One Death Among Many in Syria
By Jeffrey Page
He looks to be about 10 years old and already he has bags under his eyes, a condition usually reserved for people who have seen a lot or who are old. He sits on the ground, holding a red and white keffiyeh. Surrounding him are an adult in what appears to be an Adidas jacket, a kid about his own age, and two more adults, one with his arm on the boy’s shoulder and one stroking his hair.
Nothing helps. The boy, whose name is Ahmed, is bereft, crying, his mouth agape, a look on his face that says, “What happens to me now?” The event is the funeral of his father, Abdulaziz Abu Ahmed Khrer, a man you probably never heard of and likely never will hear about again. The boy is the focus of a picture taken by an Associated Press photographer that ran on Page 1 of the Times last Friday.
I looked at this little boy and found I was unable to turn the page. He was the living symbol of this wretched war that’s being waged by Syria against its people. His eyes held my eyes. Now, almost a week later, that copy of the Times is still on my desk, almost challenging me to walk by without spending some time trying to understand this little kid’s pain.
The father was part of an anti-government demonstration in the Syrian city of Idlib when he was shot dead by a sniper in the pay of the Syrian Army which, in turn, is in the pay and under the ultimate command of an ophthalmologist who happens to own the country, Bashar al-Assad, a man with his own children.
When the history of this war is finally written, Ahmed will be one of its great symbols. For this is a war that pits Assad, the Syrian president and son of the former president, against Abdulaziz Abu Ahmed Khrer and much the rest of the Syrian people.
In his mad bid to retain power, Assad has been the supreme commander of Syrian armed forces that that have killed an estimated 7,500 Syrian people in the last 11 months, a rate of about 25 a day. Additionally, as noted by The Times, the UN reports that 30,000 Syrians have run across whatever national borders were close at hand to escape the killing, and 200,000 others have been ordered to relocate within the boundaries of Syria.
And it gets worse. In order to put a stop to the escapes, the Syrian government has ordered the placement of antipersonnel mines near the borders with Turkey and Lebanon. Stay in Syria and risk death. Try to escape Syria and risk death. What must a man think when he looks at his family and tries to decide what to do next? What must a president think when he orders the use of such barbaric weapons not against an invader but against his own people who do not like him?
The world looks at pictures like the one of Ahmed and the world grieves, wrings its hands, makes threatening noise and ultimately does nothing. And so, the signal Assad receives is that he can get away with it.
But on the day when the snipers are gone and the summary executions are over, the people of Syria will demand justice. If the decent people of the world were smart they’d help make that day come a little sooner.
jeffrey@zestoforange.com
Tags: Jeffrey Page, syria
March 14th, 2012 at 9:18 pm
A male friend said this picture made him weep for ten minutes, with thoughts about our inhumanity to each other, in war after war, without ever seeming to learn anything.