Tweet Follow @RPJblog
By Jason Michael
Trump said that he would ban Muslims from coming into America. No one can say that he didn’t give us fair warning. Now he has gone and kept his promise and everyone is bewildered at how cold and callous the US has become. But he told us.
Don’t for a single moment imagine that this doesn’t concern you. If you are thinking: So what? It has nothing to do with me, well then you had better check to see if tickets are available for Mars trips yet. While it may not seem like it – on account of us living in a world where we take them for granted – human rights, like the rule of law and civil and political rights, are fragile; they are only as strong as the state powers that protect and guarantee them. Right now Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the most powerful state power on the planet, has administered a serious blow to the rights of refugees and migrants – thus undermining the entire edifice of all our rights and freedoms.
More immediately, this is a direct assault on national, ethnic, and religious groups for no other reason than their place of origin. It is a deliberately misguided collective punishment in retaliation for acts of terrorism that had nothing whatsoever to do with these people. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan – where Donald Trump happens to do business – are not on this banned list, despite the fact that these states are the leading exporters of Islamist extremism and terrorism. Had this ban be about protecting the US from harm Saudi Arabia and Pakistan would be at the top of this list. All that can really explain this ban is the overt racism, bigotry, and Islamophobia of the Trump machine.
In direct contravention of the Geneva Convention on Refugees the door to the United States has been closed on Syrian refugees, leaving them stranded and homeless either in a warzone or in other nations where their rights are being daily violated. Just as he didn’t want African Americans living in his properties, he doesn’t want “these people” coming to America. Approaching half a million civilians – including 50,000 children – have been killed in the Syrian civil war, and over six and a half million people have been displaced; causing the world’s greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War. Where do these people go? Well, not the land of the free! The Statue of Liberty is telling them lies; Trump’s America doesn’t want them.
Believe it or not it was the United States that caused both their misery and the entire refugee crisis. The anti-Assad rebellion was, from the beginning, backed by the Obama administration. The CIA and other clandestine outfits backed the “rebels” – AKA Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as the al-Nusra Front, formerly known as al-Qaeda – in their attempt to overthrow the regime and secure yet another oil pipeline for Uncle Sam. It didn’t work because Russia’s Vladimir Putin didn’t much appreciate America taking oil from its ally and trade partner. So a new Cold War proxy became hell on earth for ordinary Syrians who now have nowhere to go.
Trump’s decree that Syrian refugees can no longer seek sanctuary in the United States has Europe reeling in shock. Last summer the beaches of south-west Europe were strewn with the bodies of drowned refugees who had drowned in their desperate attempt to cross the Mediterranean. RTÉ, the Irish state broadcaster, reported that about 130 people were dying like this every single day by the end of the year – many of them children. US and British media aren’t reporting these numbers because it is their guns and tanks and planes and drones and bombs that are causing the problem. Trump is using the excuse of terrorism to hide his racism, but these poor souls are fleeing real terrorism in their own country – US and British state-sponsored terrorism.
Nigel Farage defends Trump refugee ban
Random Public Journal 