Lesson Unlearned

In June 1939, the German ship 'St. Louis,' which was carrying nearly a thousand refugees (most of whom Jewish), was denied entry in the United Sates at the port of Miami.  After a month of legal efforts failed to persuade the U.S. to reconsider its decision, the ship (which was awaiting a verdict in open sea near Miami) was compelled to return to Europe.  Nearly a quarter of 937 refugees on the ship died in the Holocaust.  Two of three Americans then and for the duration of World War 2, according to a Gallop poll, were against taking in Jewish refugees, primarily due to fear that Nazi spies may be present amongst the refugees.  The Donald Trumps, Ted Cruzes, and Ben Carsons of that time thrived on terrifying the public of refugee infiltrations which never materialized, with the exception of a couple of isolated cases. 

Following Japan's devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt coined the proclamation "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  Although this sentiment did not manifest in the U.S. wartime policy regarding Jewish refugees, it is relevant to the way Americans, and more broadly people, viewed danger then and view danger now.  Japanese Americans were subjected to internment because of doubts regarding their patriotism and fear that they may commit acts of sabotage at the behest of the imperial throne of Japan.  Nowadays, echos of the much discredited internment policy are being heard amongst the GOP leading presidential candidates and are somewhat resonating amongst a significant, frightened sector of the electorate.  

FDR's big doctrine regarding fear is no more applicable today than to the irrational attitude towards Syrian refugees, especially following the devastating Paris attacks last Friday (November 13).  The US refugee policy should not be dictated by fear of victims, who themselves are fleeing the very barbaric atrocities we have so consistently condemned and continue to condemn.  This was true during WW2 and it is true now.  I believe that fear is still the only thing we ought to fear. 

Compassion, empathy, humanist outlook on life should be our guiding beacon.  We should not be guided by fear of pregnant women, widows with children, young men and women who chose not to enter the grinding mill of war.  Nor should we be guided by fear of orphans, the elderly, and of those who have lost everything, except hope.  We certainly should not be guided, as one governor Chris Christie suggested earlier this week, by fear of three-month-old babies.  The nation's guiding principle should say: We are a people of all faiths and origins, we are the United States of America and we are not afraid.

Azzam Elayan 

Friday, November 20, 2015