Refugees are not terrorists.

Refugees are not terrorists.

Refugee – noun; a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.

Terrorism – noun; the unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

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According to the UN High Councillor for Refugees, there are currently 59.5 million displaced people in the world; every single day, 42,500 people are forced out of their homes due to conflict or persecution. Last year, 51% of all refugees were under the age of 18. It is vital that we welcome them with compassion and care – any hostility will surely lead to susceptibility for extremist recruitment.

Several leading members of the press in the United Kingdom and the USA have been eager to highlight an alleged intrinsic link between refugees, who are fleeing for their lives, and hideous terrorist atrocities. Sporting bogus statistics and ridiculously far-fetched narratives, a perfect example of this fear-mongering comes from the 55p tabloid, The Daily Express. It claimed last year that ISIS has helped to smuggle over 4,000 militant “gunmen” into western nations, “hidden amongst innocent refugees”.

According to recent Europol statements, this simply isn’t true. Speaking at the launch of a new European-wide anti-terrorism scheme today, Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, concluded that there is “no concrete evidence” linking refugees and terror attacks. Further, investigating into the November 13th Paris attacks, Europol analysts and crime experts found nothing whatsoever to support the idea “that terrorist travellers systematically use the flow of refugees to enter Europe unnoticed”. This myth has been generated as a sophisticated ploy to sell newspapers, and it is wholly disgusting.

However, the Europol investigation revealed three main things that have to change if we are to stand any chance of preventing radicalisation and stopping further terror attacks from happening.

Firstly, Europe needs to pay close attention to relocating and clearing refugees from so-called bottlenecks in Greece and Turkey – and fast. Europol found that refugee holding camps were quickly becoming hotbeds for radicalisation, and vulnerable scared refugees were frequently targeted by ISIS recruiters operating in these camps; their research suggests that it is in these refugee camps, not in the refugees’ home countries, where radicalisation is occurring.

Secondly, Europol uncovered a lack of information exchange between European countries. As a result, the European Counter-Terrorism Centre was set up on Monday. Rob Wainwright, Europol director, explains, “Our ambition is for the European Counter-Terrorism Centre to become a central information hub in the fight against terrorism in the EU, providing analysis for ongoing investigations and contributing to a coordinated reaction in the event of major terrorist attacks”.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, Europol called for a change to our culture. It lamented the rise of subtle xenophobia and concluded that a major contributing factor to radicalisation is a feeling of isolation. As long as the tabloid press smears refugees and immigrants are murderers and rapists, it will be impossible for those groups to integrate fully with. society. And, if integration does not occur, large proportions of our population are left vulnerable to radicalisation.

It is absolutely vital that we stop viewing refugees as terrorists – this is categorically untrue. Doing so merely detracts and distracts from the sensible discussion surrounding the best methods of counter-terrorism. Europol’s suggestion are clear and effective and seem to be the best. option in an increasingly muddled debate.

Immigration: we’ve been through this before.

Hungary, 1956: A toppled statue of Stalin gazes amusedly into the dark Budapest skyline.

 Immigration: we’ve been through this before.

As aggressively right-wing politicians such as Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen soar to power on a wave of hatred and fear, there is one vital thing to remember concerning immigration: we’ve been through this before.

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1956. Hungary. Following the death of Stalin, many Hungarians hoped to see a rollback of Stalinist policies, and, in June, the Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, Rákosi, fell from power. That October, students, workers and soldiers attacked the AVH (the secret police), and smashed statues of Stalin – they could taste victory with every revolutionary act.

On 24th October 1956, Imre Nagy, a western minded moderate, took over as prime minister; just four days later, he negotiated the removal of Russian troops from Hungary. The icy grip of the USSR was slipping, and Stalin’s dream seemed to be crumbling. On November 3rd, Nagy declared that Hungary would leave the Warsaw Pact; he was calling for an end to communism in Hungary.

The next day, Russian troops returned. Incensed by the Hungarian declaration, Khrushchev ordered 1000 tanks into the country, where they killed 20,000 Hungarians, destroyed the native army, and captured national radio studios. The last words broadcast were “Help! Help! Help!”

