Refugees In Lebanon

Throughout the world, there is an estimate of about 65.3 million refugees that have either been forced out of their homes or chose to willingly escape the violence or corruption they faced in their homeland. Of those millions of people, only a small percentage are given the status of refugee as many nations have strict requirements and only allow a specific amount each year. This leads to an increase in the amount of illegal immigration as many are desperate to risk their lives to for a better one then they had back home. Even as refugees are given asylum, many often face difficulties such as discrimination due to the racial stereotypes that exist as a result of negative depictions in the news and media. Although nations have generally become more open to receiving and providing aid for a significant amount of refugees seeking asylum, people’s ideology of race and the misrepresentation of the media towards immigrants prevent an even larger amount of refugees from being accepted into society.

Through out the world and over the centuries, societies have welcomed frightened, weary strangers, the victims of persecution and violence. This humanitarian tradition of offering sanctuary is often now played on the television screens across the globe as war and large-scale persecution produce millions of refugees and internally displaced persons. At the start of 21st century, protecting refugees means maintaining solidarity with the worlds most threatened, while finding answers tot eh challenges confronting the international system that was created to do just that.

On September of 2015, the image of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi went viral. “The toddler’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach had reverberated across the globe” (Parkinson & George-Cosh, 2015). Aylan’s family had “fled the brutal civil war in their native Syria and only attempted the boat crossing after Canada denied their application of admission as refugees. The image led to an astonishing outpouring of support for Syrian refugees” (Hein & Niazi, 2016).

Commentary 1: Refugees areal deadly facing an awful life and a tough screening process, but even after it is all over their lives will still be far worse than ours. They will be disrespected and have trouble socially fitting into this new

Destruction, violence, and chaos engulfs the lives of those in the Middle East, specifically in Syria. Since 2011 the country has been in disarray and consumed in a vicious civil war displacing millions of inhabitants of the region. Several countries have offered aid and asylum to these refugees, which raises the question: Should the United States (U.S.), a prominent world leader, allow Syrian refugees to seek asylum in their country? Several articles explore this question, including “Are Syrian Refugees Really a Security Risk? - Harvard Political Review”, “To Defeat ISIS, Know Thy Terrorist; Scorning Syrian refugees is doing ISIS a huge favor”, and “No vetting of Syrian "refugees" in Obama's "resettlement" invasion: the FBI says there is no way to vet incoming refugees and Senate and House chairmen blasted Obama for serious national security risks and economic costs of refugee policy”. The authors of the first and second article, Evan Bonsall and Kurt Eichenwald, argue that the refugees should be allowed asylum, while the author of the third article, William F. Jasper, argues against granting asylum. All of the authors employ complex rhetorical strategies including ethos, pathos, logos and other systems to explain their opinion and target their desired audiences.

The dilemma regarding the American refugee policy and America’s stance on refugees at this point in time is a challenging topic for many to discuss. Not only is this controversy affecting Americans, it is also hurting refugees in desperate need of our help. America needs to start handling the emerging refugee crisis by first working to remove the stereotype associated with refugees, then the U.S. needs to assess which refugee countries should (if any) actually be banned, and after accomplishing those-- America needs to work to help the countries in need by letting refugees in, and working to help the refugees live happily in their country of origin.

For the podcast, I interviewed Lina Abdulnoor, with the intention of exploring the intricacies of refugeehood by analyzing Lina’s refugee experience. Lina lived in Iraq with her family until they began receiving death threats due to their religious beliefs. Convinced that they needed to flee the country to survive, they left Iraq as refugees. After leaving Iraq, they settled in Jordan, where they waited two years until the U.N. to approve their request to move to the U.S. in 2012. Lina and her family initially settled in Virginia, where she experienced culture shock as she adapted to American culture and the English language. However, Lina did not feel accepted in Virginia; her experiences in the state led her to think that Americans treated her according to negative stereotypes of Iraqis. After living in Virginia for several months, Lina and her family chose to resettle in San Diego, California, which harbored a larger Iraqi population than Virginia did. Supported by San Diego’s Iraqi community and various refugee organizations, Lina flourished, and she currently studies at UCSD while holding a stable job.

