photo by Bernd Schwabe used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

If the conflict were only between the Syrian government and rebel forces (as was true in opposing Franco), then it would be easy for liberal or humanitarian interventionists to oppose what Assad has done to his people and support the rebellion. Indeed, many have already done so.

During the Spanish civil war, as far as outsiders were concerned, there were communists versus Nazis, and a choice was unappealing on those grounds. In Syria today, outsiders of equally unsavory character and practices are intervening for their own purposes, and that makes choosing sides problematic.

Hezbollah supports Assad and Al Qaeda has an increasing role in shaping rebel efforts. How can one aid either side without aiding those Shia and Sunni extremist militant groups so fond of terrorists tactics, and so responsible, in Syria as elsewhere, for the deaths of many innocent Muslims?

As far as outside interests go, you also have the U.S. trying to assert some role in the area versus Russia, which is loath to abandon a long-time client state and lose its only overseas base.

The biggest problem is for the neighboring outsiders. Turkey can probably handle the huge influx of refugees from the fighting, but Jordan is strained and poor fractured Lebanon could fall apart as enlivened Shia-Sunni fighting spills into its land.

There seems to be no workable ending in sight. Nor even a less deadly one. The best that the watching world can do now is to take care of the refugees whose numbers continually swell.

Established as a colonial state (Imperialism still stinks, Part 2)

Posted on by kathiemm

Second in a series by guest author Dr. Dahlia Wasfi

Palestinian refugees, 1948
Palestinian refugees, 1948. Photo by Fred Csasznik, in public domain.

In 1917, as the Allies (with the help of the Arabs) were rallying to win World War I, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration.

This decree regarding a Jewish home in Palestine was named for Arthur James Balfour, Britain’s foreign secretary. Balfour had been strongly influenced by British Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann since their initial meeting in 1906. Though most leaders of British Jewry at the time were opposed to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Weizmann—considered to be one of the fathers of the Zionist movement—garnered Balfour’s support for the Zionist agenda.[1]

The very brief Declaration stated:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The British had not yet taken control of the Holy Land, but that didn’t stop them from promising its future to both the indigenous Palestinians and the global Jewish population.

In 1917, less than ten percent of the inhabitants of Palestine were Jews[2]—many of whom were recent immigrants brought by the Zionist movement between 1905 and 1914.[3]  No one had asked the more than 90 percent “existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” if the creation of a “national home” on their land—which excluded them—was acceptable.  Israel was established as a colonial settler state.

[1] Shlaim, Avi 6/27/09

[2] Ibid

[3] Neff, Donald. “Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days That Changed the Middle East.” Linden Press/Simon & Schuster, New York. 1984.  p.21

It is not their fault

Posted on by kathiemm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qfDgxNWkdkg#!

June 20 is World Refugee Day, established by the United Nations “to honor the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homes under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.”

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) has been helping refugees—including survivors of the Holocaust—since shortly after the end of World War II. As genocides, ruthless military regimes, internecine warfare, and torture have continued to engulf many areas of the world in blood, agony, and horror, the numbers of men, women, and children displaced from their homes continue to swell. For most of these refugees, the UNHCR is their only lifeline.

The UNHCR site provides videos in which some of these survivors describe their experiences. If you listen to these stories, you will be both chilled at the terrifying nature of the dilemmas that these survivors faced and moved by what they were able to achieve despite these horrors.

In reflecting about the work of the UNHCR over the last six decades, we do well to consider the extent to which American participation in armed conflict in pursuit of its own interests has contributed to many of the refugee problems, and to reflect on how we can atone.

At least one in five refugees has been subjected to torture—the topic of our upcoming June 24 post. Many of the people labeled “immigrants” in the U.S. today are refugees, and many have suffered horrendous torture. Many need ongoing services to recover. I have met some of them. Perhaps you have done so also, without even knowing it.

To learn about some of the circumstances in which the U.S. has gotten it right, watch the video, “Six voices for six decades.”

June 20 is a good day not just to honor the courage of refugees but to recognize that helping others to help themselves benefits all of us and perhaps helps to save our souls.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology