{"id":2557,"date":"2016-06-20T09:22:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T09:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/twistislamophobia.org\/en\/?p=2557"},"modified":"2017-03-13T12:40:20","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T12:40:20","slug":"the-world-loves-refugees-when-theyre-olympians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twistislamophobia.org\/en\/2016\/06\/20\/the-world-loves-refugees-when-theyre-olympians\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Loves Refugees, When They\u2019re Olympians"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is moved by\u00a0Team Refugees<\/a>\u00a0at the Olympics in Rio. They are greeted with a standing ovation at the opening ceremony. Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, not a man given to extravagant displays of emotion, is all smiles.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u00a0tweets support<\/a>\u00a0for these 10 athletes who \u201cprove that you can succeed no matter where you\u2019re from.\u201d Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations,\u00a0posts a video on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0in which she speaks of the world\u2019s\u00a065 million displaced people<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the largest number since World War II \u2014 and says they \u201care dreaming bigger because you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n

Who could fail to be moved? These are brave people. They have fled anguish in search not of a better life, but of life itself. In general, you do not choose to become a refugee because you have a choice, but because you have no choice. Like\u00a0Yusra Mardini<\/a>, the 18-year-old Syrian refugee from a Damascus suburb, who left a country that now exists only in name, and reached Germany only after the small boat bringing her from Turkey to Greece started taking on water in heavy seas. She and her sister Sarah dived into the water and for more than three hours pushed until it reached the island of Lesbos.<\/p>\n

In Rio, Mardini won her heat of the 100-meter butterfly, but did not advance due to her inferior time. Still, hers is a remarkable achievement.<\/p>\n

Yes, the world is moved by Team Refugees. Yet, it is unmoved by refugees.<\/h3>\n

\"refugiados\"<\/a>They die at sea. They die sealed\u00a0in the back of a truck<\/a>. They die anonymous deaths. Fences are erected, walls mooted. Posters decry them. They represent danger and threaten disruption. They are freeloaders. They are left in\u00a0festering limbo<\/a>\u00a0on remote Pacific islands. There is talk of a threat to \u201cEuropean civilization\u201d \u2014 read Christian Europe. There is talk of making the United States great again \u2014 read making the United States white again.<\/p>\n

Rightist political parties thrive by scapegoating them. Nobody wants refugees. They could be terrorists or rapists. They sit in reception centers. The United States\u00a0pledged<\/a>\u00a0to take in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the current fiscal year. In the previous four years, it had admitted about 1,900. This is a pittance. About 4.8 million Syrians have fled their country since\u00a0the war began.<\/p>\n

One Western country, Germany, has shown political courage commensurate with the challenge and thrown open its doors. Having plumbed the depths of depravity, it knows a moral imperative when it sees one.<\/p>\n

Yes, let\u2019s cheer the refugee team in Rio, the first of its kind, but not with empty words, and not to assuage our Syrian consciences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The world is being pulled in two directions at once. The force of globalization, of nomadic humanity, of borderless cyberspace has engendered an equally strong counter-force of nationalism, nativist politics and anti-immigrant bigotry. The two trends are poised in a tense equilibrium.<\/p>\n

I lived in Brazil for several years. It is a generous country. Perhaps no other nation has such a mestizo culture, such ingrained habits of mingling. It feels right that this outreach to Team Refugees should have happened in Rio, a city of miscegenation and openness.<\/p>\n

The glorification of Team Refugees and the vilification of refugees coexist. How can they?<\/p>\n

Source: The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is moved by\u00a0Team Refugees\u00a0at the Olympics in Rio. They are greeted with a standing ovation at the opening ceremony. Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, not a man given to extravagant displays of emotion, is all smiles. President Obama\u00a0tweets support\u00a0for these 10 athletes who \u201cprove that you can succeed no matter where you\u2019re from.\u201d Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the United Nations,\u00a0posts a video on Facebook\u00a0in which she speaks of the world\u2019s\u00a065 million displaced people\u00a0\u2014 the largest number since World War II \u2014 and says they \u201care dreaming bigger because you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing.\u201d Who could fail to be moved? These are brave people. They have fled anguish in search not of a better life, but of life itself. In general, you do not choose to become a refugee because you have a choice, but because you have no choice. Like\u00a0Yusra Mardini, the 18-year-old Syrian refugee from a Damascus suburb, who left a country that now exists only in name, and reached Germany only after the small boat bringing her from Turkey to Greece started taking on water in heavy seas. She and her sister Sarah dived into the water and for more than …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[434,204,202],"class_list":["post-2557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-share-en","tag-olympic-games","tag-refugees","tag-tolerance"],"yoast_head":"\nThe World Loves Refugees, When They\u2019re Olympians - Twist Islamophobia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/twistislamophobia.org\/en\/2016\/06\/20\/the-world-loves-refugees-when-theyre-olympians\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The World Loves Refugees, When They\u2019re Olympians - Twist Islamophobia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The world is moved by\u00a0Team Refugees\u00a0at the Olympics in Rio. 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