On Paris

Hoping for cool heads and warm hearts in the coming days.

From German Lopez at Vox —

Although the perpetrators of the Paris attacks remain unknown, Jeff Duncan, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, took to Twitter to say that the tragedy shows Europe and America shouldn’t let in Syrian refugees because it might lead to more attacks.

@RepJeffDuncanHow’s that Syrian refugee resettlement look now? How about that mass migration into Europe? Terrorism is alive & well in the world. #No

As Dan Holloway tweeted earlier tonight, this assumption is misguided.

@RFCdan To people blaming refugees for attacks in Paris tonight. Do you not realise these are the people the refugees are trying to run away from..?

Again, we still don’t know who’s to blame for the Paris attacks — so we don’t know if a jihadist group was involved, or even what the motives were. But if a jihadist group is the culprit, these kinds of terrorist organizations are exactly the kind of danger that many Syrian refugees are fleeing from. It is ISIS, after all, that has terrorized Syria — and forced people to flee their home country to find refuge from the violence.

(links and emphasis in original; embedded Tweets didn’t copy as in original.)

See also: How to politicize a tragedy by Sam Kriss; The Paris attacks will make things even harder for Europe’s refugees by Cassie Werber; Opponents of Syrian Refugee Resettlement Seize on the Paris Attacks by David Francis and Siobhan O’Grady; the Islamic State’s trap for Europe by Harleen Gambhir; “You won’t read about this in the media, but…” by Martin Belam; on croquembouche via John Oliver.