Opponents of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open door refugee policy had a moment of vindication after a 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker stabbed four people on a train in Wurzburg. Later that week a failed Syrian asylum seeker blew himself up outside a music festival in Ansbach.
Rivals look at these instances as justification to promote immigration policies of suspicion. Distrust plays to the insecurities of fear, and fear makes policies of distrust easier to support when bad things happen. Politicians like Donald Trump prey on fear and claim how policies of kindness are naïve.
Unfortunately, policies of fear and distrust are shortsighted. In the long run, policies of compassion will make the world a safer place for our children.
While many have become hesitant by the benefits of compassion, Merkel has remained undeterred and confident that German culture can assimilate the influx of refugees. She argued that the attackers:
“Wanted to undermine our sense of community, our openness and our willingness to help people in need.”
And here in lies the difference between Merkel and Trump. Even though Germany has come under attack in recent weeks, Merkel is confident that the values of German culture will eventually eradicate the allure of terrorism. Contrarily, Trump doesn’t seem to believe American culture is great enough to integrate an influx of refugees.
Unfortunately welcoming an influx of different people does come with danger. The unfortunate and immediate situation is that some radicalized asylum seekers will take advantage of our kindness and place us and our children in harm’s way.
While it is easy to talk about humanity at the expense of someone else’s children, I am not articulating feelings of idealistic compassion from the safety of an isolated suburban town. My family and I live in Paris and we see refugees every day. We watch them as they ask us for a little kindness and we watch them as people walk past them like an afterthought.
Immigration policies of fear look to dehumanization people. Simultaneously leaving people outside the doors of compassion will only lead to more Western resentment. I agree with Merkel when she trusts that the compassion of assimilation can help to stop the violence caused by the feeling of discrimination.
Unfortunately, Trump and people with short sighted policies of disregard give jihadist groups’ rationale to attract the marginalized. Jihadists will use Propaganda and point to how the United States abandoned them when they needed compassion the most.
We think we know people through simple perceptions of a religion.
We can use it to take away a person’s humanity each time one member commits an act of violence. And sadly we use religion to justify our lack of compassion for the rest. So we glaze over the individuality of the other members of a group with the darkness of a few.
Consequently, fear makes it easy to overlook how people fleeing persecution are individuals.
Refugees fleeing war and oppression are not an ethnicity or a religion. They are individuals, compromised of men, women, and children who are hoping to find empathy after their lives have been devastated by brutality.
Keeping Americans safe cannot be done by closing off a dialogue of understanding. Merkel understands how a blanket of welcoming and compassion can help to create a future where East and West aren’t defined by violence and distrust.
Trump’s policy of portraying all refuges as radicalized will only ensure our children will continue to live in a world where suspicion shades our perception of individuals searching for kindness.
Featured Image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video.
