Read this essay by Daniel Pipes on what I can only call a kind of  Sophisticated Xenophobia, on the question of the Syrian Refugee,  that he argues must be- the title expresses his singular idea: ‘Let Refugees Remain in Their Own Culture Zone’. Does this even meet the lowest standard of humanitarian concern? Should a reader of this essay be surprised at the brazen expression of  Islamophobia voiced by the notorious Neo-Conservative, Mr. Pipes? Based on the cultural/religious differences between the ‘West’ and the ‘Arabs’ as presented by Mr. Pipes: the specter of Mr. Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations re-appears in an even more morally/intellectually pernicious form.

Mr. P. frames the question thus: Will the presence of a large un-assimilated population of Muslim refugees loyal, not to western enlightenment values, but to Sharia Law produce social/political chaos? One might answer: Does the presence of 500,000 Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, with their roaming Modesty Squads, Law by writ of Rabbi abetted by the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, and Tribal conformity, produce social/legal chaos?

http://www.danielpipes.org/13389/syria-refugees

I can’t say that this video from the Economist offers a rebuttal to Mr. Pipes. But ‘Paul Collier on Migration’ seems to offer a bit of sanity and the use of rational argument to an important question.  Who we are regarding the refugee question that will not go away , it is ever present . America’s culpability in the production of circumstances that produce refugees is an unquestionable reality.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/10/paul-collier-migration-and-diversity#

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