What Happened in Syria When No One Was Looking

Picture from HERE

No one can ever question that Americans care about rights. Popular rights include right to food, to housing, to free stuff, to not be judged, and to love. With so many social justice ideals, it shouldn’t seem unusual that a picture of a dead two year old washed up on a shore might send the nation into a storm of internet sympathy and concern for refugees. After all, there is something we call the right to life, isn’t there?  I watched one day while my Facebook feed lit up with fundraisers, awareness campaigns, and questions. Why is this happening? What is going to be done about it? Everyone wanted to know what they could do or else had fabulous ideas to help, but no one knew how it happened. It was like the problem sprung up over night- something from nothing. Contrarily, if you’ve studied it at all, you’ll see that this isn’t a new problem. Too much of our culture focuses inward, on our own minor problems and we end up ignoring the turmoil happening outside the United States.  Instead of pushing aside these detrimental problems as something foreign, we need to start studying and paying more attention to the issues in the Middle East before the situation gets worse.

Initially, the Syrian crisis came about shortly after the infectious Arab Spring.  One article I read said, “Despite assurances by many pundits and regime incumbents alike that Syria would prove to be immune to revolution, and following several false starts and ultimately inconsequential skirmishes, Syria's popular uprising commenced on March 18, 2011” (Leenders 274). The uprisings in Syria were long in coming. There were hints of uprising before this time, but the movements lacked mobilization. In explanation, the article also said, “Syrians sensed that events in Tunisia and Egypt had opened a window of opportunity in their country as well. In short, not the regime's features appear to have changed, but many Syrians' perception of their ability to challenge it” (Leenders 275). With the spread of social networking (something else covered in detail in the article) Syrians who had long wanted change finally saw it was probable. Their revolt was unexpected, but it was also over four years ago.   I ‘d heard about it near the start, when 15 children were arrested for graffiti that defied the government. My sister, Sandra, is the political genius of the family and was always telling me about what was going on the in the Middle East. She graduated not long ago from Brigham Young University with a degree in political science. In school, she focused on studying terrorism and politics of Middle East and was very good at it. While I was still trying to mold into college survival, Sandra was doing case studies on the Arab Spring with an emphasis on Syria and why it was lagging behind.
I recently made Sandra explain it all again in retrospect. She started out telling me about a chat conversation she found from 2012. In it, she’d been expressing her concerns about Syria to my little brother. “What I predicted in the conversation with Joseph was that America will be too afraid to enter because of the international complications because Russia and Iran were already making alliances” (Shurtleff). She was right. All you have to do is look back on the recent presidential debates for a few minutes to see that.  The issue was there, but largely unheard of and largely ignored.

  The results of ignoring this issue have been detrimental and caused the following refugee crisis.   It's been found that “By the end of 2013 there were over 2 million registered refugees…An estimated 100,000 have been killed by the fighting and many more wounded and disappeared.” (Dahi 45). A hundred thousand lives, two million refugees and still almost no one in the country of rights and liberties thought it was enough to get involved. Then, two years later, people suddenly start to zoom in on Syrian refugees because of a picture. Concerning the lack of knowledge Sandra said, “People tare like, 'Why are there so many refugees? How horrifying!’ and I’m like, ‘Because we’ve been ignoring a conflict for four years, that’s why and if you’d stop the conflict, you’d stop the refugee problem’” (Shurtleff). She believes that there needs to be an increased awareness among Americans of the effects of international war.   I agree.  More involvement and awareness about the situation in those countries would have helped moved people to action sooner.

The refugee problem was never like a fairy-tale a bean stalk that rose up out of nothing. Its growth could have been preventable, but a lack of knowledge and action nourished it. The emotional response on social media and their belated cry for action are examples of people trying to, “do a surface solution while the actual problem is the conflict, not the humanitarian issue” (Shurtleff). Humanitarian efforts shot up for weeks after the picture spread around. However, I’m worried this was like blowing on a cut to make it better. We need to take a more active stance now to learn about the issues in these smaller, distant countries before the crises take over and threaten the lives of many.

Works Cited
Dahi, Omar S. "Syria in Fragments: The Politics of the Refugee Crisis." Dissent 61.1 (2014): 45- 48. Project MUSE. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
Leenders, Reinoud. "Social Movement Theory and The Onset of the Popular Uprising In Syria." Arab Studies Quarterly 35.3 (2013): 273-289. Middle Eastern & Central Asian Studies. Web. 21 Oct. 2015. 
Shurtleff, Sandra. Personal Interview. 21 October 2015.