The Syrian Crisis: A dialogue argued with the wrong tone

One of the largest crises facing the global community today is that of the escalating Syrian crisis. Having started as a revolt against an existing regime, the crisis has become a full scale civil war, resulting in the death of over 250,000 and the expulsion of another 11 million. As the world’s biggest refugee crisis since the WW2, there has been endless debate about how each country should provide aid, often conflicting moral obligation with economic feasibility.

These discussions have created an “us vs. them” dialogue within the government and population of each country, resulting in, in some cases, rather severe racism due to the fact that the common man cannot distinguish an immigrant from a non-immigrant. This inability has led to immigrants simply being associated by race.

This racism is coinciding with wide spread Xenophobia and Islamaphobia. Emerging racism is a reflection of each government’s blatant view of refugees as a burden.

One example being Hungary’s idea of building a wall to keep people out, while running a poster campaign to warn refugees against taking Hungarian jobs. This negative view is adopted by the population, who then associate these refugees simply as risks to their livelihoods, taking jobs and bringing a vastly different culture into their tight knit communities. Hungary is not the only area where these beliefs are emerging. The Czech Republic and Germany are both having rather extreme reactions.

In the Czech Republic, the Czech Prime Minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, has painted the refugees in the poorest of all lights, claiming that they would be the reason for the downfall of the European Union. His statements have led to the population’s adoption of the view that Syrian war victims are intruders or outsiders and furthermore, the materialisation of anti-Syrian organizations. Some extremist groups have gone so far as to become violent, calling for the expulsion of the traitors within government who support the Syrian aid.

The same escalations can be seen in Germany, where growing unrest and anti-Muslim sentiment has led to wide-scale calls for refugees to “go home” and attacks on foreigners. Within this past year alone there have been upwards of 200 arson and other attacks against refugee housing while support for anti-Muslim movement, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA), has been growing. These extremes have contributed to refugees considering if going home to a war torn country may actually be the better alternative.

Polling in the UK last year shows that most people have a negative opinion of immigration, despite them not having any negative experience of it. In comparison, people in areas with the most immigrants are least likely to express anti-immigrant sentiment.

Even David Cameron, who campaigned strongly on the idea of reducing immigrant presence within the UK by about 100,000, has had to concede to the growth of immigrants in the UK during this turmoil. This Syrian crisis, although a very large economic question, is ultimately a humanitarian effort.

Cassie Rodgers