The Syrian refugee crisis has been an important topic for the last couple years. When we first heard of the refugee crisis, our heartstrings were torn at with pictures of young children and new widows. The “we are all human, have a heart” narrative is understandable, but in cases such as this, the people of our country, especially young Americans, must weigh the benefit to harm ratio. I think almost everyone can agree, ISIS is an evil organization, and as much as we would all like to be able to give shelter to those in need, it is impractical and irresponsible to allow hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees into the United States. The FBI has advised the Obama administration that there is absolutely no possible way that they could discover the identity and background of every single Syrian refugee attempting to enter the country.
This is not to say Islam is wrong and should be discriminated against, but it is clear that Western culture conflicts with the values of certain sects of Islam and is likely to breed resentment should these large groups of refugees fail to assimilate, as we have seen in other parts of the Western world. In Germany, under Angela Merkel’s policy of allowing in a massive amount of refugees, we have seen terrorist attacks fester throughout Europe and sexual assaults become an almost common occurrence. A prime example of this is the mass sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany this past winter and terrorist attacks throughout the European continent over the past few years.
So, how does this affect us, college students at Ole Miss? If we accept an “open door” policy towards refugees, we run major risks in the future. They are risks that might not affect the older generations who occupy leadership roles in government and foreign policy and are responsible for making these decisions, but younger people like us will have to suffer the consequences. In France, we have seen the problem of radicals failing to assimilate into society percolate for decades, and in the past few years, the consequences of it have sprung to the forefront with horrific terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice. The French people now live under a constant threat of terror. Though our country has admittedly been better at assimilating people of different cultures and backgrounds, taking unknown refugees in such large numbers is bound to cause problems.
Will our sons and daughters be asked to “dress modestly … for refugee accommodation,” as one school in Germany recently asked parents to do – or perhaps our wives and daughters attacked for merely showing their ankles in public? Could we see another attack coordinated of the magnitude of Paris or even 9/11? Surely, I hope not. But in order to make sure that does not happen, we need to act wisely, albeit calloused, in not accepting tens of thousands of unknown Syrian refugees.
It would only take few hiding amongst the crowd of benevolent people seeking refuge to cause unspeakable damage, and as young people, we must make our voice heard to protect our futures.
Michael Lanagan is a political science and economics major from McKinney, Texas.
