‘They left their
country because of war and found it here again,’ activist says of those who
fled ISIL and civil war
PARIS — Oday
Ghalyoun was on his way to a friend’s apartment in Voltaire, central Paris on
Friday night when he heard a familiar sound rattling out 50 yards behind him.
Ghalyoun, a
25-year-old Syrian refugee from Homs, at first thought it was fireworks. But as
he scrambled away from the source of the noise — the Bataclan concert hall,
where gunmen had opened fire and killed 89 people — he quickly changed his
mind. “I spent two years in Homs,” a town that has seen relentless fighting
during more than four years of civil war, he said. “I know how Kalashnikovs
sound.”
For Ghalyoun — and
the rest of France’s several thousand Syrian refugees – the sights and sounds
of Friday evening were both traumatic and eerily familiar: gunfire, panicked
screaming, stunned victims with bloodstains on their clothes. So, too, was the
apparent perpetrator. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which
has claimed responsibility for the attacks, laid its roots amid Syria’s chaotic
civil war, eventually consolidating control over more than 50 percent of the
country and threatening attacks across the globe. Its brutal rule is one of the
main drivers of the refugee crisis, especially among activists and religious
minorities.
“They left their
country because of war and found it here again,” said Lyna Chami, a
Syrian-French volunteer with Syrians and Friends Paris, a civil society
organization that assists newly arrived refugees.
Muslim community in
France fears backlash over attacks 3:08
Al Jazeera America
News | November 15, 2015
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But as the French
mourn those killed in the attacks and fear what’s to come, Syrians are faced
with an additional burden: blame. In the wake of reports that a Syrian passport
had been found near the remains of a dead suicide bomber, U.S. officials on Sunday
revealed that the attackers may have had contact with ISIL in Syria. It isn’t
clear what this evidence means, but the Syria connection has already reignited
a heated debate in Europe over the potential security risks posed by the tens
of thousands of refugees who are landing on European shores each month.
For a growing
right-wing current in Europe, the attacks lent credence to their worst fears:
that ISIL might sneak operatives into Europe among the flow of desperate
refugees. Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far-right National Front,
declared her predictions vindicated and reiterated her call for France to
shutter “radical” mosques and expel “illegal migrants.” Other European
countries have followed suit, with Poland’s incoming European affairs minister,
Konrad Szymanski, saying Saturday that his country would no longer take the
migrants it was due to accept under a European Union refugee quota system.
At a cafe just off
the Voltaire roundabout, Zahia Darkazanli, a Syrian-French activist who
volunteers with refugee assistance organizations in Paris, said the Syrian
community expected this response. “The National Front will benefit from this
situation,” Darkazanli said, speaking over the sirens of the ambulances and
police cars that have been whizzing through her neighborhood for two days.
“They will say, ‘See, we told you Syrian people are like this.’”
Many experts on ISIL
say this was likely the group’s goal: to promote a backlash against Syrian
refugees — and Muslims, more generally — in Europe, fueling the group’s
narrative of war against the “infidels.” No one dismisses the considerable
risks Europe has shouldered in taking in such huge numbers of refugees, who
cannot always be vetted as thoroughly as the much smaller number of refugees
resettled in the United States. But after the reports of the Syrian passport
surfaced, experts were skeptical and cautioned that hastily blaming refugees
would play right into ISIL's hands.
French authorities,
have already indicated the Syrian passport may be a fake. There is a burgeoning
forgery industry for Syrian passports, which many non-Syrians are eager to get
their hands on so they can be eligible for asylum in Europe. Others question
the very premise: “Why would a jihadist who expressly rejects all notions of
modern citizenship take his passport on a suicide mission?” asked Charlie
Winter, an expert on extremist groups, in a tweet. His answer: “So it gets
found.”
As ISIL made clear
in a series of propaganda videos released in September — in which the group
displayed images of drowned migrants in the Mediterranean to paint Europe as
Islamophobic and callous to the Syrian cause — it is eager to stem the flow of
refugees from its self-declared “caliphate,” ISIL expert Aaron Zelin, wrote in
a post to the Jihadology blog. “The reality is, [ISIL] loathes that individuals
are fleeing Syria for Europe. It undermines [the group’s] message that its
self-styled Caliphate is a refuge, because if it was, individuals would
actually go there in droves," rather than risk their lives aboard rickety
smuggler boats trying to escape.
Both inside and
outside their country, many Syrians have been keen to express their sympathy
for the French, with some changing their profile pictures on Facebook to French
flags and others penning notes of solidarity. The day of the Paris attacks,
Darkazanli said she even received messages of concern and condolence from her
family in Raqqa, ISIL’s de facto Syrian capital, which was targeted with
anti-ISIL airstrikes numerous times that day.
Syrians hope that,
rather than force a rethink of refugee policy, the Paris attacks might compel
European policymakers to shift their attention to the root cause of both the
refugee crisis and the ISIL threat — Syria’s civil war. The attacks came just
one day before diplomats from all the major stakeholders in Syria met in Vienna
in a bid to kickstart Syria’s long dormant peace process. A political solution
to Syria’s war has long been hampered by regional rivalries played out through
proxies, who line up behind the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad or various
rebel factions. But as French politicians, including president Francois
Hollande, issue warnings that the “war” with ISIL has arrived on European soil,
many feel there is a fresh sense of urgency to end the bloodshed.
“This is the
reality,” said Hussam Almrawweh, a 25-year-old refugee from Homs, who was in
the area during the attacks. “We knew that if we didn’t stop the violence and
sectarianism in Syria, it would spread. Maybe France, America, Britain would be
next.” In his view, the attacks should be a reminder that “if you don’t address
the center of terrorism, it will keep being sent at you. They’ll send and send
and send.” Even if that is the case, Almrawweh says he is grateful to be in
Paris, where he feels welcomed and where, until now, his biggest challenge has
been mastering French.
And, despite
newspaper headlines pronouncing “War in the heart of Paris,” the situation in
France does not compare to what refugees fled in Syria. There, “it’s a constant
question of life or death,” said Chami, the volunteer with Syrians and Friends
Paris. Like many of the Syrian refugees she works, Chami blames the Syrian
government of Assad for creating that chaos that birthed ISIL. In France,
“there’s still stability and peace for Syrians” and a chance to “find a new
life.”
“Daesh may be here,
now,” she said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL, “but there, the bombs strike
from Russia and Assad, too.”
Response: The
article talks about the fear and the reaction of the Syrian refugees after the
Paris attack from ISIL. They seem to be used to the war and chaos, but are
scared for what might be placed on them, factors such as blame and maybe even
being banned. Since France has been such a welcoming place for the refugees, I
don't think the refugees would really try to go against France. So although
France is going through a hard time, I don't think they should blame the
powerless refugees. I think the article might be biased toward the refugee's
side, as everyone feels sympathy and pity for them. Overall I think France
might be doing the right thing in declaring war with allies such as the U.S.
and Russia, I feel like the refugees don't have anything to do with these
attacks.
Pizzi, Michael.
"Syrian Refugees in Paris Fear Backlash after Attacks." Syrian
Refugees in Paris Fear Backlash. Aljazeera Media Network, 16 Nov. 2015. Web. 17
Nov. 2015. <http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/11/16/syrian-refugees-in-paris-fear-backlash.html>.