My initial questions were dealing with the settlement of Syrian refugees, but as I looked into my primary source I noticed that it was dealing with a different ethnic group and different time era, so that shifted my focus from Syrian refugees to the differences between the two groups and differences between the type of treatment each received. Secondly when I looked at the article I was able to identify a difference in the perception of each group of refugees. In the article I was able to see that there was a focus on homeland security and a precaution for a possible terrorist threat. However, in the primary source there was not a focus on homeland security, but rather security and settlement of the Jewish refugee. Lastly, with the third source my focus becomes broader, since the last source focused on various perspectives of refugees in

Earlier this week The New York Times issued an account in their Sunday paper discussing the critical topic in regards to America accepting Refugees from the Middle East. The Times honed in on this topic in the column “ U.S Will Accept More Refugees as Crisis Grows”, written by Michael R. Gordon, Alison Smale, and Rick Lyman. The feature begins to discuss the problems that are being raised in the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and families in countries like Syria, Iraq, Somalia, and Bhutan are in danger due to the fact that their countries are facing war. This leads to the people of these countries being forced to leave in order to escape the war and oppression. These people are called Refugees. The problem cultivates as wealthier neighboring countries become reluctant in helping these refugees because of their anti-refuge politics. Refugees are then forced to travel as far away as they can, paying until they can no longer go any further. They are then forced into labor, later leading them to escape in an unsafe and deathly manner across the Mediterranean sea to Europe. This being the cause of the many deaths of men, women, and children across the Middle East as they had hopes of a better life elsewhere.The Washington Post also reflects on this subject in their column, “Refugees in America: Syrian family rebuilds life in the U.S” by Deepti Hajela. Hajela interviews a Syrian family, the Roustom. The father Hassan Al Roustom exclaims,

This article was not just written for those who agree that Australians should accept refugees but also those who do not. It was written so that the people who disagree with the acceptance of refugees could get an idea of the struggles that millions of people go through. It was written to provide information as to why we don’t accept refugees, but also why we should. This article is not intended for a particular age, if you are able to read and understand politics then it is suitable for you. It wasn’t a particular age i was catering for but a certain audience, mainly those who do not agree with the acceptance of refugees. I wrote to my audience by using examples of well known, respected and loved refugees such as Anh Do and Munjed Al Muderis. 
Those who

Guilt that derives from the fact our country is not doing more to aide in the refugee crisis. Likewise, this article provokes me to ask the question: why are these images not shown more often in western media? I feel that currently our media is cluttered with useless information regarding inherently trivial stories, none of which compare to the struggles of not only children, but also millions of people. The refugee problem is currently one that I feel is ignored by many for various reasons. However, this article brings to light the horrors that are currently occurring and I feel it should be seen by more people, as the lives of refugees are no less than our own. Even though politicians make out refugees, and even immigrants, to be murderous extremists, the reality is most are nonviolent, normal families seeking a home, something often taken for granted by those in western cultures. The Syrian refugee crisis is, in my opinion, the most overlooked problem in recent history, and demonstrates in inherent issue in our society- we as a culture view these lives as less than our own. Overall, I feel this article does a thorough job of emotionally evoking readers and impacting their views on Syrian refugees and the lives they are forced to

Now across the other side of our globe in Middle East Syrian refugees have fled their country due to continuous attacks on them. Among those escaping the conflict, the majority have sought refuge in neighboring countries or within Syria itself. Some countries are Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq. These refugees have been able to adapt to their new community (country) faster since their identity is similar to the people living in the country. But what raised awareness to all the refugee crisis is when people found a lifeless 3-year-old boy lying face down on a beach in Europe. Ever since this event people all over the world have been more aware of the identity of Syrian refugees. People have noticed that Syrian refugees are the citizen like the rest of us, but they have not been treated like it, instead, they have been called as `terrorists`, and elsewhere ‘a burden on economy’. All over the world citizens from different countries including Canada have been donating food, clothes, and other necessities. As a community, we can respect and stand up for other identities and together we can create an enabling environment for them in the

The lives of the refugees are turned “inside out” in a lot ways. One informational

This issue was chosen due to its scope. The Syrian refugee crisis is among a list of issues that will not only shape the world in 2016 but also dominate news outlets in upcoming years. Because of the despairing situation, many governments are struggling to find ways to handle the rush of individuals seeking asylum, for the fact that it seems the crisis is worsening. In addition, the media coverage on the topic sparked my interest and led me to research information because I had no idea what was occurring and the detriment of the issue.

Conflict, this term has a broad definition that is defined as “latent tensions and disagreements on the one end and goes to armed and violent clashes (e.g. wars) on the other” (Eroglu Utku, Sirkeci, and Yazgan 2015). This is the root cause of many of the violent wars and crises that have occurred over thousands of years. In more recent times critical conflicts that have occurred throughout the world have had adverse effects globally. It was estimated, by the United Nations, that at the end of 2013 over 51 million people globally, more than half of which included women and children, were displaced due to persecution, warfare, and violence (Salopek 2015). The Syrian civil war has been a large contributor for this large number of displaced people; it has affected countries throughout the world due to the millions of people that have had to find permanent settlement elsewhere as a result of the war between the Syrian government, rebel forces, and ISIS. This has been given the name of the Syrian refugee crisis. Refugees have since been displaced throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North America and have become a global issue that has had difficult solutions. Refugees that have uprooted their lives due to the violence and war brought about from the Syrian civil war still face difficulty being accepted in countries around the world and face larger obstacles when starting life over.