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Article
SOURCE
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/opinion/2015/10/07/arab-states-take-syrian-refugees/73522124/
Why Arab States won’t take in Syrian refugees
Mohammad Ahmad 12:53 p.m. CDT October 7, 2015
Greece Migrants_Fran
The discovery of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi‘s body on a Turkish beach on Sept. 2 pricked the conscience of the world. Everyone wants to do something.
However, many people are perplexed that the Arab states, despite their geographical proximity, historical links and shared religion and language with Syrian refugees, are not making any significant contribution to the resettlement of those refugees in their lands.
Arabs share this surprise. They can’t understand this inaction when a quarter of a century ago, thousands of Kuwaitis were given refuge in the Gulf after the Iraqi invasion. They have expressed their dismay over the situation on social media. On Twitter, the Arabic hashtag that translates to #WelcomingSyrianRefugeesIsaGulfduty has provided them a place for expressing the indignation many Arabs feel when they witness European states such as Germany and Britain taking in thousands of refugees while their governments sit idle.
A recent post expresses the distress: It shows a photo of a drowned refugee with the comment: “It is shameful that they have to roam all about God’s earth and drown in the seas while fleeing death when we are supposed to be closer to them than the West.”
In the meantime, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan share the bulk of the 4.1 million Syrian refugees who have fled a civil war that has killed more than 250,000 and displaced more than 7 million. The wealthiest Arab countries have formally taken in no Syrian refugees, arguing that doing so would open them up to the risk of terrorism.
To placate citizens who feel compassion for the Syrian refugees, Arab governments point to the money they have given to help Syrian refugees. Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait have been among the world’s largest donors to Syrian refugees, via United Nations agencies and private charities.
While aid through the U.N. and its agencies is verifiable, the portion given through private charities is not. While Kuwait has provided $784 million through the U.N. since 2012 and the UAE more than $350 million, these amounts are still less than the almost $800 million from Britain or the $3 billion the U.S. has provided.
The Arab states’ argument about the risk of terrorists entering their lands is lame. Any significant movement has been in the reverse direction. The Syrian resistance has had the tactical support of the Arab states, which share the resistance leaders’ doctrinal agenda. These pseudo-Islamist leaders have little interest in destabilizing the Arab States that are funding them, especially when their most important immediate goal is a victory in Syria. The threat of state-sponsored terrorism by Syria’s Assad government is also far-fetched since Syria’s ruler has his hands full fighting for his survival.
The real reason for this inhuman blocking of Syrian refugees is different. The Syrians have lived under secular governments far too long for the comfort of the Arab states. While Syrian rulers may have been undemocratic, they did protect religious freedom for most groups. As a result, many Syrians accept religious plurality and are more inclusive than exclusive. This does not fit in with the doctrinal rigidity of the ruling Arab elite.
That the Syrians share a common language makes them dangerous in the eyes of some Arab rulers. They fear that refugees could dangerously pollute the minds of subjects who are kept under strict religious monitoring although even the Quran says, “Admonish thou then; thou art but an admonisher. Thou art not over them a warden.”
Additionally, figures in some of these Arab states have made inflammatory statements about Syrian refugees, many of whom are Alawites, Christians or Druze. Given how things operate in these states, it is difficult to assume that these have been made in contradiction to government policies.
A sermon delivered by the pseudo-Islamist Saudi cleric Sa’ad Ateeq al Ateeq in Doha’s state-controlled Grand Mosque called for the destruction of the faithful of other religions: “Allah, strengthen Islam and the Muslims, and destroy your enemies, the enemies of the religion,” he said. The preacher went on to say, “Allah, destroy the Jews and whoever made them Jews, and destroy the Christians and Alawites and the Shiites.” Not long ago, Saudi Arabia’s highest Islamic authority, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah, called for the destruction of “all the churches in the (Arabian peninsula).” Such sentiments from the pulpit by quasi-official figures provide a good insight into the mindset of Arab rulers. In that light, their decision to block the entry of Syrian refugees makes perfect sense.
This refusal by the Saudi-led Arab States to bar Syrian refugees hasn’t just resulted in misery to hundreds of thousands of people. It also has provided an opportunity to Christian-majority states to again help Muslims in dire need. In the seventh century, early Muslim refugees also were helped by the Christian kingdom of Aksum, present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea (formerly referred to as Abyssinia). This act of kindness is remembered by all Muslims with extreme thankfulness. Pope Francis’ guidance to his flock regarding Syrian refugees — “Every Catholic parish, every religious community, every monastery, every sanctuary in Europe should accommodate one family, beginning with my diocese of Rome” — reminds one of that kind, long-ago gesture by the Christian king of Abyssinia.
