Nearly a year has passed by since the images of a lifeless Aylan, washed up on a shoreline, surfaced on the internet. The images shocked the world and broke many hearts. But the question is: how much has really changed in Syria since then? Recently, another little soul, Omran, swathed in dust and his own blood was recovered from the wreckage of a building after an airstrike in Aleppo. Though he was still breathing, can we really say he is alive?
A five-year-old witnessing the destruction of his own home, had almost lost complete hope of living on and in the darkness of the rubble, would be thinking of how he would meet God and will his parents be there. Omran’s body is alive but he sits lifeless, expressionless and in a traumatic state. He stares into nothingness, thinking of how he’d just faced certain death and how his parents may already be dead. The sight of his house being destroyed from the inside, the sound of his parents screaming, the view of darkness from inside the rubble, these are the things this child will remember for the rest of his uncertain life. How would he deal with it growing up? How his wounds would heal?
The war in Syria has completely crushed humanity in the world of callous creatures. Yes, we aren’t humans anymore. Are we? It is impossible not to be moved by the misery of these people, especially toddlers, who have lived the worst. But we, we don’t feel much now. Not for more than a few seconds. While we write billions of articles on humanity and crises in Syria, our feelings get locked in and our pragmatic ‘journalist brain’ turns on. We have become so immune to inhumanity that after casually seeing these brutalities on our screens we quickly justify ourselves, “Syria is far away from us, it is none of our business!”
Where is the anger of humans? Where is the outrage of Muslims? Where is the resentment of Americans? Where are the innumerable NGOs of the seven continents working on humanity? Have we all become too numb because of the routine bloodshed and deaths in a part of a planet that belongs to humans? Asks Aylan, asks Omran and billions other innocent lives constantly being slayed for no reason. Is this what the world has become?