In the past week the tragedy in Paris took the world by storm. The death of 129 people occurred in such a quick time. However, the tragedies of last week did not just occur in Paris, but Beirut, Baghdad, and a couple other countries.
For the past week the world has been experiencing such grief and heart ache. Yet, at the same time the eyes of many people have been open to the Refugee crisis that has been going on for a few years in Syria.
This past week on Wednesday I walked into my history class not expecting the discussion that was about to occur.
My professor dived into the details of the attack. He specifically talked about the Syrian passport found. The passport is one piece of evidence or reason to put our fronts up against the Syrian Refugees. The after math of this tragedy put so many officials and politicians against letting refugees receive asylum, because the passport shows that the refugees can be disgusted as terrorists.
My heart breaks for all those who are trying to seek asylum, but I do understand the fear that comes along from all the terror attacks. However, I personally feel that this should not prevent refugees from getting asylum.
There is no one simple solution to this crisis.
France bombed Raqqa (which is the capital of ISIS’s state which also holds Syrian citizens), and this can continue, but killing the terrorist will not kill terrorism. We need people to be educated about what is going on in the world so tragedies like this can be prevented. At the same time some say we must let Syrians refugees into our countries. However, there is still the worry of letting the terrorists into our own countries. How will we know who is truly seeking asylum? The complexity of this situation is frustrating.
In fact, in my Faith and Reason course, debate arose on whether or not to let the refugees in or to keep them out of our country. Some people in the class thought that as the United States we should be focusing on the citizens of the states who are struggling like our homeless veterans. While on the other hand some of my peers thought how we could we deny the refugees in because they are our brothers and sisters. Pope Francis even encourages us to turn to and help these refugees. In fact, he claims that each church or parish should take in a refugee family.
In fact, one of my friends posted this quote on the Bible on Facebook when tougher refugee screening was passed, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me," (Matthew 25:41-43).
I will end this article by saying that we truly are all brothers and sisters regardless of what religion you believe, the color of your skin, or where you are from. We need to be aware of what is going on in the world and not just Paris, but everywhere. We need to educate ourselves about the world so that way we can know how and who to help in the world instead of opening our mouths without knowing what we are saying. Education is key to killing terrorism. So change your profile pictures on Facebook to have the flag of Paris on it so that you can spread the awareness or do anything else to help educate yourself and the ones around about what is going on.
Lastly, my heart and prayers go out to every family that lost a loved one in all the attacks.
