Every time I read about something truly significant that happened before I was born, I wonder where my parents were. How did it make them feel? How did it change their lives? What did they do about it? My dad was alive for the Holocaust and I constantly bug him about it. The fact that he was a little boy living in a tiny village in Yemen hasn’t thwarted my interest at all.
So now I look at the events of the past two years. And I can already anticipate my daughters’ questions. Where were you mommy? Did daddy try to help? And I truly don’t know what I’ll tell them. My friends and I bitched about curfews on Facebook and a few shared pictures of martyrs here and there.
Pathetic.
This has been a horribly disheartening week for the world. Somewhere behind all the post-fetar binging, Olympics and Ramadan show watching, we forgot. We forgot to feel. The media has successfully robbed us of our humanity. We no longer flinch when we see dead bodies sprawled on the concrete in puddles of blood. We just flip the channel and look for something less depressing to watch.
16 in Egypt.
45 in Yemen.
112 in Syria.
That’s how many people have died… this past week.
These are sons, daughters, moms, dads. They are real people with real lives, just like ours. They have families, just like ours. Except now they’re dead. They are no longer alive because of hidden agendas. Like dictators who would rather eradicate their people than lose power. Like people who would rather kill his fellow man to cause chaos to rattle someone’s legitimacy. Like the worse villains you can think of.
I don’t mean to sound preachy, and no I don’t know what we can do to make it better. But I do believe that we need to shake off this desensitized zombie mode that we’re all on. It is a big deal. A damn big deal. Its so easy for us to weep over characters on our favorite shows, but so difficult to shed a single tear for our real life martyrs.
This is a dark day for humanity and I cannot accept it. I guess I’ll start with my girls once their old enough to understand. The Kardashians are not real life. Damascus is. The real housewives are only as real as their hair colors. But the blood we see on the news, that’s as real as it gets.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting we rid ourselves of happiness till the world is a better place, but I’m sure there’s something we can do.
But what?