Image Courtesy: Reuters
Yes, this one is a photograph
that ‘humanity’ or the human-beings left with the conscience of ‘being human’ would
desperately wish would not be there - with the reason behind it.
Yes, this one is a photograph
that left me in great dilemma before I decided to share it on my website -
trying to find the one with a frame composition that would look less offensive
to our identities but I can say I failed in doing so.
Photographs like this deafen our souls, incinerate our whole existences and
devastate the whole civilizational journey of humanity – just with a mere look at them.
We live in a world that has
always been plagued with ‘humanity killing developments’ like wars, crusades,
religious wars, ethnic cleansings and the Holocaust, yet this image, once
again, has left us thoughtless,
speechless, soulless and lifeless.
The photograph says all. Its
backdrop becomes hauntingly clear just by a look at it. The photograph makes our
lives beyond redemption. It puts us all,
the combined human masses of the world, in the dock over a crime, once again,
that humanity can never get rid of.
It rightly negates our claims of
being the citizens of a civilized world.
I faced extremely troubled moments
while looking at this photograph. I had to make serious efforts with my soul to
draw some courage to look at it. But I knew I had to look at it. In fact, all of us
need to look at it, and other images that remind us of human depravity - that
how debased we have become.
European leaders say the ongoing
refugee crisis is threatening the ‘idea of Europe’ but can they deflect the
questions that this photograph raises?
The photograph, or the different
frames of it or the video of it, is so shocking and depressing that it takes
the courage of a lifetime to compose yourself to look at it - and compose
yourself again after you have looked at it.
I am sharing it here because it
would remind me - again and again - that it spite of all our civilized claims,
multitudes of us still reek of raw animal instincts - when it comes to treating
people who are not from our family - from our locality - from our community -
from our region - or from our country.
I am crying and I want to cry. It
is not that humanity died its first death today – but the horror that this
image forces us to face cannot be explained in words.
Yes, the world, unfortunately,
has layers of refugee crisis problems - in North Korea, in Syria, in Iraq, in
Libya, in Myanmar - in many other countries scattered across the different
continents. People from these crisis hotbeds are forced to risk their lives to
buy a safe life for their families.
The image sums up the horrifying
situation tens of thousands of human-beings are forced to be in, seeking the
shore to fix their lives, a shore that is increasingly becoming elusive.
Reports say 'Turkish coastguards
have rescued some 50000 people in Aegean Sea', the asylum seekers in Europe,
this year alone. Reports say ‘Europe is facing the biggest migrant crisis since
the World War II’.
Here is an image of the three year
old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi with his elder brother Ghalip shared by their aunt, Tima Kurdi,
on her Facebook page. Tima is settled in Canada for long and Aylan’s family,
too, was trying to move there. Aylan, Ghalip and their mother, a family from
the strife-torn town Kobane in Syria, were among the 12 people who lost their lives
while trying to migrate to Greece through sea-route. Later, Aylan Kurdi's was found lifeless, lying face down, on a Turkish beach. Migrants arriving in Turkey from countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria and many others try to cross the Mediterranean to reach Greece that serves as the gateway for them to the European Union countries.
Image Courtesy: Tima Kurdi's Facebook Page