In the past three weeks I have been busy looking for the right kind of nanny and the right nursery for my two and a half year old twins to ensure they are comfortable when I start work in September. I have been a stay at home mother thus far and the anxiety of leaving them in someone else’s care has been driving me crazy.
I had been worrying around the clock. No nanny was good enough, no nursery suitable enough. Everything changed on August 19. I woke up about 2.30am to attend to my daughter who had woken up. I put her back to bed, it took forever, and I was annoyed. At about 4.30am when she went to sleep, I admittedly went on my phone to check Facebook instead of sleeping.
What I saw to my horror and anguish was the stunned face of a four or five-year-old Syrian boy called Omran sitting on an orange seat in the back of ambulance. The expression on his face was one that I have seen on my daughters’ faces, a pursing of the lips before breaking into tears. Only Omran didn’t cry.
The devastation I felt at that moment and that scene will stay with me forever. All of my anxiety for my children got washed away, just as Omran’s trust in the good of human kind may have on that grave day. How could I be so silly? So self-centred? That morning I pondered and wallowed and pondered. Let’s face it: There are thousands of Omrans being mistreated every day, even as I write this.
I don’t want to know how to make a donation to Syria, I don’t want to know how to get aid there, and I don’t want to know who the people on the ground fighting the war are. I want to know how to contribute to stopping this – not tomorrow, not a month from now or a year, but how to stop it now.
When did it happen that dragging unwilling and undeserving civilians into war became okay? Why can’t the battle remain with the soldiers?
When and why did civilian casualties become fair game? How do we stop it?
- The reader is a homemaker based in Dubai.
