Syrian Refugee Crisis

At the beginning of our Honors 130: Identity, Community, and Difference: Resolving Identity Conflict class, we were tasked with finding a conflict in the world that we wanted to learn more about. Our group chose the Syrian Refugee Crisis as our topic. Throughout the semester, we analyzed different aspects of this conflict to gain a better understanding of the situation. We started this journey by discovering the cause of the conflict. Then decided who the major stakeholders were. In this case, the two primary groups were Turkish citizens and Syrian Refugees. We took the groups involved and analyzed their individual situations. This included recognizing the foundations of their group’s needs, values and wants. Based on the weekly readings in our Honors class, we began to discover the complexity of each group and how they were interconnected. Their positions within the conflict heavily relied on their foundations. After thoroughly obtaining unbiased and neutral information, we decided to take action. Our plan was to do something anonymous but impactful. We considered multiple different ideas. For example, blogs, letters, and videos but ultimately settled on creating a flyer. The flyers obtained a general synopsis of the information we had researched and then hung them up around the public bulletin boards on the George Mason University campus. Our goal for this project was to (1) broaden knowledge of and (2) advocate for change. We ultimately hope that our advocacy and presentation can change the lifestyles of those involved in the Syrian Refugee Crisis.

Hello. My name is Pilar Cerritos Gatto. At the beginning of this 2023 spring semester my Honors 130 class was tasked to research a conflict in the world today. My group chose to analyze the Syrian Refugee Crisis.

The Syrian Refugee Crisis was caused predominantly because of the Syrian Civil War. In 2011, many people fled from Syria to Turkey because of the border that the countries shared. At first Turkey was open to taking in refugees, with the thought that they would eventually return to Syria. However, the civil war is still currently on going and despite the number of refugees decreasing, there are still hundreds of refugees heading into Syria every year, adding to the surplus of people the country already holds. Causing a strain on Turkey’s resources, jobs, economy and opportunities.

The first step in our conflict anaylsis are positions, needs and interests. The primary stakeholders in this conflict are the Turkish citizens and the Syrian refugees. Each group has their own interests and needs in this conflict. The Syrian Refugees are in search of rebuilding or maintaining their lifestyle with access to jobs and resources. They have the right to humane treatment and safety. Turkish citizens want a prosperous nation and economy to ensure their wellbeing and lifestyle. They have a right to resources and their roles as citizens regardless of the increase in the refugee population.

The next step is categorization and complexity
Because of these interest and needs, the people within these groups form strong connections with each other. On top of that, the people within each group share backgrounds, experiences, traditions, and ethnicities etc. that form even stronger connections, creating an in-group. However, with the creation of an in-group there is always an out-group. A group that does not belong or that may stand in opposition to the in group. In this case the Syrian Refugee’s out-group is the Turkish citizens and the Turkish citizens out-group is the Syrian Refugees.

Each group has a different position because of these ingroups and outgroups. From the Syrian refugees perspective, they position themselves as victims due to the Syrian Civil war and the treatment from Turkish citizens. The Turkish citizens view themselves as heros, for taking in the refugees, but at the same time they have a genuine fear because of the struggling economy that, has worsened due to the pandemic, the 2023 earthquake and the 2022 Syrian attack on Istanbul, which caused a huge dislike of Syrian refugees.

Cognitive bias is also a concept that needs to be taken into consideration. This is when systematic errors influence a person’s judgement and decision-making. For example, if someone believes that refugees are a burden on society, they may be less likely to support policies that provide aid to them, despite any evidence that may arise. And vice versa for the Syrian point of view as well. These cognitive bias often lead to dehumanization.

Because of the intensity of the situation, dehumanization is evident in this conflict. The syrian refugee were originally dehumanized due to the Civil War. They lost their homes, loved ones, possessions, jobs, parts of their culture and identity. Which is an essence of a human being. Because of their loss, outsiders empathize with them. This empathy triggers a need to place blame, which often leads to the dehumanization of the Turkish citizens for their treatment of the refugees. Regardless of the postive or negative manner.

This is the conflict map that we created for the Syrian Refugee Crisis. It contains different groups/stakeholders, facts, conflicting viewpoints, events and other information displaying how they all connect with each other.

My group and I decided to use the knowledge and information gathered from our research to advocate for the people in this crisis. At the beginning we had various ideas of what we could to take action.

Our plan was to create flyers with information regarding the Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees. The primary purpose of this flyer was to share knowledge and information about the situation that people may not know about. As you can see the flyer contained some general background information, and information from both the Turkish Citizen and the Syrian refugee sides. As well as a QR code for more information and a link to get involved.

We did face some challenges when implementing our action plan. This included technological issues, reception of information, and location of the flyers in general. However, the biggest challenge was the notion to present the analysis of the conflict with an unbiased and neutral manner.

We hope that this presentation and our action plan provide detailed information to the students on campus and encourage them to advocate. We ultimately hope to change the lifestyles, minds, and opportunities for the people involved in this crisis.

This concludes the presentation of our project. This slide contains a QR code to find our conflict map. A QR code to the flyer that we created. And another QR code for more information and a link to get involved. Thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful day.