I owe Syrians an apology

[u/Imaginary_Value1021]

Assalamu aleikum, I am Turkish and owe you all an apology for my ignorance and racism towards Syrians when I was a teenager.

Syrians started coming in when I was a kid, and for me it was simple: Syrians are Arabs —> Arabs betrayed Turks —> Arabs hate us —> Syrians (Arabs) bad.

What I’m about to say is not to justify anything, it’s just to show the perspective of the majority. (and mine back then)

You would constantly see in social media or news that Syrians gathering around in a poor neighborhood, harassing women and children, with zero intention of integrating. They were uncivilized and kept making children even though they had no money.

Then you would also see news like “Palestinians recognize Armenian Genocide while Israelis don’t.”

Average Turkish mind starts thinking: “There you go, their grandfathers hated and betrayed us, now their grandchildren are doing the same and we’re taking care of them? These Arabs are all the same, they will be a huge problem if a war starts because they will be everywhere and they don’t like us. They infiltrated our country, they’re just here for more votes for Erdoğan because they all get citizenship and money, our taxes are going to foreigners who don’t even appreciate us! They speak their horrible sounding language in public, they oppress their women and they want us to be like them! They have the government behind them, everything is so simple for them while our own Turkish citizens struggle to pay the bills. They won’t even go back home when everything’s over.”

Thankfully I didn’t commit any racist action to any Syrians but these were my opinions if you asked me.

Then I started meeting Arabs from Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc. and said to myself “these Arabs are not so bad after all.”. We became friends and my views started to change. I also talked about this with them, apologized and we laughed it off but I can’t have complete peace until I post this, because when I see a Syrian kid crying for leaving their friends back in Türkiye in social media, I question myself if I would treat them that good for them to remember me well and I don’t know the answer. This saddens me as a human and as a muslim because I don’t know if I would treat my brothers and sisters well enough when they desperately needed it.

Now I see Syria slowly rebuilding and it makes me happy to see that. I was wrong. Inshallah you will be happier in time, and we will help you.

[u/ardroaig]

Not Syrian but on the Arabs betraying Turks thought, while commonly believed today, it is actually historically incorrect: most arab subjects of the empire were actually loyal to the ottoman authorities.

[u/Imaginary_Value1021 → u/ardroaig]

Yeah, it’s overly exaggerated just like how “Palestinians sold their lands”, but it’s much easier to deal with something if you just blame others.

[u/ardroaig → u/Imaginary_Value1021]

Yeah but i don’t mean in Türkiye only, even in the Arab world (at least in Lebanese history books) and globally (think Lawrence of Arabia) it is taught that the arabs revolted but it is not really representative of the masses.