From The CEO’s DESK

Do you remember the time when this was the worst image we had ever seen? The world was shaken. We were shaken. A child’s lifeless body washed up on the shore. How could it happen? What kind of a world did we live in where this was allowed to happen? What kind of people did we put in charge who were okay with children suffering in such a way? 

We had shut our phones and computers, and thought to ourselves, never again. Never again would we let something like this happen, Never. Again. We had told each other and the world with so much pride that we should hug our kids a bit tighter today and vow never to let any parent face anything so brutal again. Most of us were haunted by this image for weeks, months, maybe even years. How could we not? 

Now that I have reminded you of this child, this incident, those days. I can’t help but think how naïve we were back then. How utterly mistaken we were to think that this dead child’s lifeless body was the worst we were ever going to see in our lifetime. That should have been the case. Turns out we forgot our promise of Never Again.

We stay up nights watching videos of children screaming and crying in pain. videos of parents holding bloodied and burned bodies of their children, we weep for them we pray for them all the while shushing our peacefully sleeping children if they ever were disturbed by our crying. 

Out of all of those images to date, this child, this picture still lingers and still haunts me in my loneliest moments. I wrote about it when it happened as well, for the same reason I’m about to mention now. 

This baby reminds me of mine. My 3-year-old looked just like him. His height, his size. Like this on his back, I wouldn’t be able to tell these two children apart. That night, my son was lying on his back as he did most nights. Waking up to your child’s lifeless body gives a different meaning to death. It was 20 years ago, and I still wonder how long I slept next to him after his soul left his body. 

This is not my story; this is not my son’s story. This is about what will make us come out on the streets and scream for justice and say enough!

What makes one human suffering special compared to another? What made that burned body of a baby without a head in Rafah more compelling than a child buried under the rubble whose blue and black bruised hands are clear indicators that they suffocated to death? That they suffered.

One is visibly more horrific than the next. One visibly more violent than the next, visibly louder. The other quietly breathes in and out and hopelessly stops breathing. Palestinians have been buried under the rubble of politics, red tape, “its complicated” and a million other excuses for almost a century. Now that “a few” are permitting them to scream out loud they are facing the burning and beheading of their children. 

The child on a beach will always be the image that haunts me. Not because I haven’t found other images painful or disturbing; but because I wake up to that boy every day.

We think if we cower in the shadows our children’s heads will be spared. 

Karbala is at our doorstep!

Y’all take care now.

Ma’asalama

Mahvish Akhtar