Thoughts on Thanksgiving and refugees

I was going to do a Thanksgiving article, you know something warm and fuzzy to kick off the holiday season with proper spirit. But after the responses to last Friday’s article of the Syrian refugee problem, I began to think of something else. That our country has a real ugly side to it.

It is a very sad but true fact. Just look at the reactions to the current refugee crisis going on now. People are going off foaming at the mouth rabid at the very thought of allowing just a few the Syrian refugees in, 10,000 vs. over a million or so more scattered throughout Europe. A drop in the bucket. Yet fear and paranoia are being spread by media such as Fox News, radio talk show pundits and even Republican candidates for the highest office in the land. The dark vision of a couple of those is deeply disturbing to put it mildly.

Donald Trump takes the cake here. His calls for the registration and surveillance of American Muslims plus any refugees of the same religion coming into the country are simply appalling. This has been tried before by Adolf Hilter and the Nazi party against the Jews of Germany and later under Nazi occupied Europe. Millions died brutally in the gas chambers and mass executions at death camps scattered throughout the regime’s dark evil control.

And it all started with forcing the Jews of Germany and other countries to register and wear the bright yellow star of David armbands. Mr. Trump wants to bring that back, straight from Hitler’s playbook. That is utterly insane.

Some others suggest that we allow them into the country but put them into camps so we can control them. Sadly this has been done before, far too many times to count in our history. From the shameful way we treated Native Americans by pushing them off their lands and into reservations to the most recent forced interment of Japanese citizens on U.S. soil which was over 70 ago during WWII. A paranoid response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan. So anyone looking Japanese was dragged out of their homes, put on to trains and shipped out to camps scattered across the nation for duration of the war.

Both of these ideas were simply wrong on so many levels. They must never be resurrected. They go against everything modern America stands for and are the stuff of nightmares. The root cause for today’s dilemma is simply this — religion.

Islam; there I said it. The boogey man word that has so many foaming at the mouth. Hatred of a religion is at the heart and soul of this issue, hatred of people who happen to be Muslim fleeing from terrorism and war. Plus the atrocities wrongfully committed in its name by groups like Al-Qeada, the Taliban and worst of the worst ISIS. Hatred and paranoia that has come out in all its ugliest forms in the comments made in the media and even in a ranting counterpoint article appearing under mine in last Friday’s Frontiersman. Not to mention a slew of negative comments made about Friday’s editorial by the Frontiersman on both the paper’s website and its Facebook page.

It was frankly shameful. Even more shameful were the attitudes and negative actions by our elected “leadership” at the state and federal level. The outright paranoia and fear that came from them had a distinctive stench of manure. All this in light of the attacks in Paris and other places by ISIS. The venom spewed is all directed toward the Syrian refugees whose plight may depend on some of them entering our country. None of the Paris ISIS attackers were Syrians by the way. The Syrians fleeing from ISIS and the civil war in Syria had nothing to do with the attacks in Paris.

All of this comes on the eve of the holiday season, which starts on Thanksgiving Day. You know, the season for peace on earth, goodwill to all men, in the spirit of the prince of peace, Jesus Christ. And yet I’m scratching my head at the words and actions by people including more than few “good Christians” and their leaders not mention everyone else spewing nothing but fear and hate. I shake my head at sheer amount of bigotry polluting our airwaves, print and social media. It begs the question where is the humanity? Really, where did it go?

Last I heard that line “goodwill to all men,” it wasn’t meant to be limited to just Christians. It was given to the hope that all share in goodwill no matter what the religion that person practices. Most of all, the hope of Peace on Earth. We can start by giving those Syrian refugees something to be thankful for. Freedom from terror, free to live here in peace. This time I’m proud to say we have done this before in the past, time for a repeat.

This is just a little something to think about as we sit down with family and friends to partake in the bounty and blessings of Thanksgiving in our warm and cozy homes as the snow falls outside. A holiday uniquely American but universal in the idea of thankfulness for the harvest. I have to wonder just what someone in a cold, damp European refugee camp during a snowfall is doing at the same time. I have heard they are hellish places barely fit for human existence. Yet they are far better than living in the hell of worn torn countries like Libya, Iraq and Syria. Some people have called the refugees cowards for leaving those regions. Can you believe that? I call them brave in their journey fraught with danger, struggling to live free against all odds. We need to lower those odds and do the right thing, the human thing to bring those refugees hope. Let them in.

Daniel D. Grota is a retired U.S. Army veteran with over 21 years in service. He is also a Tuesday morning co-host on KVRF 89.5 FM, Radio Free Palmer. Write to him at news@frontiersman.com.