Advance Essay #2 The Syrian Refugee Crisis and The Hunger Games

Matthew Willson

11/25/15

Water Stream

Advanced Essay #2

Intro

While creating this paper the skills I mainly focused on were connecting the experience I had reading The Hunger Games and what I took out of that experience to a larger idea. I am proud of how I focused on a recent topic and related it to a book I read many years ago.  I have always been a good writer when it comes to creativity and making up stories. But I have never been that good or enjoyed writing and researching about real world topics. As I grow as a writer I hope to get better at writing bigger issues around the world.

Essay

Literacy is a way to communicate and a way to share ideas. This communication allows us to understand people's perspective through time. This communication can help humans understand and ideally learn from their mistakes so they are not repeated. Without literacy, good ideas cannot be shared and people also can’t learn about bad ideas, which risks bad ideas being repeated. By looking at the present Syrian refugee crisis, we can see that crimes are being committed against humanity. We have an opportunity to help the refugees. However, there is political pressure in our country to keep the refugees out because some people are afraid they bring the risk of terrorism.  This is important because we never want to repeat the history of not helping people in crisis.

When I was 11 I read The Hunger Games, a series of three books written by Suzanne Collins.  These books take place in a world called “Panem” which is divided into a very wealthy capital and twelve very poor districts that exist solely to support the capital.  At the start of the first book, each district sends one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death.  The children are chosen by lottery, with the event staged for the capital’s entertainment and as a “reminder” to the districts of the time when they attempted to revolt against the capital and were defeated. When I first read the scene where the children, called tributes, are chosen, I was shocked.  I just couldn’t imagine being at the whim of a person picking my name out of a raffle to be killed. The characters had done nothing and it was just a sick game for the powerful people from the capital.  I thought of what my world would be like in the future.  Would it have districts and segregation?  Reading the book emphasized how cruel it is for some people to make life decisions regarding other people. Power becomes the force that decides the fate of peoples’ lives, whether they live or die. Humanity is not even considered in this type of power relationship. It’s not about what's right or wrong, it's about who has power and who doesn't.  As an 11 year old this was a lot of me to comprehend. As humans our duty should be to make sure everyone is fairly treated. Throughout history people have done many sick evil things to set people behind due to their race or beliefs like Hitler or Slavery. The human race needs to look back and make sure that those things don’t happen again. We have to make sure the world doesn’t end up in a scenario like The Hunger Games.

Right now, the Islamic group ISIS has claimed responsibility for attacks in Paris that killed over 130 people. The group is forcing people in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries to either join them or abandon their Muslim religion.  At the same time, there is a civil war in Syria between the government led by Bashar al-Assad and the rebels.  As a result, there are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, without homes because of the civil war, attempting to flee the country and avoid both the conflict and ISIS.  Many countries including the US are questioning whether they should allow the refugees to enter their country.  People are afraid that some ISIS terrorists will be hidden amongst the refugees, and so they feel it is just safer to say “No”.  This is not the time to abandon people we should be helping.  During the first Hunger Games, the main character, Katniss Everdeen, did not attack the other tributes.  She defended herself, and actually helped some of the other tributes to survive.  The lesson is that it is important to do the right thing, even if it may put you at some personal risk. These are the values that define who we are as a country.  We should not be afraid.  We should do the right thing and help the refugees who are in need.  Just after the attacks in Paris last week, the French President Francois Hollande said that France would allow 30,000 Syrian refugees into the country, honoring a commitment they had previously made.  Despite suffering the worst attack on French soil since World War 2, that is the right thing to do.  We need to do the same.