Not Feeling Welcome

News:

Bahcesehir University’s Center of Migration and Urban Studies in Istanbul released a report highlighting the longstanding socio-economic challenges Syrian refugees face in Turkey.

As in many countries with large refugee populations, there has been ongoing tension between residents and immigrants for years, and life is increasingly difficult for the refugees. In Hatay, which hosts around 439,000 Syrians — around a third of the city’s total population — already-scarce resources are often stretched to breaking point, resulting in further ill feeling towards the refugees. (Source: www.arabnews.com/)

Comment:

When a person comes to a land, escaping war, devastation and seeking a better future, their status is defined and is the basis upon how they will progress in the land they have escaped to.

In the current Capitalist system, national borders define who belongs where. Islam, on the other hand, presents us with the concept of the Ummah. Even if a Muslim migrates to another Muslim land, the overall dominant framework upholds Capitalist thinking in life’s affairs. The political issues, economic problems and foreign affairs are looked at with a secular Capitalist viewpoint and Islam is reduced to the rituals and some aspects of social and moral matters alone. So the Ummah is an idea we hold onto but in the practical sense we cannot deal with others from this thought. We romanticize this idea and we call for it. The brotherhood allows us to assist others, but when Islam as a whole is not applied, we fail to identify the systematic failures that are a cause of economic woes.

When there is economic hardship, it is actually a result of the system in place. Instead of examining the root causes, it is easier to blame ‘refugees’ or ‘outsiders’.

Any land that uses secular, Capitalist policies and laws will fail to harmonize others as this system inherently discriminates and marginalizes others. Migrants who go to lands where the nation state is a predominant idea will always face the backlash when there are domestic problems as questioning the basis of the system will not take place.

The Islamic system defines a person living in the borders of the state as a citizen regardless of where one came from. Borders are not fixed and those who come are not considered migrants or refugees. The Islamic teachings and Islamic history give testimony to how harmony was achieved when Islam was applied.

Today Muslims from one Muslim land cannot attain real refuge in another Muslim land due to the national borders and identity being from other than Islam. When the state embraces the Ummah as a complete and holistic idea that comes from the same Aqeedah (belief) as the system applied, we will see that Muslims can live with other Muslims in true harmony. Helping those in hardship will not be considered as a favor but as a duty.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Nazia Rehman