As we look at the latest headlines over the past month, many people will point to Colin Kaepernick, a NFL quarterback, and his peaceful protest to our country by kneeling during our national anthem. While many people have been magnetized to the situation, it’s preventing our country from seeing what really matters right now and the bigger picture around the world.
Right now, what really matters is the crisis going on in Syria.
In case you haven’t heard, Syria is currently being torn apart by internal and external forces. On one hand, you have the current Syrian government is fighting with the Syrian rebel forces causing a bloody and merciless war through this Middle-Eastern country. On the other hand, you have the United States (in favor of the rebels) and Russia (in favor of the Syrian government), and many other key players, are fighting a proxy war in Syria. Whether or not these bigger countries are fighting to actually help Syria is debatable at this point.
If you want to dismiss Syria as just another country that doesn’t matter to our interests, I want you to picture this for a second.
What if you lived in a city that was in the middle of a civil war. Your country’s government is planning to bomb a group of rebels that are hiding out in your city. Now figure that countries like backing these different sides up and escalating the fighting even further. Your family hasn’t eaten in days and you are almost out of water. You would go to the store but everything around you is rubble or dust. You can’t figure out what’s going on around you because there’s no internet, let alone electricity to see one another. You can’t bath or even flush a toilet. The streets are filled with people you know who are dead and wounded. You are hoping that help will come, yet, you don’t know if help can get to you through the madness that is going on around you.
That’s the current situation in Aleppo, Syria right now. Currently, more than 275,000 people are waiting for relief in Aleppo after being cut off from food, water, electricity, etc. Every day, they are praying to just survive. Every day, they are hoping that something will change to end the endless nightmare they have been living for so long.
I’m not trying to say that what Colin Kaepernick is doing isn’t important. I’m not saying that the violence happening in America right now isn’t important.
But instead of kneeling for peace in America, why not do something for peace around the world? Fight for the people that don’t have the freedom to protest for peace. If anything, do it for Aleppo and Syria.