In the immediate aftermath, several hundred Hungarians were executed, hundreds of thousands fled Hungary as political refugees. By the time the borders were fully sealed, 180,000 refugees had moved to neutral Austria, and 20,000 had fled south to Yugoslavia. In the following weeks, a huge operation was established – refugees were relocated to other countries faster than they arrived in Austria. Under the leadership of the United Nations, particularly the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, refugees were moved to over 37 different countries, with minimal fuss. One famous name amongst the immigrants is László Kovács, a cinematographer whose filmography include classics such as Ghostbusters, receiver of three Lifetime Achievement Awards. Andrew Grove and Leslie L. Vadász are others, the first two employees of Intel – the latter was head of the department that produced the first microprocessor.

These events have huge implications for today – refugees can be hugely beneficial, and, if spread over a number of countries, the quantity of refugees involved in today’s Syrian crisis can easily be accommodated, especially if the effort is coordinated effectively by the UN. As a result, we need to look on immigration with hope and optimism; we need to recognise refugees’ potential and open our arms to them as a collective of countries. We need to wholly avoid the kind of fear mongering that is being conducted by Donald Trump.

The war in the Middle East is not a new one.

 

The war in the Middle East is not a new one. 

On Wednesday 2nd December, British MPs debated late into the night about whether or not the UK should ‘go to war’ with Syria, and at 22:32 the result of their vote was announced: Britain was to bomb Syria. A new war had begun.

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At least, that was the impression you would receive if you read any of the newspaper headlines the morning after. “It’s WAR”, screamed one, “Britain at War”, yet another. The truth is, this is not a new war. The war in the Middle East has been an issue for centuries; the First Crusade of 1096–1099 is widely viewed as the very first West vs. Middle East war. Christianity and Islam were clashing at fault-lines all across eastern Europe, so following the Muslim capture of Jerusalem Pope Urban II declared war in 1905, in order to win back the Holy Land. The war lasted three long years, and in the climax of the Crusade (the infamous Siege of Jerusalem), around 11,000 Christian soldiers and over 50,000 civilians lost their lives trying to reclaim the Holy City.

All parties were in agreement that a war of such scale should never occur again, but just over 100 years later, the states formed by the First Crusaders were crumbling. In 1150 the County of Edessa, the very first state formed by the earliest Crusaders, fell; this led to the Second Crusade, which featured a similar plot line to the first: Middle Eastern unrest; Catholic intervention; unnecessary bloodshed. History repeated itself in the Third Crusade, and by that point, the total death toll for Christian wars in the Middle East had risen to over 250,000, even by the most conservative estimates.

The West appears to have an addiction to intervention in the Middle East, and, whether you view this as good or bad, there is one absolutely vital lesson for the West to learn. Forethought. The West lacked forethought in the Gulf War – having liberated Kuwait and gained occupation of Iraq, they failed to deal with the oppressive dictator in command of the country, Saddam Hussein. The CIA believed it would be better to allow a coup d’etat to overthrow Hussein. However, due to a lack of coordination; a lack of planning; a lack of forethought; by the CIA, the coup failed and Hussein, and his regime, remained.

However, whilst Hussein had enough military power left to crush the CIA-orchestrated revolt, he could not hold on to the dog-eared corners of Iraq. A power vacuum had been created. This is viewed by many Middle Eastern commentators and historians as one of the main causes for the chaos that we see in Iraq, and, increasingly, in Syria, today. The north of Iraq has been shattered by war; the Kurds are piecing together the shards in the northeast, whilst Daesh have swept in from the west. The result is a harshly divided three-way struggle for power; a political hot potato that cannot be, and has not been, solved by air strikes alone.

Whilst Britain’s politicians clash heads over the UK’s military strategy (or, in Jeremy Corbyn’s case, why we even need a military strategy), they must keep this important lesson in mind. Air strikes, ground warfare, or a political future are nothing without forethought. Any strategy requires careful planning for the future of Syria, and, for that matter, the liberation and restructuring of Iraq. If this planning is not completed, I fear we will all be feeling a strange sense of déjà vu around 15 years into the future when this terrible mess repeats itself.