Robert wrote:
Lastly, the most persecuted in Syria right now are the Christians, yet I have heard little outcry for our brothers and sisters of faith. This is one reason why Trump wanted to move them to the front of the line, yet all the liberal outcry says let them die. They are being targeted. Not just in the way but being sought out. I would say bring the Muslims over if I saw a country predominately Christian seeking out and killing them because of their faith. Yet this is happening and most are totally silent about it. While I may not agree with Trump on how he is going about it, at least someone is seeing this and wanting to address it.
As you have said, it's more complicated than that. Yes, Christians are being persecuted in Syria, but so are a whole bunch of other groups as well. The Christians initially supported Assad early in the war and so many of them have received protection from the Syrian army. Other groups that are also heavily persecuted include the Kurds and Yazadis. The Sunni majority population in Syria has also experienced persecution because the majority of Assad's government and military leadership comes from the Alawite sect. And of course some of the rebel opposition forces have massacred Alawites, because they view them as heretics.
I don't think we have a good sense here in the US of how
sectarian this conflict is, in which both pro and anti-government forces have tortured, murdered civilians, attacked hospitals, etc. We tend to see the entire Muslim world as monolithic without recognizing or understanding that there are lots of sects and ethnicities in Islam. Just as Christianity is not a monolithic bloc, neither is Islam.
One theme that's emerged here on MD is that Muslims refugees should be sent to Muslim majority countries because they would be more comfortable with the culture. Yet Arab Christians are culturally also Arab and would experience the same cultural challenges in the US that Muslims would have.
“It’s easy to make everything a conspiracy when you don’t know how anything works.” — Brandon L. Bradford