Monday, November 16, 2015

Counter-Terrorism, ISIS, Paris, Etc.

I am ashamed and horrified at the news these days.  It seems to me that it is the easiest thing in the world to capitalize on fear, to give in to the pressures of the day.  Like all these governors claiming they will reject Syrian refugees.  Like the facebook posts arguing we should close our hearts and homes, give in to the fear that they're all somehow terrorists.

This bothers me, for two reasons.  First - because I know Muslims are a group like any other.  That is, I (as a rather lapsed Catholic) am very different from a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, even though we all might nominally be called Christian. So even though there are some jihadists mixed in with the community, I know that the vast majority are people just like you and me.  People who want to live in peace, and security.  People who are refugees because they are NOT terrorists.

Second.  Well, the second reason gets more at the mystery at the heart of human nature.  It's easier to explain with a story:

A facility had tools go missing, so the manager decided to put all the tools in a room with a chain and a padlock, so only he or his designated people could get to the tools.  His CEO came to visit and heard about this.  The next day, he dropped the chain and the padlock (which had been cut through with bolt cutters) on the manager's desk. 

I think the appeal here is immediately obvious.  There might have been one person in the entire plant stealing tools, but locking them up made it seem like everyone was untrustworthy.  Who wouldn't want to work for a CEO who made it clear he trusted his people, even at the risk of losing some tools? 

At the same time, if you were the manager whose tools were missing, what would you do?  Or rather - what would you have done differently?  (This rings especially true for me, because we recently bought a cage to store some of the equipment at work.  Not saying they were stolen, precisely.  Its more like people on a shift who knew they had a 'good' one might happen to leave it in their locker or put it somewhere hard to find so that they could easily use the same one the next day.  I personally would have preferred to spend the money to buy everyone their own, and have them sign for it and be accountable for it...but I digress.)

The point here is that sometimes we make choices that sound good at the time.  That are clearly a reaction to a specific situation, and seem like the best/easiest response to that situation.  But in the long run?  You've got employees who know they aren't trusted.  That fuzzy thing called morale drops.  The more you try to control, the more resentful people get, the more morale drops...the less people want to work there. 

So some terrorists, who happen to be Muslim, are committing  horrific attacks.  Part of the strategy of terrorism is to do that...to provoke an overreaction, one that feeds dissent and fuels your side.  (Algeria, for example, where the French rounded up the innocent as well as the guilty, thereby pushing the innocent into the arms of the insurgents/terrorists.)

And here we've got people immediately saying "Let's stop letting refugees in".

It's understandable.  And it's a short-sighted reaction entirely based on fear. 

"Fear is the mind-killer."

So let's try to think about this without fear, without that little voice saying 'if we accept these refugees we'll open ourselves up to attack'.  After all, who is more likely to become a terrorist - someone who found welcome and safety in European lands?  Or someone who has been shuffled off, rejected, abandoned, and left with nowhere to go?

That little voice, btw, is the voice I feel the New Testament repeatedly says is wrong.  Where is the notion of the Good Samaritan?  Of the person who would give the shirt of their back?  Or is charity only for people 'like us'?

Hell.  I have a house, and a spare room.  Sort of.  I'd have to move some things out, and it'd be kind of cramped.  But if there's any organization out there looking for a temporary home for a refugee family in the States I'm willing to take them in.

It's the right thing to do.