opinion

Ex-volunteer to Cranley: Refugee stance ill-informed

Isaac Hand is a Cincinnati native attending graduate school in New York City.

Dear Mayor Cranley: My name is Isaac Hand. I was born and raised in Cincinnati. As a high school student at Walnut Hills I volunteered for your City Council campaign. A graduate of the University of Cincinnati, I am now a doctoral student of Middle Eastern history at New York University. I miss Cincinnati dearly, so it pained my heart when I heard that you’d made what I think are ill-informed statements regarding the prohibition of Syrian refugees in the Cincinnati area.

As a student of history, I’d like to remind you that America generally, and Cincinnati specifically, grew and was enriched by the thousands of refugees who arrived, often fleeing chaos and war on distant shores. These immigrants left an indelible mark on our identity as a city. Our own Cincinnati-style chili, for example, is a relic of a refugee family fleeing the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and putting down roots far from home despite xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria. Our German heritage, without which Cincinnati is difficult to imagine, was built by people fleeing mid-nineteenth century wars despite facing tremendous anti-German sentiment. Among the loudest anti-refugee activists were the Know-Nothing Party, whose xenophobia was justified not only by racism, but also a fear for the safety of America. Fortunately for us today, refugees persevered and helped create Cincinnati’s unique culture.

While I understand the impulse, especially after the tragedy in Paris, to think about how to keep those you love safer, it is important to think before we rush and join up with the Know-Nothings. The lie that refugees will be a conduit for terror is promulgated by the far right in Europe to justify anti-immigrant policies despite all evidence to the contrary. The vast majority of Syrian refugees, it is important to reiterate, are fleeing ISIS. Both the European far right and Islamic terrorists share a world-view that there is a “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West that will only be resolved through total war. It behooves us to imagine a shared world beyond this narrative.

Further, we should remember our complicity in the current refugee crisis. As is well-documented, ISIS was formed out of the ashes of the Iraqi military that the United States dismantled. Disgruntled military men took up arms in an insurgency that became the horror we now know as ISIS. By 2014, ISIS invaded Syrian cities along the Iraq border, prompting many to flee. Politicians who reject Syrian refugees are not only playing into a long, dark history of American xenophobia but also are rejecting a population that America helped create through failed wartime policies in Iraq.

It is our responsibility to accept Syrian refugees because we helped create the problem that caused them to flee in the first place. It is our privilege to accept refugees because America’s culture, and Cincinnati’s culture, has long benefited from their presence.

Mayor, please think about Cincinnati’s own history accepting – and being enriched by – people from war-torn spaces and reconsider your opposition to welcoming Syrian refugees.