Save the Children

Sept. 2, 2016

According to the UN, more than 60 million people are displaced from their homes or are refugees. The numbers grow as the wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan drag on. What are we doing about this?

Germany has resettled a million refugees and asylum seekers this year, including 41,000 Syrians. Most Germans are proud of the sacrifices they are making to address this humanitarian crisis. Of course there have been incidents and occasional clashes of cultures, but through leadership from Chancellor Merkel, Germany has set a standard for the rest of the world to emulate.

Similar leadership from Prime Minister Trudeau has allowed Canada to absorb some 30,000 refugees from Syria alone. The United States has been less welcoming, despite the realization that much of the instability in Iraq and Syria was triggered by our 2003 invasion of Iraq.

By late August, the U.S. admitted just over 10,000 Syrians. Refugee applications undergo an extremely stringent review that can take anywhere from 18 to 24 months, with an acceptance rate below 50 percent. Resistance to admitting more Syrians remains strong and has become a central issue in the election campaign. Meanwhile, millions remain in limbo, un-housed, under- or unfed, unschooled, uncared for. We ignore this mass of humanity at our peril.

We all know that none of the intractable conflicts generating these displaced persons is going to be resolved soon. But are we obliged to do more? As if we needed any confirmation beyond the sheer numbers, two photographs we all have seen should persuade us. The most recent is of a dazed Syrian boy, Omran Dagneesh, covered in dirt, staring at the blood on his hand wiped from a head wound. Picture him as your child. Think how it must feel for his parents. He survived.

Now picture Aylan Kurdi, “the dead little Syrian boy on the beach.” You’ve seen the photograph. Red shirt, blue shorts, with a Turkish aid worker tenderly lifting his lifeless form from the waves. Picture yourself as his mother as she lost her grip on him then herself succumbed to the power of the sea. Many of us agree that this is terrible, inexcusable. We want “the government” to do something. A few even make contributions to organizations that are trying to help.

The refugee crisis came up during my recent visit to L.A. when I met a group of young entrepreneurs and executives who have formed a company called GenNext and a foundation of the same name. CEO Michael Davidson describes himself as wanting his children to inherit a better world than what exists today. He’s gathered a number of likeminded, equally successful individuals who, as he puts it, “have done well, and now want to do good.”

GenNext aims to use the Internet to counter the recruitment efforts of those who dream of a world we must not let come to be. The group does this by focusing on what can lead young people to extremism in any form, from Islamist to neo-Nazi. They see economic opportunity, education and global security as three key areas that must be tackled simultaneously.

The GenNext team includes an impressive former government official with extensive experience in the Middle East and Asia, and an incredible Afghan woman who’s spent years working in the midst of the current crisis. In the global marketplace of ideas, their goal is to build a counter-narrative to the extreme images and enticements that are attracting young people on the Internet today.

These two threads – preventing extremism from infecting young people, and helping the millions of refugees -- come together when we look at what we as individuals might do to address both. The U.S. is not accepting refugees in substantial numbers because we fear they will bring terrorism to us, even though the domestic terrorism we’ve experienced was perpetrated by home-grown radicals. We are not effectively countering the Internet recruitment by terror groups because we don’t offer an alternative to their message of extremism and glorified death.

But if we could somehow create that counternarrative to stem the flow of recruits, we have a chance to defeat those whom we cannot reach. What we have to acknowledge is that the photographs of little Aylan’s lifeless body or of Omran’s bloodied brow are the recruiting posters for the so-called “Islamic State,” Al-Qaida, Boko Haraam and the like. And we need to acknowledge that the scenes of violence against citizens on our own streets breed violence of another sort right here at home.

Most of all, we need to show that we care enough to want a better future for those whose lives are defined by violence and suffering. And yes, we need to address our own indifference that manifests itself in calls to keep “those people” out of our country and neighborhoods.

Good people like the GenNext members are a vanguard in what one hopes will become a major effort of people “who’ve done well and now what to do good,” who will use their talents and resources to get ahead of this problem of “radicalization by Internet.”

But even those of us who have not done quite so well can still do good. The family next door whom no one seems to know, the kid who’s in need of a Big Brother or Sister, the local police raising funds to refurbish a basketball court…these don’t require millions to address. They require us to want to save the children from hopelessness.

We have a daunting task before us and pretending we can meet it with more soldiers, bombs or police is exactly the wrong answer. We need to reach the minds of those who would do us harm and do it now. We need to care.

Jack Segal is co-chair with his wife Karen Puschel of the International Affairs Forum. The IAF’s next lecture is September 15 at 6 pm at Milliken Auditorium featuring UofM Professor Sally Howell speaking on “Coming to America: The Muslim Experience.”