Since the Syrian refugee crisis began, there have been many countries, leaders, and ordinary people who oppose the idea that we should open our hearts and our borders for those who are fleeing their war-torn country. Here in the United States, political leaders have called for a religious litmus test that only Christians could pass.
Since the Friday Paris attacks, several state governors have announced that they will not allow any Syrian refugees in their states. Their concerns are not unwarranted when at least one of the seven terrorists on the Paris attack immigrated with the Syrian refugees when they entered France. Despite these causes for concern, President Barack Obama reminds us that we have a “moral obligation as fellow human beings to help people in such vulnerable situations,” particularly when many of these refugees are children.
After defending his strategy in the War on Terrorism and his refusal to send hundreds of ground troops into Syria, President Obama fielded a question about ISIL representing Islam. (It was difficult to hear what the reporter actually stated, but Obama’s response implies that the question was regarding the Muslim community and their connection to the extremists of this religion.) President Obama emphasized that “ISIL does not represent Islam. It is not representative in any way the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Muslims.”
This notion that ISIL somehow represents all Muslims is a tired argument. I understand, as President Obama stated in his speech, that ISIL, along with most terrorists organizations, claim that they are “speaking on behalf of true Muslims,” but Muslim leaders and everyday Muslims have adamantly denied any association between their religion and these zealous fanatics. President Obama correctly admonished equating “the terrible actions that took place in Paris with the views of Islam,” as counterproductive and wrong.
The President rightly called on true and faithful Muslims to not only question how these extreme ideologies began but also question how we ensure that our “children [are] not infected with this twisted notion that somehow they can kill innocent people and that is somehow justified by religion.”
In denouncing the idea that ISIL represents Islam, the President explained that the Syrian refugees, Christian and Muslim alike, who are fleeing their country because of the country’s civil war, are not terrorists. “It is very important,” he stressed, “that we do not close our hearts to these victims of such violence and somehow start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.”
The President continued his speech by reminding us that we each have our part, to step up and help these refugees. To those who have called for a religious test for Syrian refugees who enter the United States, the President shamed them because “some of those folks themselves come from families who have benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution.”
We need to be compassionate. I understand the difficulty in this and the fear that if we allow Syrian refugees into our country that some crazy, extremist individual(s) will immigrate with them with the intent of another terrorist attack on our soil. However, as President Obama advises, we should “not feed that dark impulse inside of us.”
The President ended his speech with the following:
“Now I have a lot of disagreements with George W. Bush on policy, but I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam. And the notion that some of those who have taken on leadership in his party would ignore all of that. That’s not who we are. On this, they should follow his example; it was the right one, it was the right impulse. It’s our better impulse. Whether you are European or American, the values we are defending, the values we are fighting against ISIL for are precisely that we don’t discriminate against people because of their faith. We don’t kill people because they’re different from us. That’s what separates us from them. We don’t feed that kind of notion that somehow Christians and Muslims are at war. And if we want to be successful at beating ISIL that’s a good place to start — by not promoting that kind of ideology, that kind of attitude. In the same way that the Muslim community has the obligation not to any way excuse anti-western or anti-Christian sentiment, we have the same obligation as Christians…It is good to remember that the United States does not have a religious test and we are a nation of many peoples of different faiths, which means that we show compassion to everybody. Those are the universal values we stand for. That’s what my administration tends to stand for.”
The President is correct. We cannot allow the extremists to believe that there is a war between Christians and Muslims. We also cannot allow them to believe that the United States is somehow at war with Islam. As the President stated, we are a country filled with people of many faiths, one of the many principles our founding fathers built our nation upon. This should not only be what his administration stands for, but what all of us stand for. For these reasons, we do have an obligation to help.
The video below is the full speech President Obama gave at the G-20 Summit in Turkey. His statements mentioned above begin at 38.06.
