As the conflict in Syria gradually turned into a massive humanitarian crisis, many of the world’s countries with better social welfare conditions started to grant shelter to the refugees from Syria. This paper is focused on examining this issue from the perspectives of three different countries, Turkey, Sweden, and Iraq, currently providing asylum and citizenship to the people of Syria, as shown in three different online newspapers.
The first article is called “Turkey debates citizenship for Syrian refugees,” and it was taken from an online newspaper called Today’s Zaman. The article elaborates on the importance of the issue of Syrian refugees’ status in Turkey, as they have been living there for several years now. According to the article, by the moment it was published, Turkey had been sheltering five hundred thousand refugees from Syria, and this number was likely to double by the end of 2013 (Turkey debates citizenship for Syrian refugees, 2013).
The debate about the status of the refugees divided the society into two groups, the protestors and the supporters of the decision to grant Syrian refugees Turkish citizenship.
The latter was convinced that the humanitarian crisis that forced thousands of people out of Syria could be turned into a positive change for Turkey and its welfare as well as the wellbeing of the refugees. At the same time, the protestors of this idea stated that such an enormous number of Syrian settlers on the territory of Turkey were likely to transfer all the Syrian instabilities to this country.
The second newspaper article was located on New York Times portal; it is called “Scandinavians Split Over Syrian Influx,” and its author is Hugh Eakin. This article states that among all West and North European countries, Sweden is the only one to receive tens of thousands of Syrian refugees and grant them citizenship, while such countries as Great Britain or Norway resettle mush fewer Syrians and provide them with temporary asylum only (Eakin, 2014).
The author explains that even though Swedish people deem themselves righteous and moral individuals as their country has not fought a war in two hundred years, it is not the basis for accepting an unreasonably large number of foreign refugees that the country would not be able to integrate.
Eakin (2014) points out that Sweden has high rates of unemployment and financially cannot afford supporting tens of thousands of newcomers. As a result, the country’s community protests the decision to grant citizenship to Syrian refugees as it might negatively impact the welfare of the country and create discomfort for both Swedes and Syrians.
The last article was found on Al-Jazeera, posted by Ali Al-Arian and called “Syrian refugees cling to stability in Iraq.” In this article, the author compares and contrasts between the conditions Syrian refugees currently have in Iraq camps and the ones Iraqis dealt with while resettling to Syria during the war in their country.
Al-Arian (2014) notes that Iraq stations two hundred and fifty thousand Syrians, who are glad to have found relative stability. This article is determined to present positive aspects of the Iraq reception compares to that of Lebanon and Turkey. Al-Arian (2014) emphasizes that even though the refugees live in tents, they enjoy a peaceful life and are in to rush to come back to Syria.
Among the three articles, only one reviewed the current issue of the status of the refugees from the perspective of the Syrians. It seems like the more advanced the receptionist country’s welfare is, the harder it becomes for it to accept and support refugees. Besides, it is important to notice that all of the receptionist countries are rather small, and their homogenous communities were not designed to accept and successfully integrate tens and hundreds of thousands of foreign settlers at once.
Reference List
Al-Arian, A. (2014). Syrian refugees cling to stability in Iraq. Web.
Eakin, H. (2014). Scandinavians Split Over Syrian Influx. Web.
Turkey debates citizenship for Syrian refugees. (2013). Today’s Zaman. Web.