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Why Muslim refugees are no longer treated as human beings

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Why Muslim refugees are no longer treated as human beings | Al Bawaba

Why Muslim refugees are no longer treated as human beings
By Robert Fisk
Published July 13th, 2015 - 09:50 GMT via SyndiGate.info

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A Syrian child is carried through the Reyhanli refugee Camp in Antakya, March 15, 2015. (AFP/File)

Nineteenth-century Americans were on safe ground when they inscribed the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

A comparatively new country, the United States needed the destitute of Europe – the Irish, the Jews of Russia – to expand their nation. There was no question of referring to the Irish “poor” as “economic migrants” or to those Jews “yearning to breathe free” as “asylum seekers” or “political refugees” from the Tsar’s pogroms.

In the decades to come, however, the world assumed that the “huddled masses” could be returned in safety to their land of origin. Thus US and other “Christian” nations decided that survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide should go back to what had been their homes in “Western Armenia” (Ottoman Anatolia). And many hundreds of thousands of Armenians lingered on the edge of Turkey in the hope that the victors of the First World War would return them to lands no longer controlled by their Ottoman Turkish killers.

America’s Near East Relief was the first great humanitarian organisation of its kind, and the millions of dollars which it raised in the US saved the lives of countless Armenian refugees – especially orphans – scattered around the Arab world.

Now comes a deeply moving book by University of California human rights professor Keith Watenpaugh who has studied the history of humanitarianism in the Middle East from the files of the League of Nations, the UN’s poor old predecessor.

In the years after the 1914-18 war, the international community abandoned the Armenian “right of return”. Watenpaugh’s research takes in the work of the Aleppo Rescue Home, whose Danish director Karen Jeppe wrote in 1922 that “the Armenian is possessed of a wonderful gift ‘to create bread from stones’.” The quotation is based on Matthew 4: 3-4 and suggests that the Armenians have such resilience that they can perform miracles – and survive as a people.

Watenpaugh’s book, the author acknowledges, “was written at a time when the contemporary ‘Middle East’ descended into a humanitarian disaster that, in its degree of suffering and international indifference, resembles the one that occurred during and following the First World War.”

How right he is. Only of course, the world changed. The humanitarian Americans of the 19th century who welcomed the pogromed Jews of Russia were far less keen to give sanctuary to the Jewish victims of Hitler. Before the Second World War, like European nations, they turned them away. And after the Holocaust, they preferred that Jewish survivors should go to their “true” home in Palestine rather than settle in the US.

British power in Palestine collapsed and 750,000 Arab Palestinian refugees were created. Their existence today and that of their descendants remains a humanitarian scandal. But somewhere, the history of that “today” ended and another scandal began. In the break-up of the present-day Middle East to which Watenpaugh refers, Christian refugees from Iraq and Syria and Egypt – like those Armenians who headed for America and Europe in the 1920s – have generally been received by “Christian” countries. But most of the refugees today are Muslims fleeing Muslims and they are not receiving the same generosity.

I’ve walked around their refugee camps in Lebanon, amid squalor and disease, and talked to mothers who have already lost their children. Last week, I watched them by the hundred streaming towards the Macedonian border with Greece, sweltering in the heat, beaten by border guards in their attempts to enter central Europe. They are tough, resilient, not unlike those Armenians who could “create bread from stones”.

The Americans provided “safe haven” for the Kurds of Iraq in 1991 – after the Kurds had risen against Saddam at America’s bidding. But there are no more safe havens; the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre this weekend is proof enough. And while we now save these people from the waters of the Mediterranean, we do not want them.

Why? Because they are Muslims and not Christians – or “Westerners” as we prefer to call ourselves today? I fear so.

The UN relief organisations, MSF, the Red Cross, Oxfam and the rest cannot hope to protect or resettle the new exodus from the crumbling Middle East. International humanitarianism cannot overcome national sovereignties. If Greece eventually collapses, what will we do with millions of Greek refugees on the edge of our shrunken “Europe”? Treat them with contempt as EU ministers were doing this weekend? Or allow them to dribble north into “our” lands because they are Christian and not Arab Muslims?

Alas, we now treat each refugee on the grounds of their race, religion or purpose of flight (“migration”). We do not treat them as human beings. And thus we betray all our religions and all our cultures.

I have met no one with an answer to this great moral dilemma of our times. But here is the joint statement of a US-sponsored conference in 1927 which acknowledged that international aid was administered with a pro-Christian and anti-Muslim bias after the earlier Middle East catastrophe: “People [in] the field would rather have less money and a statesman-like programme than large sums for objects that are not carefully thought out…”

The key word is statesman-like. The Middle East refugees possessed such a man after the Great War, an individual who cared for the poor and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. He inspired the creation of an international travel document for refugees recognised by 54 states in the case of former Russian citizens (Russians, Poles, Latvian Ukrainians, Turkic Muslims), and 38 in the case of Armenians. He was a polar explorer whose name is now almost forgotten: Fridtj of Nansen. He even won the Nobel Peace Prize. And that, too, has been forgotten.
 
Syrians and Palestinians in particular are a terror threat. Even Arab countries like Egypt closely monitor their migration.
 
Because we have TOO MANY of them globally!
Hi,

One should also ponder on the thought as what was the reason behind a huge influx of such refugees

Syrians and Palestinians in particular are a terror threat. Arab countries like Egypt actually ban these two nationalities from migrating.
Hi,

A country which was invaded over a quarter of century ago and the one where a battle is being fought over sectarianism issues. I wouldnt be surprised if people from such societies have battle hardened mentality.

