“America is committed to the world because so much of
the world is inside America”
Ronald Reagan
Hello Everyone,
I hope this note finds you well, and finding ways to work
in your community on projects that bring people together.
Never did I think I’d write
down words spoken by late U.S. president Ronald Reagan!
Angelina Jolie uses them in
her New York Times opinion piece, Refugee Policy Should Be Based on Facts Not
Fear (here) Jolie is a special envoy of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a film maker and actor.
This post is a riff on her
comments ... and I’ll do my best to put quotations marks or credit to Jolie
when I paraphrase her.
Jolie writes that “refugees
are men, women and children caught in the fury of war ...often the victims of
terrorism themselves.” And that of the 65
million refugees and displaced people worldwide, less than 1 percent of those
are settled anywhere around the world during any one year. So, 650,000 worldwide.
Jolie points out that refugees into the United States are
screened over several months through interviews,
and “security checks carried out by the F.B.I., the National Counter-terrorism
Center, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.”
The United States and other
countries worldwide – including Canada – have agreed to take in refugees as an
aspect of their participation in United Nations Conventions, international laws
against discrimination on the grounds of faith.
If I understand the
situation, nations see such conventions in a practical way: doing the good of taking in refugees, and
seeing people as equal, are good for nations’ security. What a funny blend of ethics and politics, but if it works, that's good.
Jolie speaks passionately in her article about how openness and compassion towards others will bring those things home to ourselves and our country. Her comments are worth reading and heeding. (here)
Very best regards,
Why's Woman
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