Recently there has been a lot of dispute on social media regarding the U.S. closing its doors to Syrian refugees in light of the recent terrorist attacks. Though I do have an opinion regarding this, I won’t voice it here, as it’s not what I want to talk about. What bothers me is the generalization of a group of people, namely, a religion, that’s been discussed extensively on social media as a result of these recent crises. I don’t want to say that no one respects the religion of Islam and that everyone is bashing the entire religion as a group based in terrorism. But I have seen a recurring theme in social media commentary that tends toward this hatred and distrust of the religion as whole. And that’s what bothers me.
I’m Catholic, and have been raised that way since I was old enough to go to Church. Christianity is all I’ve ever known, and though there’s a whole lot of good in it I think there also can be a whole lot of bad. One of the more negative aspects that has really started to bother me is this sense that Christianity is the one and only and the very best religion. Not accusing all members of the Christian faith of acting any certain way, but I think all religions have members who don’t represent the majority. And the Christians who are intolerant of all those, who don’t believe as they do, are a part of this negative minority.
Which brings me to my next point: it’s definitely not fair to accuse all members of the Muslim religion as being represented by the extremists. We really can’t take a bunch of terrorists that happen to be Muslim and assume that to be Muslim is synonymous with being a terrorist. It’s the same as me assuming that to be Christian means to persecute members of other religions; it isn’t fair and it isn’t true. I feel major sympathy for Muslim men and women around the U.S. who are law-abiding and just as much citizens as any other American, because they are being judged unfairly.
Just a small point I would like to highlight because I think too many people are unfamiliar with it: the highest populations of the Islamic religion in the world are not located in the Middle East. They’re located in Southeast Asia, in places like Bangladesh and Indonesia. To assume that being Muslim means to be a terrorist from Syria is so ignorant of what the religion actually is. And to assume that one can fit an entire religion into a few cultural traits, like covering of women, mercy killings, etc.? That kind of thing really upsets me, and I hate to see articles justifying the “superiority” of one religion over another just on the basis of a few cultural representations of it.
I think my main point is this: do your research, people. Before you make a decision, one way or another, on how you feel about a certain religion, please take time to understand what that religion actually is at its core.
And as for the Syrian refugees? I don’t think choosing whether to let them in or keep them out is a decision that can be made easily. And it most certainly is not a decision that should be made on the “merit” of one religion compared to another.
