So I'm kind of at a loss, and wonder what people think.
I'm reading an article in the New Yorker about a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, and one of the members of the resistance says he feels betrayed by the western world.
"Srour's hatred of Bashar was matched only by his sense that the rebels were being unjustly ignored by the entire world. 'The West is cheating us,' he said. 'If they wanted to knock out the regime, it wouldn't take them more than ten days. We don't have anything. They give us promises -- but empty promises. They want the struggle to continue and ruin the country.'"
What should be the US's role in foreign affairs? I feel like we meddle so often in the affairs of other countries, with such an attitude of nationalism, that a lot of the world has less than pleasant feelings towards us. Yet it sounds like Srour is saying that they want the West's help. Which makes sense. If I were in their position, I'd want help, too. But what is the right way to be involved in foreign affairs that isn't so colonial? How do we determine when to help and when not to? Sometimes I wonder if our country even has the capacity to help unselfishly. Not that our government is necessarily made up of greedy self-seeking people, but that generally those with corrupt interests have a louder voice at the global table, and have an easier time garnering support from other major sources of power in the world.
1 comment:
Agree! Agree! Agree!
I think there's sometimes a fine line between helping and enabling. I think there are ways of helping that are more in the sense of compassion and support, but sometimes people take the help in different ways. Some want more. Others think that the help is too meddlesome. I wish there was a way to help without being seen as "taking over" or "controlling". I guess that's where I've been so torn about this situation in Syria. Part of me says, "this is their civil war...they need to resolve their differences in the same manner that out country resolved things in our own civil war." But, at the same time, part of me says, "you know, I wonder what would have happened if either the North or the South had reached out to other countries to ask for aid?" There was no foreign intervention in the American Civil War. Other countries just let us duke it out and figure out how things would end up. Then again, there were no nuclear weapons and for the most part, things happened on a battlefield and the casualties were amongst people who were fighting, not really the innocents. It's so hard to know how to approach situations. You want to help, but you also don't want to receive the backlash from those who are opposed to any sort of help.
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