The Onus is on You- Refugee crisis and West’s responsibility

This article has been featured on Newslaundry.com.

Justin Trudeau is in vogue. And why not? He is a young turk, passionate about his job who created a gender equal cabinet full of professionally and academically competent ministers. Mr Trudeau won hearts around the globe with his recent gesture welcoming 163 Syrian refugees into Canada at the Pearson International airport and promising them Canadian citizenship and all benefits that accrue therefore. A couple of days later another set of refugees, 161 of them, were welcomed by the federal immigration minister and Montreal’s mayor. 25,000 refugees are expected to arrive in Canada by February 2016.

The Canadian Prime Minister articulated Canada’s tradition and generosity in the following words, “…….we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations.” In Canada, the pro refugee population outnumbers its opponents. Trudeau has his supporters. And the world has a lot to learn from Canada’s act, particularly the US and its western allies who are trying to shun all responsibility.

Syria is facing an intractable problem that’s presently defying all chances of denouement. The West, that created the situation in the first place, is eluding anything and everything that establishes the onus on their part. The Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump famed for his remarks deriding women, has proclaimed that once elected President “he will shut down Muslim immigration and register all US based Muslims”. Out of 150,000 applications from refugees in Syria, US accepted less than 50.

European countries are not far behind the States. Denmark took out a full page advertisement in the newspapers of West Asia telling refugees to stay away. This, when Denmark and other European nations were active participants in the Syrian Civil war supporting the rebel groups against Bashar-al-Assad’s regime. The support for the seemingly “pro-democratic groups” by the Euro-Atlantic powers sowed the seeds for the birth of the Islamic State. The West is creating a ruckus about the issue when out of 4.3 million Syrian refugees, most have remained in the Middle East and slightly more than 10% have travelled to Europe. Moreover, the West tags these people as migrants which they are not. Isn’t it surprising how the dominant voices play with the terminology and conveniently evade any responsibility?

West Asia is rich in resources and hence is geo-economically important. In order to satiate their political and economic desires, the West connived with one group to fight the other and led to what is today known as the Refugee Crisis. Islamic fundamentalism is the product of West’s actions and has benefitted vested interests of the Euro Atlantic powers. Tabish Khair, poet and novelist explains how. Capitalism runs on the logic of free movement of labour and capital. When employment opportunities within West started declining, it tried to keep capital mobile while preventing foreign labour from entering the countries. Islamic fundamentalism came to their aid. Western countries barred the arrival of foreign labour on the pretext of preventing terrorist elements from setting foot on their soil. Advantage West.

The death of Aylan, a Syrian boy whose photo went viral, evoked sympathy from world leaders. However, the non-committal attitude of the Western powers is worsening the humanitarian crisis in Syria and other countries of the region. The Syrian catastrophe is one of the worst that the world has witnessed. The perpetrators should be held accountable and the initiative should come from the West. Dodging responsibility is no longer an option.

-GB