3 paragraphs for AOW week of 9/19

   This article and OBAA have many similarities in terms of the ideas that come up in both. In both OBAA and the article, they discuss how widespread xenophobia/racism can really alienate or dehumanize other humans. Some quotes from both show this, “Both sides have it wrong. Concerns about terrorism and the refugees are legitimate, but the fears being voiced are usually exaggerated and the concerns raised often the wrong ones.” (article) and “‘Black donkey’ You're so ugly!’ ‘Why don't you just go back to Africa where you came from?’”(OBAA) both of these quotes showcase how when someone thinks that a certain ethnicity acts a certain way, it deeply affects the person subjected to treatment like this. Due to dehumanizing refugees and racism, both Syrian refugees and Mawi’s family were alienated from society. Some kids only wanted to fight Mawi because of his skin color, they made fun of him for that. Some Syrian refugees are rejected by society and become extremists just so they have a group to connect to.

   Another similarity that OBAA and the article share is their events. In both, refugees have to separate from their homes in order to find a safe place to live, “Syrians and Iraqis have been fleeing their countries’ civil wars for years…” (article) “We had no choice, either. We - my mother, my five-year-old brother, my baby sister, and I at age three - kept walking, hoping that we would make it to Sudan and find my father. He had fled out war-ravaged home earlier, driven away by the advancing Ethiopian army” in both of these quotes, people have to leave their homes due to increasing violence, and they don’t have a choice. In both, people have a hard time escaping from their home and many die. This also supports the fact that the author of the AOW article predicted that there will be several more crises that have people who need to escape from where they live, the Syrian Refugee crisis won’t be the last refugee crisis.

  “How does war affect individuals and societies?”

    War can affect many people at once because of, first of all, many die. Which leaves many citizens saddened or even killed. It can also affect them since they have nowhere to live. An example from OBAA would be on page 2, “ We had no choice, either. We - my mother, my five-year-old brother, my baby sister, and I at age three - kept walking, hoping that we would make it to Sudan and find my father. He fled our war-ravaged home a year earlier, driven away by the advancing Ethiopian army” this shows that Mawi and his family and millions more had no voice in staying, they all had to move or die. And still, risk dying to escape. This is similar to the case of Syrian refugees due to them having to escape or be killed by ISIS because of their religious beliefs.