Who am I?

Who am I? Who am I?

I am the person who takes on the world’s problems personally. The world’s problems are my problems.

I am the person who sees us a global community.

I am the person who is sadden by the xenophobia created by artificial borders.

I am the person who sees the wars in the middle-east as not wars of other people, of other lands, of not-my-problem.

I am the person who sees the homeless on the side of the road and is grief stricken that I am not in a position to help.

I am the person who hears about the wars, the genocide, the terrors of the world and it breaks my heart.

There are members of my family who have said that the Syrian refugees should stay in their own country–indirectly because they are muslims. This makes my blood boil to hear that people say because of an unrelated demographic-characteristic, someone should not flee violence, and the possibility of death.

To me such people are no better than ISIS or Bashar al-Assad the president/leader of Syria. ISIS is beheading people and al-Assad is bombing everything trying to get rid of ISIS. Then the people sell all of their possessions trying to leave, only to get crammed on a boat to the point of double or triple capacity. Many die trying to leave. Men, and women. Young and old. They die at sea.

The ones who make it out then face xenophobia from many of the nations that surround them. They are not allowed to work. In Turkey, they are not allowed to even travel! This is outrageous. For those who shout, “well, why don’t you take them into your home?!” My answer is that I would. In a heartbeat. If only our country would allow them asylum.

I am the bleeding heart liberal. Is that not better than a cold hearted conservative?

Let us stop name calling. Let us set aside our hatred for others. Instead of saying “why help this group of people when ….”, let us work towards bettering the world. Let us work toward bettering humanity.