We’ve all seen it. The videos circulating around the Internet of a small Syrian child whose face has been caked with grime and blood, being rejected by the borders of European nations. The refugee crisis is undoubtedly one of the most controversial crises of the 21st century. Here is my take:

The refugee crisis boils down to the issue of safety in the eyes of European nations. These nations feel it is not their obligation to have to accept these citizens and no international body should force them to do so. The alt-right often argue that refugees and immigrants will decrease wages for natives, and ultimately pose a greater security risk than those who were born in the nation.

The flip side of the coin is the moral argument. This side entails a narrative that argues that it is a moral obligation to accept these people into their borders because of the terrorism and ruins of war they face if they are to return home. 

My opinion lies with the latter, but for different reasons.

The first is the cause of the destruction and rampant civil unrest within the Middle East. We’ve all heard the theories about Social Darwinism and the White Man’s Burden about how those who are brown are simply intellectually inferior and cannot produce a government system that is functional, leading to racist slurs such as “monkey” and “curryface”.

But the fact of the matter is that the civil unrest caused in these areas and their inability to produce a stable government comes from the reality that the West has turned the Middle East into a playground. The United States has waged war after war in the region in the name of a false democracy that in its core identity was blatant fascism. We’ve come to stereotype that the Arabs are radical people, that fundamentalism has led to the decrease in stability, the theories that circulate constantly. 

Groups such as the Taliban, created by the United States to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, and ISIS, a byproduct of a Wahhabist theology that was installed in Saudi Arabia (again by the United States) have been the root causes of bloodshed and manslaughter throughout the region.

What many do not know is that America initially championed the Taliban. The Taliban were invited to Geneva to attend peace conferences and lauded by the U.S. for their efforts against opium growth in Afghanistan. Of course, when the interests of the U.S. ended, they severed ties and gave birth to one of the most cruelly radical militant groups that have been the cause of terrorism and unrest in Afghanistan and the Southwestern region of Pakistan. The United States propagated an unwinnable war, publishing literal lies, and wanted to use the nation as a pawn to gain more control over Iran and Pakistan.

The second reason why the West’s battle against refugees is ironic is because of the borders drawn by those very same countries. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, etc., were all under one nation as the Islamic Caliphate, which ranged from Indonesia to the east, Morocco to the west, Kazakhstan in the north, and the Maldives in the south.

The French and the British subsequently colonized these areas after the fall of the Mughal empire, believing many of these people were unfit to rule themselves because they were brown. When they decided to leave, they simply drew lines on a map that have led to unfathomable violence and disputes between nations, the Kurds being an unfortunate example.

So, if the West is responsible for this, why should we not take in these refugees? Racism and xenophobia plague the politics of this all. All of the stories of European ancestors coming from the Mayflower and struggling with their family to make it in America have been glorified and romanticized because of their white skin. For us brown people, the rhetoric is vastly different. Infection. Caravan. Aliens. Plague. Essentially sub-human. Ignorance and hatred have gotten to the point where many of these refugees end up in cages, in the hands of smugglers, or ultimately die on their return to their homeland after being rejected by the very nations that created the mess.

This issue also comes from the idea that somehow brown people are unable to be civilized, whereas history disproves. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, some of the earliest civilizations, were some of the most peaceful. The fundamentalist Arab caliphate was in a golden age of medicine, producing literature and preserving philosophical texts, explaining why historians attribute it for compiling the majority of the knowledge we have today.

This is in addition to creating advancements in calculus, astronomy, chemistry, and algebra as well as architecture, in addition to the concept of 0 created from ancient India. This was all while Europe was in its darkest ages, not receiving these advancements until the Crusades introduced the continent to the Muslim, Indian, Eastern Asian, and African worlds. Maybe the development of calculus is the reason for all the xenophobia. 

So if brown people are civilized, then why do they cause more violence domestically? A simple case study for this reveals the fundamental flaw regarding this narrative. Since the majority of the refugees are from Muslim nations, we can utilize this demographic in the United States. The chance of an American being killed by a Muslim is approximately 1 in 3.5 million. Americans have a higher chance of being killed by a toddler who misfires a gun, a vending machine, and their own furniture, as well as lawnmowers. Additionally, statistical analysis shows that countries with proportionately larger Muslim populations have lower Gini scores and lower murder rates when compared to the domestic population.

Summatively, crime is lower and so is income inequality, and women in these communities are often more determined and likely to follow through and succeed with secondary education. These all warrant that the true reasoning behind the refusal of the entrance of refugees boils down to racism and hatred.

This idea that somehow letting in brown people will create a stain on the white blanket of Europe. That brown people are unclean. That brown people are uncivilized and violent, even though the math disproves it. The reality is that the media has portrayed those hailing from the Middle East in a constant negative light seeing that Muslims were far more likely to receive unwarranted negative media coverage, even though terrorism cannot be a warrant since the Muslim community in the United States is one of the most peaceful. This has led many to adhere to the employment of negative policies against brown people.

I am normally not one to engage in discussions such as these to avoid people accusing me of bias or whining. But I am truly fed up with the stigma and the stereotypes. I am in the strong affirmation that those Western nations that have abused innocent people of the Middle East must accept responsibility and allow these refugees within their borders. But what does my opinion matter? After all, I’m just a brown monkey.