Cities of Refuge for Refugees

In the last few weeks, huge numbers of migrants have died trying to get from Libya to Italy. Three asylum seekers who had been in Israel were executed by ISIS for their religion.And the wars in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Mali, Libya, Somalia and elsewhere in our region continue. The Ayatollah threatens nuclear jihad and world leaders kowtow to his simple force of will.

We are witnesses to the collapse of entire societies under the twin evils of ideological insanity and ideological emptiness. But we are not only witnesses to this collapse. The appearance of refugees and the pinprick terrorist attacks we’ve experienced are only the first elements to directly impact us in this conflict.

Depending on where you are on the political spectrum, you’ll hear a wide menu of possible reactions to what is going on. Some Europeans suggest more coast guard cutters to rescue people at sea. Of course, this would encourage the migration and enable the people smugglers (who rely on the Italian navy to carry their cargo). It would also threaten to fundamentally change the societies receiving the migrants. Others recommend military force to bring order to chaos.  Outside military force almost quelled the sectarian war in Iraq. Perhaps if it had stayed, things would have been kept at a low simmer. But those times are past, the current conflict is many times larger than the one in Iraq. The amount of force required now is out of the question. Still others recommend closing our gates, walls and seaways and just trying to keep the insanity out. This will hardly be effective. Ideological fervor tends to bubble over where it senses opportunity – ideas can move without people carrying them. Like the Israeli walls depicted in World War Z, defense is only a temporary solution.

We have found ourselves are in an ideological war, and at this point we have no tactical response. We haven’t even begun to talk strategy. We are struggling to even begin to understand our own ideological positions. We know what we abhor, but many of us do not know what we are fighting for – particularly in the territory of others.

There are many elements to this problem. We want to protect our societies, but we also want to be moral in our choices. This is why witnessing the asylum-seekers murder should have been difficult for us. We closed our gates to prevent a flood – and others died.

We must search and see whether there is something we can do – something feasible, something moral and something effective.

I believe that there is. The idea begins with just a few place names: West Berlin. Hong Kong. Singapore. Amsterdam. The United States.

All of these places, at one or another, were safe zones. They excluded themselves (or were excluded by others) from the chaos of much of the world. And they were infused with a fundamentally different ideological model than those places. Hong Kong and Singapore with capitalism as a counter-point to Chinese Communism. West Berlin with freedom as a counterpoint to Soviet Communism. Amsterdam – a few centuries ago – with religious tolerance in the face of religious war. And the United States as a place of equality and opportunity instead of static despotism.

All of these places were aspirations for those caught in the ideological sicknesses of their age. Refugees fled to Hong Kong, Amsterdam and the United States and ultimately made those places great. Those behind the Iron Curtain could see West Berlin and understand that something better was possible. For its part, Singapore has been a model of economic freedom and social development (although not democracy) at the edge of Malaysia and China. These places were ideological antidotes to the poisons that surrounded them. And they all, to one extent or another, changed the places they stood apart from.

We can copy this model. Much of the Arab and broader Islamic world are experiencing the same sorts of destructive spasms that have historically defined many other sick societies. But among these populations, there are those who seek something better. They want productive and fulfilling lives. They want freedom. They want peace. They want a future for their children and their children’s children. While they may believe in the eventual coming of a redeemer, they do not subscribe to the idea that life must be destroyed here and now to realize that vision; they can see its effects in the rubble that surrounds their lives.

Traditionally, such people were made refugees. They were locked away in camps – which are often ultimately governed by the most vicious among them. These places provide little relief to the poison that created them. But, sometimes, cities are created that can bring them in. Cities like Hong Kong or Amsterdam.  These cities do not have to be democratic – those who flee to them understand that their own societies are broken and accept the ideological foundations of the place they are fleeing to. Instead, their success is measured by the continual arrival of those seeking no hope. These cities are not immediately peaceful: Hong Kong suffered 8,000 bombing threats from Communist insurgents of which 1,000 were real.

But despite all the challenges these places face, they represent both hope and an ideological attack on the enemies that led to their very success.

I believe it is time we establish more of these places.

Any nation eager to counteract the sickness of the Islamic world, without taking in its people or engaging in a massive war on its territory, can lend a hand. Egypt, Israel, the European Union and perhaps even the United States can play their part. We could establish cities that embed our ideologies of hope, creation and tolerance. We could establish them on the edges of Libya, in the relatively empty middle of Gaza, on the Golan and in Kurdistan. We could give passports, security, a legal foundation and stability. Those who arrive would cede their refugee status. They would be citizens of a new place. And their role in their own security and government would rise as their societies matured.

Maybe then the thousands of migrants crossing the Mediterranean would have someplace else to go. Maybe then we could shamelessly apply policies that ban those who adhere to the ideologies that are destroying the places they come from. Maybe then, we could offer hope among the fires. And maybe then we’d never have to turn away those seeking asylum – and see them executed by the sickness they were fleeing.

Maybe then the lives of good and decent people don’t have to be thrown away because they have no place to run to.

Maybe then, we can be a light unto the nations.