This is the question that I am asking myself day after day when I think about the situation of Syria. We do not need to look too far back in our history to see similar movements of populations but sometimes, regardless of the technology and the means that we have nowadays, our memory becomes selectively small. But to me, the unprecedented event is the lack of solidarity with the suffering of fellow human beings. We are reaching such low levels of interest that only an image of a death body of a boy is able to wake up the conscience of the civil society and the international community. Have we reached such a level of disinterest that only a terrible picture of suffering is the only way to raise some kind of awareness?
Crisis times are those where people have to show resilience and fight for a better future. But this should be done without forgetting a core value like humanity. An economic crisis should not be an excuse to deny assistance to the ones who are powerless and vulnerable. To see politicians denying the basic rights to people who are forced to flee their home is heartbreaking. It seems like the word refugee just became an excuse to treat people as threats to the national security to avoid to provide them the basic human rights. But the reality is that we are talking about women, men and children who are dying daily for the sake of madness.
After Second World War we say never again. After the genocide in Rwanda we say it again. And so many times after we repeated the same words. But humanity is failing again, regardless of the conventions and good intention treaties signed after each failure, and nobody in power position seem to have the willing to make any difference. This is why I am asking myself “What does it take?†for us to realize that a human being deserves to live with dignity regardless of the country of origin, the religion, the sex or the race. What does it take? To stop the bureaucracy, the never-ending, useless discussions for the international community to take concrete and clear decisions. What does it take to realize that tomorrow it could be us (like we were in the past) the ones fleeing our homes looking for safety and pure survival.
One Japanese friend told me that in their culture the times of crisis are times of opportunity and creativity as the vehicles for recovery. But this is probably what we are denying at the moment to the thousands of people who are waiting in our borders. I personally prefer to think that the future for the people who are fleeing from conflicts around the world is reflected on all the Syrians that I met and with whom I worked. They proved to me that solidarity and humanity can go hand to hand even during the worst moments in their lives. I guess that sometimes in life you have to be a little bit naive to keep hoping for a better future and to work and fight for it. Maybe this is what it takes.