I cannot bring myself to look at the picture of the little boy in Aleppo known as Omran. I am sure that by now you have seen it, because the image is frankly haunting. A child sits still, silently, in a chair, covered in dirt, dust, and his own dried blood. The wounds on his face alone make you jump back. He appears as if he has stepped out of the Greek Hades, returning only to whisper some truth to the world before retreating back to the land of the dead. Instead, this child is still alive, and is one of 13.5 million Syrians who have lost their homes due to this civil war. Not to mention, the half a million more who have been killed. Between five hundred and five thousand of those victims have been children just like Omran.
What is perhaps the most chilling about the picture is the way Omran is staring blankly off into space. His is no longer the face of a child, but of a person robbed of all innocence and hope, far too early. His nights will be robbed of peace and he is likely to live on alone, without much comfort. His haunts our imaginations because he will be haunted for the rest of his days by the horror he has lived through as such a small child.
Omran’s picture is one that needs to be shared, but sharing the photo is not enough. Omran’s story is repeated every day because the violence continues. I do not know who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys” in this situation. There are reports that the regime, which already used illegal biological weapons against their own people, are bombing rescue volunteers as they seek to rescue victims of the fight. Others claim that the rebels are unorganized and represent a plethora of different interests, from democratic reformers to ISIS-backed extremists. The lines between good and bad seem blurred at best, lost at worst.
Then it looks as though this question doesn’t have a military answer; either we reinstate a dictator who has sought the genocide of his own people, or we allow a weak coalition to rise up that is once again subject to takeover. The longstanding Western tradition of meddling in the Middle East has probably caused most of the major internal conflicts in the region today. So, what do we do?
Families like Omran’s are fleeing from Syria and Iraq every day to escape the violence going on within the region. There are 13.5 million refugees from Syria alone seeking to find a peaceful home where they will not become victims any more. I believe that as a nation of refugees, we have more of a moral obligation to remember those who now have no homes. We must be kind to the stranger, for we were once strangers.
If you are at Baylor, please join Bears Care as we try to bring more awareness to the issue. Sign up here if you would like more information. If you are not, please consider giving financially to our organization or to the UNHCR through the United Nations. You can also contact your representatives in government and demand that they grant more refugees safe passage into the United States. Above all, pray that this senseless violence comes to an end, and that one day soon, we can all rest in our own homes without fear.
