LETTER: Not happy with commissioners' letter on refugees

I read the article in the March 11 Daily Inter Lake reporting on the unanimous, cheering support for the commissioners’ letter banning all Syrian refugees to our Flathead Valley community.

Well, I write to say I’m certainly not cheering.

In 2015, it’s estimated that 55,000 people died in Syria’s civil war and nearly half of those were civilians. The country is so dangerous, and the death toll so high, that it is difficult to even determine the total number of deaths over the last five years.

The government has dropped air bombs on hospitals, shopping markets and schools. People are being kidnapped, tortured and shot at close range as part of mass killings. People are dying from chemical and toxic substances. And, if that wasn’t enough, children are being executed and they, themselves, make up at least 20 percent of all the total deaths in Syria. Children. The U.N. reports 9 million people have fled for their lives. Can you even imagine? Neither can I.

I’ve lived across the state, and it is well known that the Flathead Valley is painted with a white brush of intolerance. Yet, I’ve often defended our area and refused to believe or accept it. Like it or not, people continue to move here, and slowly but surely there will be colorful characters no matter how many letters or walls people drum up.

How about if we dialogue over the complexities and challenges we’re presented with instead of attempting to construct walls around the valley. Of course people have reservations and questions, and so a civil conversation about what a handful of displaced, war-torn families would mean to our community seems a logical path. Instead, however, people erupt with anger, assumptions and lies that are fed by fear of the great unknown.

The result is a letter from the commissioners that officially demonstrates to the state, and world, our valley’s misunderstanding, intolerance and lack of compassion for those who are suffering greatly. I am dismayed because these refugees are living, breathing, flesh-made human beings looking for safety whose needs and rights are not so different from our own. I think we can do better.

I ask the commissioners to reconsider this unnecessary letter approach that doesn’t accurately speak for those of us who live here, nor does it address the realities or complexities of the situation. Instead, within our little Flathead Valley, let’s choose to participate as citizens of this world. I ask others to please write to the commissioners and express your support for a colorful pallet in this complicated world.

—Amy Robinson, Whitefish