Remember the name Aylan Kurdi. He has changed our world. Over these past months and years, we have become numb to the events that are taking place beyond our borders, in Syria and Iraq. We have become fatigued by fighting terrorists and terror, Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), death and destruction. We have grown immune to the plight of millions made homeless, living in shelters, seeking refuge in camps, fleeing their homeland. And we have become weary of the tales of refugees who desperately take to the high seas, shepherded onto creaking vessels by people smugglers who care not for their human cargo, but the money in their triad’s wallet.
And we have done little to care and less to change.
There has been no serious international effort to fix what is broken in Syria, to right the wrongs wrought by an illegal invasion of Iraq and little stomach to deal with Daesh who have vengefully and violently filled the vacuum in the region with a twisted and perverted version of Islam.
And we have done little to change that, and less to care.
When we speak of millions, it is hard to fathom the suffering endured in cold winters under canvas, hot summers in desert camps, where the only hope is the next handout from a humanitarian agency that functions on whatever funding it receives. Yes, nations have pledged billions and have actually paid mere millions. So the desolate move. They are no different from any of us. But they have lost all. They have nothing. They seek a better life, for them, for their family. Yes, the European Union can offer asylum — and in the future when we look back at these dark days, we will remember that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her nation alone opened its doors without question and without condition. If there ever was any moral due owed by Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War, it has truly been wiped clean.
How quick are the newest members of the EU to throw up razor wires and police lines when they so readily wanted to profit from membership of the economic club, with its benefits and its freedoms? And yes, Europe’s political leaders and others too in places like Canada will offer sympathetic soundbites on the need to do something. But little has changed, less is being done, and nothing has happened.
It has taken this image of little Aylan to prick our conscience.
We did nothing for him in life. We did not care that he never knew a day’s peace in all his three years. We were unmoved by his family’s plight. We care not that they trekked across borders, walked days and nights without a meal — but just a dream that there would be a better tomorrow.
For little Aylan there is no tomorrow. Nor one for his five-year-old brother and his mother.
Remember the name Aylan Kurdi. We must change his world.
