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An effort to understand the refugee crises better
What is the right thing to do?
I told my husband the other day that maybe I should just get off Facebook for a while because I’m seriously feeling ill over what is going on right now. I understand that my friends and neighbors and even family want nothing more than to protect their families from danger. They have good hearts and am thinking that maybe this whole situation is so confusing that it’s hard to see what is the right thing to do. Most people are busy with their lives just trying to survive and don’t have a bunch of time to invest on understanding, they make decisions on the available quick information from others or the internet and of course the news. Now that my babies are older and that I’ve been bed ridden today on some sort of food poisoning from a church potluck , I’ve tried very carefully to read both sides and try to understand the situation as best as I can.
What my experiences tell me
Jay served his mission in Detroit where in a suburb of Dearborn there lies a huge Muslim population 1/3 are Arab 95,000 that has lived peacefully there for over a hundred years. I’ve recently at the Parliament had the opportunity to visit for about 20 minutes with Rami Nashashib a well known Muslim visionary shaping Islam in America who has received many national service awards etc. While we visited in the hallway I was struck with how interested he was in learning why I felt the desire to attend the parliament and the work that he hopes all of us will do when we leave. There was another speaker Suzanne Bakarat a Muslim medical doctor who opened a clinic to help 20,000 Syrian refugees who’s brother had recently been killed by Islamaphobic US citizens. What these experiences tell me is that Muslim refugees settling in different countries are NOT the problem. Muslims cringe and shudder when things like this happen even more so because they know that they will be persecuted for the actions of ISIS.
The formation of and ISIS strategy
If you go on the internet you will find clashing views on how to combat ISIS. What I've learned is that ISIS was supported in the beginning by the US as they trained to fight radical Sunni's under Wahabism (a separate Muslim religion.) against Assad. And the chief of the visa section at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (J. Michael Springmann, who is now an attorney in private practice) says that the CIA insisted that visas be issued to Afghanis so they could travel to the U.S. to be trained in terrorism in the United States, and then sent back to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets. The US has a long history of supporting terrorists they even formed Al Qaeda, supported the Muslim Brotherhood in a civil war against Syria.
I really liked the suggestions from new book out called How Terrorism Ends it’s one of the only books out there that actually discuss this. Kurth mentions throughout history that supports the way for terrorism to end is by alienating potential supporters. Serious implications for counterterrorism policy should flow from the recognition that social factors tend to trump political ones in the making and unmaking of terrorists. http://www.meforum.org/2797/how-terrorism-ends . I also found an article in the Washington Post about ISIS in their wanting other Muslims to apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic state to escape persecution from other countries governments and citizens, That a small number of attackers can shift society views to set the conditions for an apocalyptic war. There is an article about it here on the strategy of ISIS wanting you to fear refugees and persecute Muslims ...it's what they want!
The fear of Sharia Law
Another thing I have come to understand better. What is Sharia Law? I too am trying very hard to understand fully what it is because the majority of what I hear is evil and barbaric. For someone like me who never fully understood Sharia it definitely is getting a lot of attention and the word gets carelessly thrown around by Politicians to scaremongering people and I'm sure will continue with the presidential debates. This article I found very informational about Sharia Law from a lawyers perspective and how they frequently interpret foreign law, and use Sharia Law to give a more just ruling. It mentions that the true story of Sharia in American courts is not one of a plot for imminent takeover but rather another part of the tale of globalization, and a reminder that Our legal system is well equipped to balance conflicts between church and state.
Then I read another article how lawyers consider Sharia in the courts today. It personally helped me to see it in a perspective of actually comparing it to my own personal faith and how it’s policies change and evolve. Kind of like how my own churches doctrine and policies change and when people find out I’m from UT and they mention polygamy. Sharia is so broad and evolving and that is what contributes to it’s survival today. It’s like the bible and the weird things that it says in there , we don’t follow some of the ancient practices , but we still read it and take the good from it, trying to understand it from a spiritual perspective not a literal one, the same for the Quran. This article gives examples where it has allowed the court to be more just. Enacting anti Sharia Law is basically saying it’s illegal to be Muslim. It states that there is no Sharia threat and should not be taken seriously. It’s a really thoughtful article https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/03/pdf/sharia_law.pdf
Hope for America
Lady Liberty is inscribed on our shores with these words:
Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. America should be the lamp that lights the horizon of a ciliated and free mankind. It is in America’s best interest to help Germany, one of its staunchest allies, with the seemingly never-ending stream of asylum-seekers pouring into the country.
When two thirds of the nation is Christian we should know something. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. This article was exceptionally faith promoting and hopeful, it many good nuggets to ponder. One that I like was “ There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. I honestly believe that if we as a global world come together for each other it will change the course of where our world is going. .”http://theunboundedspirit.com/we-were-made-for-these-times/#sthash.X2VLQd6w.BQsBSy1O.dpuf