The news is that we have to be unstoppable in our search for humanity, in our love of peace and justice: Unstoppable. My favourite word. For so is every force and you are one. Counter then.
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| Malala returns to school after her attack by Taliban |
We have to have lines we never cross towards harm. Yet we have to undo the many borders of ignorance that have been put between us as humanity. So that someone is surprised that I know and care for Syria which is not my land. To see some women who were interviewed in Russia say that they did not know what was going on in Syria was for me almost as bad as hearing that people are dying in Syria. Where is the heart of humanity? Who stirs the news? What does this tell you about freedom of expression so depleted by hunger and power?
Where is our education as global citizens in an era where technology is knocking even at our grandmothers' doors on all continents. I come from where I come from and it is not Syria but I know Syria. I have our own problems in my country and I have my own at home, but I want to feel Syria. I am in Europe for sometime and when I see what Europe knows or her youth want to know about Afrika and other lands, I shudder. I fear for ourselves. We can shout we are not at war with everyone and we do not want war indeed but we are human beings at 'war' as long as we are indifferent. We are at 'war' even should we think beyond Syria's borders.
The diplomacy in Geneva, the words at the White House, the recent Russian solution for Assad are all going into history as part of these deaths and hopefully also in the saving of some people at least as this nightmare rages.
Two years ago I wrote that the sky was covered with blood in Syria. My concern was about many women and men who would not make it, children?
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| The World at School/Ken Bhogal |
I saw a human touch yesterday amidst all these boulders of violence. I saw something and watched keenly. Two Syrian girls who are refugee in Lebanon were sat on stairs. They are working with Malala Yousafzai. http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-09-09/malala-and-gordon-brown-launch-syria-appeal/
They told the journalist interviewing them that they would like to be doctors. I could see why. Perhaps they always wanted to be doctors but for sure they have seen so many wounded around them and they are responding. They smiled with hope. They added that they wanted to be doctors so that if one day we should need them they would be able to help us. I watched other news.
In the morning I woke up with a view of those two girls as two great songs of hope. They were more than flowers blooming with fresh news. They are what the world needs. This is a human story which is normally buried with many in their souls at difficult times. I am so proud of these two girls and the journalist who interviewed them. I feel that they spoke so much hope to the world. For really it is raining blood in Syria and here they are still carrying their beautiful dream in a world that can hardly hear.
I am happy that they are working with Malala Yousafzai and everyone should be. This is important. They were also shown solving math problems on the board with ease. This sign for me remains deep in my heart and will last. I know that the Millennium Development Goals promised us that poverty would be done by 2015, that illiteracy would be a thing of the past, that girls would have equal chances. It was and is a noble goal but the walk is long.
I wonder why it takes such atrocious conditions, wars and calamities for us to work with focus and determination. Why do people who have the mandate to lead nations make decisions that lead to so much suffering? Why is not their work as clear as a game with rules? What is it that steals from power the clarity that these little girls have now? What? Much is left for us to express. I wrote this poem in July 2012.
For the love of Syria where women are giving wombs for tombs
Singing in every land
It will never be a strange land
When it is someone’s home it is mine too
You wonder where I come from this rhythmic dynamo
With drums beyond calling mourning no one fails to rise
How can we sleep when our land is fire?
Syria is not thousands of miles from home
In our palms we can see her map
In our lives her shape too
How shall it be possible that we are not dying in her?
I would my alarm wake me every hour of night
Women are giving their wombs for tombs.
I saw the same arrows hit my homeland once
Sitting on our own maps, home became exile
When a land is not free and is death trodden
Beyond the rivers of Babylon must strong song be heard.
You sing a song how you can for every home is a strange land
when violence is every padlock and every key broken
I will sing it with and without tuneful drums
In music I will dream beyond sand dunes
of horror
I will ask myself what my thoughts can do
I will answer to my own question with something I know
I have known too our nation held by a thread of life
Cobwebs of thoughtful prayer remained our all
I felt the winds dry our tears and saw dust turn into bread
When energies focus the world will makes itself anew
Who holds the Olympic of peace?
Maybe is not maybe in this unreasonable horror
Annan is not sleeping and us too make vigil
The hour of pain is shared by the chosen few
Easy to count on five fingers continents
We are going to rent the skies with our thoughts
It does not matter that no one cheers, this is not a match.
It must rain reason in Syria now, not tomorrow
Graves and broken bones also deserve peace
Justice must be written on every ruin of blood so sad
And we tell As sad on a sad day the truth
That the moon still rises and stalks the sun
No land remains parted the seas bind one and all
No land bleeds alone, blood oozes into the sea
The underworld is sighing and darkness maybe is dying
Who will return a happy dawn to Syria and Afghanistan?
My alarm clock brings no salaams
It rings Ssss for Syria and A for Afghanistan
These seas of violence must peace kiss
How for the mothers, children and even men
Can violence be sliced like daily bread?
I have seen Syria bleeding endlessly
We have voiced and called to the deaf
We sent our force of justice silently
News of relentless fighting has not ceased
Does power always equal the same?
I have set my clock to alarm me every hour
So that I remember my safety is not for granted
So that I jog our memory to the present
Sounds of bullet fire and screams and deaths
Can news be something else for a change?
Sad as Assad who nods not for the moment
Assenting to the people would have been easier
Assessing the day with clock wise move from Tunisia
They fear that we never learn what no one knows
Is knowing so unknown in faiths confessing knowledge?
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