In response to Saudi Arabia offering *zero* refugees entrance into their kingdom while expressing a willingness to fund 200 mosques in Germany, I decided to write this open letter.
Dear Saudi Arabia – so let me get this straight.
1) For decades you have funded the *most radical*, *most literal* interpretation of Islam, known as Wahabiism – perhaps similar in its theocratic literalism to the Westboro Baptist Church, but much more deadly in the fact that it directly dictates the policy of an entire country.
2) This doctrine goes on to inspire Bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and most recently, Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi and his little organization known as ISIS.
3) ISIS jumps into the chaos of the Syrian Civil War, begins taking sex slaves, murdering fellow muslims, setting the clock back over a thousand years for women and gays and religious minorities, and helping to cause one of the worst refugee crises of the modern era.
4) These refugees – in desperate need of food clothing and shelter – turn to the world for help to escape the crisis that *you* helped partially to create. The number of refugees you decide to take in – a big fat walloping *ZERO*. The reason? You fear – yes, this is not a joke – that “religious extremism” could enter your country.
5) These refugees find safe harbor in the evil, bigoted, imperalist, infidel West, most notably Germany, who *do*, however imperfectly, agree to help these refugees find food, clothing and shelter.
6) Rather than pledge safe harbor for these refugees – overwhelmingly Muslim like yourselves – you pledge *instead* to help them build – wait for it – more Mosques.
Wasn’t it the existence of *too much* religious doctrine that helped create ISIS, at least 50% of the cause of this crisis? What could *possibly* make you think that *more* religion is what these starving and homeless refugees need, when it is indeed at least 50% *because of* religion that they are now homeless and starving?
What more can one say? The futility of theocracy is laid bare for the entire world to see. Even as a war caused partially by doctrine sends millions into homelessness, the theocrats show themselves far more concerned with doctrine than with starving and homeless human beings.
Saudi Arabia appears to be suffering from what I call “Mother Theresa Syndrome”. Mother Theresa was known for her “homes for the dying.” This turned Mother Theresa into an international celebrity and caused millions of dollars to pour into her organization. Further investigation proved that these Homes for the Dying could have instead become Homes for the Living if her organization had decided to spend that money on the routine western medical procedures that could’ve cured many of the dying, thousands of people who simply were too poor to have access to such medicine. Why do that, however, when you can use them as an opportunity to promote your particular doctrine worldwide?
People have often asked how people in the West and in the Middle East can win this war on terror – I am more convinced everyday that the new battle lines are not in Iraq and Syria, but in the European refugee camps. We often say that our system is better and more humane – it’s time to prove it by treating these refugees with the care and dignity they deserve, things they simply do not receive anymore in their country of origin. How we treat these refugees is going to be the very thing that defeats groups like ISIS not just on the battlefield, but in the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide. It’s time to show that they can have a much better life among the Infidels than the Theocrats, and that when we in liberal western Democracies say we respect *all* people, and believe that *all* people are entitled to freedom, prosperity and basic human rights – we mean it.
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