The pseudo-Islamist extremists have been trying to portray humanity’s war against terrorism as a clash of civilizations and religions. Humane treatment of the Syrian refugees would go a long way in countering their propaganda. The best-case scenario would be for Israel, which borders Syria, to open its borders to the refugees. While this is probably too much to hope for, it would be a death blow to the extremists. Is Israel prepared to take this giant leap to befriend Muslims?
Mohammad Ahmad is a director of a company in Lahore, Pakistan.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/opinion/2015/10/07/arab-states-take-syrian-refugees/73522124/
Ethiopia
Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the founding of the religion; in 615, when a group of Muslims were counseled by Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and travel to Ethiopia via modern-day Eritrea, which was ruled by Ashama ibn Abjar, a pious Christian king.
According to the most recent 2007 CSA governmental data, Muslims are 33.9% of the population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Ethiopia
Eritrea
United States Department of State indicates that 50% of the population are Sunni Muslims but gives no figures for Shias, while a 2009 Pew Research Center report says that less than 1% are Shia.
Islam accounts for approximately 36% to 50% of the population.
More than 99% of Eritrean Muslims practice Sunni Islam.
Islam first arrived to the region when immigrants from Mecca, persecuted by the ruling Quraysh tribe were accepted into Abyssinia by the ruler of Ethiopia whom Arabic tradition has named Aṣḥama ibn Abjar, and he settled them in Negash, located in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia.
Islam later spread in Eritrea under the Ottoman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Eritrea
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COMMENT
Thought this article was interesting, as it provides a bit of an overview of the Syrian and the Arab scenarios.
As the author points out, it's the Saudi Arabians that are funding the terrorists. So the argument that they're protecting themselves by denying Syrians asylum on ground that they're shutting out terrorists doesn't wash, when they themselves are sponsors of terrorism.
It's also worth bearing in mind that the 'Syrian refugees' everyone's referring to aren't strictly 'Syrian' refugees -- they're immigrants from all over the Middle East and Africa that are migrating to Europe.
Doha is in Qatar, where preachers at the state-controlled mosque call for the destruction of Jews and Christians (and others).
Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority, calls for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian Peninsula.
Meanwhile, Europe has had its borders open to Muslim immigration for decades and most European major cities are now mosque sites.
From a quick look, it appears that the construction of mosques has been funded in Europe by the Saudi Arabian fundamentalists, by Qatar and by Turkey, while Europe has bent over backwards to accommodate what amounts to foreign, non-secular invasion, that lives in parallel, religious dominated, and often violent and insular communities, that even police and emergency vehicles don't enter without backup.
Europe and the West, which has opened its borders to immigration that (a) cannot be assimilated and (b) immigration that represents an ongoing threat; subjects domestic populations to totalitarian surveillance and life under high terror alert, even as Europe fails to protect its populations from internal chaos and violence that is integral to hosting these outsider communities.
At the same time, Europe and the West continue to ally themselves with fundamentalist regimes that fund the Islamisation of Europe, regimes whose clerics call for destruction of Christians and churches.
Europe and the West meanwhile continue to take part in destabilisation and destruction of secular Middle Eastern targets of direct, or proxy, Western intervention (at a staggering financial and social cost to European and Western taxpayers), displacing millions in the Middle East and in Africa, and generating floods of unassimilable non-European immigrants, headed to Europe and the West.
This must be the definition of insanity.
That the US has spent $3 billion (since 2012) on post-intervention humanitarian mop-up operations in the guise of 'humanitarian' relief channelled through the UN (while America's own citizens live below the poverty line, America's water infrastructure crumbles & private companies rip off the American poor - here) indicates this is about American corporate imperialism and that Europe is absorbing the human costs for its American ally: costs that will destroy Europe, in sacrifice to the expansion of the American capitalist empire.
What one allows into a nation does not remain static. Sooner or later what is foreign increases in number and in demand for political power. In the case for people for whom the religious and the political is often one and the same, there can only be problems ahead.
I'd wager that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other Islamic nations are also funding the current diverse and highly organised tsunami of Muslim immigration to Europe.
While there's a number of extraneous reasons the Arab states may ostensibly be reluctant to take in Syrians, the bulk of immigration to Europe is not Syrian.
Gulf Arab states and like Muslim counterparts have no interest in absorbing the tidal wave of Muslim immigration because their primary motivation and goal is Muslim domination. Hence Saudi offers of 200 mosques for every 100 refugees to Germany - here.
The Syrian refugees are just a small fraction of the onslaught of Middle Eastern and African immigration.
Four out of five migrants are NOT from Syria: EU figures expose the 'lie' that the majority of refugees are fleeing war zone
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3240010/Number-refugees-arriving-Europe-soars-85-year-just-one-five-war-torn-Syria.html
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*An 'Islamist' is an Islamist. There's no such thing as a pseudo-Islamist (referred to above), although it's convenient to create the impression that there is, for political reasons.
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