With recent terror attacks by ISIS throughout the world (most notably in Paris and Beirut), people around the world are understandably scared. The result of this fear, however, is an ignited wave of Islamophobia.
This result is exactly what terrorists aim for.The goal of terrorists is to use fear to spread their ideology and political goals. When we as a people attempt to ban certain groups of people because of fear, this is what terrorists want. The same trend can be seen throughout history with other terrorist groups. The KKK and Black Panther Party used violence and fear to keep specific groups separated during the early to mid 1900s.
Groups such as these don’t represent the much larger religious or racial majority. Just as Americans do not want be judged as a whole for extremists like Dylan Storm Roof or Adam Lanza, it is not fair to judge people of the Islamic faith for the actions of an extremist group like ISIS. It is especially important to remember that our nation was founded on the idea of all men being created equally, and that throughout our history we have been working toward a goal in which that ideal is completely realized. By using fear and Islamophobia to turn away refugees completely, we are not getting closer to completing that ideal, but moving further away.
Finally, people’s religious affiliation, skin color or country of origin should not matter. What should matter is that they are humans in peril, and that it is possible for us to help. While we all have our own individual alliance to our religion or country, we all live in this one world, and as such are people who should care about the millions of refugees forced out of their country because of terrorists.
We are all equal citizens in this world.