In the past week, 250 civilians including 49 children have died because of airstrikes in Aleppo. Dear classmates, this speech is not about amazing accomplishments about happiness. My speech is about how our selfishness has costed human lives, how hypocritical this society is and how we failed to stop a genocide. I am talking about the Syrian conflict and what happened with Aleppo. Every time a massacre happens we say never again. But do we truly mean it? We said that about the Rwandan genocide in 1995 which is considered one of the United Nations biggest failures…
We said the same thing about Bosnia when there was an ethnic killing of Muslim Bosnian which happened from 1992 till 1995. Also considered one of the United Nations biggest failures. We said never again about many other genocides. Yet here we are in 2016, another genocide is happening right in front of our eyes and we decided to turn a blind eye to him. But there’s one thing that makes Aleppo different, it is the fact that this genocide was put live on social media. Never in history, has the whole world, been able to observe a genocide, happening live.
Never have we documented a genocide live on social media. We even have our day and age, Anne Frank. She is a 7 year old girl that live tweets from Aleppo. Although there is all this coverage on social media, we have done nothing about. Instead we decided to ignore the issue because “it’s not in my country, it’s not my problem”. Instead of seeing these posts and demanding change, some of us decided that the best way of reacting to these kind of events is to ask that things about Syria aren’t posted because it “ruins my day”.
What kind of selfish response is that? If it ruins your day, then what does it do to the people that are living it. A genocide is not supposed to make your day any happy, and these posts are supposed to make you angry at what is happening not want to ignore it. I hope it ruins your year, we take things for granted here, we are able to press the mute button and forget about Syrians but children in Aleppo do not have that. It is as if we have become numb to the Syrian conflict, as if the images and videos do not impact us enough.
I would like to remind you all that this conflict has lasted 5 years. Since 2011, we have not done much to say it is enough and this has to be put to an end. When 13 year old Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb was detained by the Syrian government on April 29, 2011 during a protest, so that on May 25th 2011 his mutilated body was given back to his family, was that not a time to step up? Was it not enough when the picture of Alan Kurdi, a 3 year old refugee lifeless body lying on the beach made international headlines little after he drowned on September 2nd 2015?
Was it not time to put this genocide to an end, when footage of Omran Daqneesh, half his face covered in blood and his body covered in the dust from the rubble of his home which was hit by an airstrike, staring blankly at the wall still in shock? How many children must die and suffer so that we take action? It isn’t fair that innocents are dying because men want more power. In 2016 we cared more about the death of a Gorilla than we cared about the children of Aleppo. I would like to remind you that the Syrian conflict has been going on for 5 years.
And during those 5 years, no progress was made. The situation only worsened. The United Nations once again failed to intervene and stop a genocide from happening, but what could we expect from the organization that made wonder woman, woman’s ambassador? They could have done much more about the Syrian conflict but instead decided to watch innocents get killed. 5 years, ladies and gentleman, that’s the time they had, yet they could not manage to agree on a resolution. How many more human rights have to be violated so that the General Assembly can realize there is in issue?
Do they not feel shame? How heartless must you be not to intervene? || hope that those in the UN who stood there and did nothing about this genocide, I hope sincerely that they wake up every morning guilty about what is happening, and that they have nightmares about all the innocent Syrians dying every night. I hope they carry the feeling of shame and humiliation till their death beds. Seems like those in power are nothing more than animals in suit in ties. However the UN is not the only hypocritical thing in this, we are. Yes you have heard me right we are also hypocrites.
It is as if we, humanity, suddenly cared about Aleppo and started to post about them on our accounts. We started to use “Aleppo is burning” only now. All of a sudden we are informed and progressive thinkers n our social media. But do we truly care about what is happening to Aleppo or do we care about what our followers think of us? If you truly cared, then why did you not say something 8 months ago? On April 28th 2016, when citizens of Aleppo shared on social media about how they are being heavily bombed and needed help, did you say anything?
Or is it now that everyone else is posting about it that you suddenly care? In the 21st century, caring about a genocide has become a trendy thing to do. It has been 8 months since Aleppo has been pleading for our help and the best you can do is post on your account about how much you suddenly care about Syrians. I wonder if the others were not doing it, would you have posted about how much you care about Aleppo. And how do we say things like Pray God to help Syria, pray the lord to tell the world leaders to do what is right without feeling ashamed? Praying is a lovely thing but this won’t stop a genocide.
Going out and protesting can, signing petitions can, actions can stop a genocide. Syrians have been praying the same God as you, the same God that spoke to Moses, that this massacre is put to a halt and that they can live peacefully as they once did. Why would God listen to your privileged prayers instead those of the victims? What makes you greater in Gods eyes than those who are suffering? God has left us, he is disappointed in us and how selfish we have become. I am not telling you to stop putting Syria in your thoughts, I am here to tell you to not let Aleppo become a fad or another bandwagon news.
To do everything you are capable of doing, nobody deserves to be forgotten like the Syrians were. You do not have to be Arab, Kurdish or Muslim to care about Aleppo, you need to be human. And it should not matter whose side you are on, innocent children do not deserve to die for things they have not done. They claim history repeats itself, and I believe otherwise. And that is why we, dear classmates, the next generation, must make sure this will never happen again. Let us prove to them that we are not the narcissist generation and let us unsure that when we say “Never Again” we mean it.