More of a reaction to failed policies
 
Hi,

One should also ponder on the thought as what was the reason behind a huge influx of such refugees


Hi,

A country which was invaded over a quarter of century ago and the one where a battle is being fought over sectarianism issues. I wouldnt be surprised if people from such societies have battle hardened mentality.

More of a reaction to failed policies
It's tragic but is it worth risking national security over? Even if only a handful turn out to be terrorists that is enough to make a difference.
 
It's tragic but is it worth risking national security over? Even if only a handful turn out to be terrorists that is enough to make a difference.
Hi,

Simply calling is tragic is not gonna make a tiny wee bit difference nor it is going to decrease the burden of policies adopted by UK which were imposed on them against their will.

The monster was created by Britain and western powers, and it will haunt you lot for the long time to come
 
Hi,

Simply calling is tragic is not gonna make a tiny wee bit difference nor it is going to decrease the burden of policies adopted by UK which were imposed on them against their will.

The monster was created by Britain and western powers, and it will haunt you lot for the long time to come
Britain has no involvement in Syria except diplomatic. If anybody is to blame it's Gulf states and Turkey on one side and Russia and Iran on the other.
 
Thanks to these so called Islamist Factions (Not targeting any religion here) who have created fear amongst mostly all western countries.

Britain has no involvement in Syria except diplomatic. If anybody is to blame it's Gulf states and Turkey on one side and Russia and Iran on the other.
Why even blame, why let them invade first of all ?? Plus why create such situations that they have to do so.
 
Hi,

Simply calling is tragic is not gonna make a tiny wee bit difference nor it is going to decrease the burden of policies adopted by UK which were imposed on them against their will.

The monster was created by Britain and western powers, and it will haunt you lot for the long time to come

I also feel that world should do more same for the common , distressed Muslims.

Unfortunate but true that today Muslims do not care for other fellow Muslim's life or wellbeing. Even many of them do not care for their own life. They do not respect each other. Some of the richest countries in the world are Muslims. What they are doing for the fellow Muslims ?

In such a condition, how one can expect that others will help them. If a Muslim cannot help a fellow Muslim without asking whether he is Shia or Sunni or Ahmedi, how we expect that some unknown people will help them only based on humanitarian ground?

Unfortunately Muslims nowadays do not belong to a nation , not a ethnic group nor a linguistic group and above all not even a religious group either. Also the biggest physical asset of Muslim world ie Oil is becoming a big curse nowadays.

First bring a culture of love , compassion, progress within your group. The world will be bound to respect you.
 
Britain has no involvement in Syria except diplomatic. If anybody is to blame it's Gulf states and Turkey on one side and Russia and Iran on the other.
Hi,
I am sure you are not so naive to think that all this turnmoil was just dobne over night, do you now?
How can we forget Palestine ?
How can we forget Iraq's so called WMD ?
How can we forget the hastily bombing campaign for Libya ?
And then of course Syria, Its just a last sort of thorn left, fortunately with a bit of support from Russia and Iran, its still there, But as a battleground for several entities not as proper functioning country

Unfortunate but true that today Muslims do not care for other fellow Muslim's life or wellbeing. Even many of them do not care for their own life. They do not respect each other. Some of the richest countries in the world are Muslims. What they are doing for the fellow Muslims ?

In such a condition, how one can expect that others will help them. If a Muslim cannot help a fellow Muslim without asking whether he is Shia or Sunni or Ahmedi, how we expect that some unknown people will help them only based on humanitarian ground?

Unfortunately Muslims nowadays do not belong to a nation , not a ethnic group nor a linguistic group and above all not even a religious group either.

First bring a culture of love , compassion, progress within your group. The world will be bound to respect you
Hi,

So according to you ISIS is Muslim?
Or Al Qaeda or taliban for that matter are muslims?
 
A multitude of reasons:

  • They are threats to national security.
  • Too many of them and overpopulation.
  • Refusal to integrate into Western society and ghettoisation
  • Finally, the Western countries are no longer new and bubbling.
 
Britain has no involvement in Syria except diplomatic. If anybody is to blame it's Gulf states and Turkey on one side and Russia and Iran on the other.


Really??
Britian didnt involve ??Funny.What about that first ever dispute of Palestine in ME?
Who created the favourable condition of active disputes in ME,particularly in Israel and Palestine case ?

IS is powerful and good in military tactics .Why? Because Saddam commanders are totally involved in IS.
Now who destroyed Saddams Army ?


@salarsikander is right .Britian and West created this menace.Deal with it.
 
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Nop, I think they are Christians and Jews :)

Some may also think House of Saud are not Muslims---so what ?? Will this change any ground reality?
Hi,

That's Where you lose your entire argument.

There is no room in Islam for Extremist Ideology< when they hAve banned Muslims from taraweeh, When they banned Muslims from Attending Eid prayers. even before that. Their killing style is nothing more than barbaric, they can be hardly anything but a Muslim !

Really??
Britian didnt involve ??Funny.
Who created the favourable condition of active disputes in ME,particularly in Israel and Palestine case ?

@salarsikander was right .Britian and Westcreated this menace.Deal with it.
Hi,
But as for sub-continent we held up quite well as compared to ME, didn't we ?
 
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