It may seem harmless for an opinion article in The Daily Northwestern to state that, “Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have created an even larger mess in the Middle East by refusing to work with Syrian President Bashar al Assad to defeat dangerous rebel forces.” I believe it should be greatly alarming that statements promoting collaboration with a murderous dictator have become a theme in both campus and national discourse. To make matters worse, this article failed to distinguish between Syrian opposition forces and ISIS, with the preceding paragraph condemning U.S. support of the Syrian rebellion, and the following paragraph naming ISIS as an existential threat to the United States. This jumbled analysis seems to create a binary between Assad as legitimate power, and any other actor as a threat. Simplistic analysis like this one has frustrated me beyond words, and shows that this campus needs to make concerted efforts to shift its perspective.
I have personal reasons for believing analysis should be grounded in lived experience. I was raised in the Evanston-Skokie area by two parents who come from families that have survived incredible hardship. This history meant that growing up, I watched how my parents often had an unspoken connection with the displaced. They would go out of their way to support those who needed it, and never asked for anything in return. Being surrounded my whole life by immigrant populations rising up against all odds meant that for me a lot of the horrific events that would captivate U.S. media attention for just a fleeting moment were accompanied by stories told from a personal perspective.
Upon coming to Northwestern, I did indeed find peers who had access to this sort of perspective, from their parents or the immigrant communities they grew up in. Many students, though, continue to throw out dangerously false commentary in a detached and cavalier manner, failing to foresee that actual lives will be affected. With the humanitarian crisis in Syria worsening by the day, I can no longer be silent about my frustration with misinformation, nor can I express it in the calm, diplomatic tone this campus attempts to impose on student activists. So here it goes.
The regime of Bashar al-Assad is not the lesser of two evils and I am sick of hearing students say that the United States should work with Assad to fight ISIS. The vast majority of Syrian refugees cite violence from the Assad regime as their primary reason for leaving the country: a majority of 70 percent, according to a comprehensive survey by the German-Syrian charity Adopt a Revolution. Additionally, ISIS thrives off of the power vacuums created by the regime, and the group is able to capitalize on anger towards Assad to attract recruits. Assad and his allies are by no means focused on fighting “Islamic extremists.” In fact, as of October, over 90 percent of Russia’s military support of the regime targeted the Syrian opposition. There is a dark, underlying truth when someone from the United States or Europe is tolerant of Assad but staunchly opposed to ISIS; Westerners can make the “war on terror” about themselves due to the high-profile ISIS attacks in Europe, but when suffering is restricted to the Syrian people, we suddenly feel that we can be silent, or even support, a murderer.
On the flip side, there are students on campus who are willing to acknowledge the atrocities committed by Bashar al-Assad, but are not bringing attention to these human rights violations as a means of advocating for Syrians. Instead these students are attempting to shut down valid criticism of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, by claiming that activists are unfairly singling out Israel, and should turn their attention to Syria, where things are “much worse.” Until Syrians began leaving their homes by the millions, Palestinians were the largest displaced population in the world. It is insulting to the trauma experienced by both groups to silence Palestinian voices with Syrian suffering. On this campus, students of color work tirelessly to stand in solidarity with one another, and we are not impressed by attempts to divide and conquer our activism.
I personally am also not impressed with the criticisms of student activists trending at Northwestern and on a national level; time and time again our movements are being reduced to the label of “hashtag activism” and we are accused of talking a lot on social media but not getting anything done. Yet this week, when people were urged by Syrians to make their Facebook profile pictures red to bring attention to the airstrikes in Aleppo particularly on the Al-Quds hospital, the only peers of mine who did so were the same students who attend protests, write articles and volunteer their time to refugee organizations. Yes, changing your profile picture is a small action, but it’s the least we can do, and if you truly do believe that social media campaigns aren’t enough, there are plenty of amazing organizations one can donate to. These include the White Helmets, a group of Syrian civilians who now act as first responders after airstrikes, the Karam Foundation, which is currently providing relief in Aleppo, Khalsa Aid, a Sikh organization providing meals and building schools for thousands of Yazidi refugees each day, and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS). Right here in Chicago, there is also the Syrian Community Network, which is helping Syrian refugee families adjust to their new homes.
I do agree that there are issues with the way Americans interact with humanitarian crises through social media, but all of my friends with red profile pictures share these concerns. It seems that mainstream media only has the attention span to display one crisis at the time, and we forget at an incredibly fast pace. Although many of the first migrants to brave the Mediterranean sea on makeshift rafts were Libyan, the West has conveniently ignored the other countries it has destabilized as attention has been fixed on Syria. Afghans are actually being deported en masse after barely surviving their journeys across land and sea, because the situation isn’t quite “bad enough,” and when most Americans think the Taliban is yesterday’s crisis, who is there to say otherwise?
Since I have thus far talked a lot about the analysis of Syria that I find flawed, a lot of you may be wondering if I have a solution in mind. The problem is, it’s not my place to be writing an article advocating for a specific solution. We have gotten to this disastrous point in Syria precisely because Syrians have been silenced and talked over for years now. If there is one thing you can do after reading this article, it is listen. And I mean really listen – don’t seek out Syrians and demand they educate you, but if someone is offering up their story, sit down and take it in. Or take advantage of the unlimited information available at your fingertips and look up articles written by or centering Syrians. If you read an analysis of the war that doesn’t include statistics, look them up yourselves.
Overall, I’ve seen a lot of commentary on campus lately, but not a lot of reflection, and I would love to see that change.
For an overview of the Syrian refugee crisis, watch the video below.