There are many things that have caught my attention recently, but one that I can’t take my mind of is the the Presiden’s Executive Order in the United States, which suspended entry of all refugees to the United States barred Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
                                                Washington DC and Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria in 2014
This Executive Order has been highly polemic and not just in the US, where the it has been for now suspended, but around the whole world with demonstrations against it taking place inside and outside the country. The main argument to justify this new measure is national security. “Measures to keep radical Islamic terrorist out of the United States of America, we don’t want them here.” The order declares that US policy is “to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes,” according to Donald Trump.
Therefore refugees, especially Syrian refugees, and citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, are seen in his speech as Islamic terrorists who threaten the security of the country. For the new government this is fact, otherwise why would they base a law on on?
First, when they spoke about Islamic terrorist they were actually speaking about Jihadist groups, which have become the only “Islamic” terrorist group since 2006 when Al Qaeda fell into obsolescence, and the Jihadist movement came to be referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known by the Arabic acronym Daʿish. Therefore we are speaking here about a new threat, started in 2006. Since then, have been 7 terrorist attacks in United States:
- In 2009 Hasan, who was part of the US army, opened fire to fight “illegal and immoral aggression against Muslims”.
- In 2013 two Chechen brothers detonated two pressure-cooker bombs in retaliation for US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan against Muslims.
- In 2014 Thompson, an American citizen, committed a terrorist attack, just two years after he converted to Islam two.
- In May of 2015 two American citizens opened fire, in July a naturalised US citizen born in Kuwait began firing on two military installations and in December two American citizens make another terrorist attack.
This data consigns a terrorist threat, however I couldn’t found a single refugee or citizen from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen involved in those attacks. Thus, the idea that those people threaten the national security of United States becomes powerless.
But going further, the Jihadist attacks that happened in the Western world during this period, have been committed mostly by people from the country where the attach took place, indeed, the terrorists that weren’t from that country are isolated and minimal cases. In sum, the tendency is that those attacks in Western countries are done by people from those countries, not refugees from elsewhere.
This brings us to the root of the problem that I will clarify with one example: in 2004, in the United Sates, domestic homicides in which one man kills one woman, rated at 2,6 woman killed per 100000. This means that at least one third of all female homicide victims in the U.S. are killed by male intimate partners — husbands and ex-husbands, boyfriends and estranged lovers. If I think in Trump’s way – and his government’s – I would say that we should send all men of United States out of the country in order to guarantee the security of woman citizens. In fact, if we compared the deaths by terrorist attacks with the deaths by domestic violence in United States in this period, it would turn out that banishing the men of the United States becomes much more urgent than the entry suspensions to “terrorists”.
Of course, I am not Trump, and this would be a senseless solution, however both problems are similar. Domestic violence has been a problem for as long as there’s been statistics about such issues, it has no simple solution, and it still hasn’t been eradicated. However, we are becoming an increasingly equal society with fewer and fewer cases of domestic violence, at least in developed countries – though there are huge differences between countries. How? Well, firstly with the defence of the victims by law, but secondly, and fundamentally, with raising awareness in the society.
This is the way to fight against machismo: by teaching, and by building the society on principles of equality. And as well as for the defence of women, this is a fundamental strategy for overthrowing terrorism. So, what Trump is trying to do is not guarantee the security of American citizens, what he is doing is putting them in danger, because he is not just discriminating againt Americans Muslims, he may even be encouraging terrorism by calling innocent and defenceless people terrorists.