One of the themes of my childhood was loss. My family was the result of diaspora. A parent who is a refugee means ties to instability. Maybe the greatest stability in my early years was the expectation of death, the winking out of lights I never witnessed shining in person because war blocked my access to those loving arms, those shining eyes.
I hope my family's refugee days are over.
Videos flood my social media feeds of Syrians literally afloat or grounded but being abused by authority figures wherever they land. Their plight is one I am intimate with. Many of my family members were denied refugee status in the U.S. for the express reason of being from the hated Middle East. They were too brown and therefore suspect. So they stayed in a country where duck and cover is not practiced in schools, it is essential.
Bombs through the roof. Bombs through the windows. Goodbye friends and neighbors.
For Syrians, kicks in the gut. Splash back in the water. We don't care what you lost fleeing for your life. Your life has no value because you resemble people who did Very Bad Things. You share a language or a religion. So that means you are likely to do Very Bad Things. Unless we break you, destroy your family, deny your life.
Can't we do better?
Can't we hold each other up, scoot over, make room on the bench for the hungry and tired and those who are asking for hope?
My heart breaks with those families. I feel powerless, having lived it all before. I feel sad and afraid because the news is always the same: No, no, no. We are afraid of you because you were born into a mold that the media tells us is the worst. Therefore you deserve the worst.
I want to see love, hope, giving and beauty. Yes, it is happening, but the overriding sentiment is more along the lines of "Mine!" Even I am guilty, afraid to part with funds because my situation is tenuous. The empath's dilemma: But is my situation as tenuous? No? Then guilt.
I am perplexed by a world that is equally wonderful and monstrous. It seems like the monsters are winning (Brexit, Trump's presence in the American presidential race, Turkish civil liberty infringement, and on and on). And if Trump does win, will my family become refugees again? He thinks I should.