“The innocence of the refugee child, compounded by the pain of hundreds of refugees fleeing into nowhere of sorts, brought into focus the grim reality of those trying to seek refuge… “
Many children lay dead even before they could reach some sort of destination. For months, I couldn’t get over the picture of the Syrian child, Aylan Kurdi, lying dead by the seashore. The innocence of the refugee child, compounded by the pain of hundreds of refugees fleeing into nowhere of sorts, brought into focus the grim reality of those trying to seek refuge… European Right-Wing lobbies coming in the way, sealing the fate of hundreds and thousands of Aylan Kurdis, who ironically have been reduced to refugee status because of the civil war triggered by the Western expansionist strategies.
Before I could recover from Aylan Kurdi’s death, what had hit were those haunting photographs of the four-year-old injured Syrian child, Omran Daqneesh. Though alive, he looked lifeless; covered with blood and dust he didn’t cry in pain or shock. And then came news of Omran’s older brother, 10-year-old Ali Daqneesh, succumbing to his injuries. Hundreds of children and their families have been killed or disabled in and around Syria by bombardments and much more havoc.
And such is the level of intolerance spreading out in the Western world, that even refugee children are seen as potential threats. Sadist cartoonists lampooning dead refugee toddlers! Why French publications like Charlie Hebdo mocked the tragic death of the Syrian child Aylan Kurdi? Wasn’t that lampooning blatantly vulgar and much too insensitive?
And though to date refuge-seekers from the Arab lands haven’t reached this part of the subcontinent, possibly because of geographical barriers, if they do they would experience another set of dark realities. Today, in India, there are hundreds of internally displaced. Entire clans and families are forced to shift from one locale to the next, as the land and political mafia is unleashed to target vulnerable communities. Made to run from their ancestral homes, made to survive like refugees in their own country!
CHILDREN OF PALESTINE!
On this upcoming Children’s Day, November 14, the focus ought to be on the children of Palestine. Facing the most traumatic childhood; each day dripping with sorrow in the backdrop of killings and more killings. The ongoing bombardments and targeted attacks on them and their homes, tents, shelters, schools, mosques, and hospitals, by the Israeli forces.
Leaving you readers with this verse of Faiz Ahmed Faiz – ‘Song for a Palestinian Child’. This verse is tucked in the volume – ‘A Song For This Day – 52 Poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’ (Sang-E-Meel Publications). Translated from Urdu to English by Shoaib Hashmi, accompanying images from the works of Faiz’s daughter Salima Hashmi, the verse stands out, along a diverse range… This volume was published around December 2009 but holds out to this day. Here goes this verse by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:
‘Song For A Palestinian Child/
Be still, child!
For your mother too is still, in sleep/
Having poured out all her pain in tears/
Be still, child!/
For it is but a moment since/
Your father laid down his burden of woe/
Be still, child!/
For your loving brother/
Has left the home of his fathers/
To go seeking the beautiful butterfly of his dreams/
And your sister too has left the hearth/
To set up a home in an unknown land/
Be still, child!/
For here, in your little courtyard/
They have bathed the lifeless sun of days/
And interred the lifeless moon of the night/
Be still, child!/
For your mother and father/
And brother and sister/
And the sun and the moon/
If they hear you weeping/
They will weep with you, and you with them/
And if you smile, then perhaps/
One day, transfigured/
They will all come back, to be with you.’
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