I don’t know how many people remember this picture but I did not forget till today. This picture is almost two years old. He is a three years old Syrian migrant/refugee who was trying to flee his country so that he can live a good life any where else. But the destiny had other plans for him. And just to inform others, in fact, I also don’t know, Is he a refugee/migrant? Countries have given different definitions for both the terms. A small child can be segregated in various ways.
I was totally frustrated after seeing this picture. Why a small child has to suffer due to Geo-political wars. What happened to the sacred “Human Rights”? We have ignored that we are humans first . As Sapiens’s author Harari says, nation/country is a figment of our imagination. We created the nations, countries, religion, corporation, United Nations etc to bring about more cooperation and betterment of the humanity. But we just didn’t realize that day, these imaginations are going to hurt us so badly.
Syrian war is going on since 2011. The crisis started when the Arab Revolution was sweeping the Middle East. Western Countries wanted a ‘regime change’ in Syria by removing the President Bashar Al Ashad but Russia and China supported Syria. In this complex game of “power politics”, people of the region are suffering. We can also debate about various causes of these conflicts-some will say-Colonial legacy is responsible, Others will blame “religion” and some will say “ethnic differences”. We can find innumerable causes responsible for this horror. But the problem is that How to punish someone when perpetrator and victim are the same i.e. Human Beings.
Why do we need a shocking picture to realize that something needs to be done to solve the crisis. Loosing your loved ones is very painful experience. Every single person is important. And we talk about innocent children, every child is valuable. We can’t afford to hurt any child.
Just look at this picture: The boy is alive but his facial expression reflects the emptiness in our ideas, our beliefs and our humanity. We need to realize that things can’t go like this. We as a humanity must come forward to do something. Until when we are going to run towards chimerical ideas for the sake of humanity.
I am just leaving here with another moving picture created by famous sand-sculpture Sudarshan Patnaik.
Please see some links to know more about the issue:
Policy Wise 