The unjust new chapter

Several years ago, I met a young Syrian boy at our mosque who had lost both of his arms in one of the bombing campaigns by the Assad government in Aleppo. In that bombing raid, he also lost his grandmother and two of his siblings. His father was not a soldier or a member of the opposition group. He was just a simple man caught up in the crossfire of the Syrian civil war. The young boy — despite life altering permanent scars — was fortunate to be still alive and through the generosity of some charities and individuals was able to come to the US. Unfortunately, like his brothers and his grandmother, hundreds of thousands of other Syrians are no longer alive in an evil war that has lasted well over a decade.

At the Lebanese-Syrian border, I have met men and women, boys and girls, who are displaced for no fault of theirs. Many young men and their families left because they just did not want to pick up arms for the government against their fellow citizens. Others left because they lost all of their belongings and were scared for their lives. I remember talking — in my terrible Arabic — with a lady who, despite having next to nothing, wanted to plant flowers in front of her tent, for she could not imagine a dwelling without flowers. I broke bread with families that, despite being poor, would not let me leave their company unless I shared a meal with them. I saw families who were living in conditions that no family should ever have to endure. Most of them are still stuck in the same camps.

Today, as I read about the Arab League summit and the red carpet for the Syria, I think about all of the people in camps and cities, in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Germany, Belgium and the US who have shared their stories with me, many of whom I now consider my friends. As Syria gets rehabilitated, and welcomed back to the folds of Arab League, I wonder about these people, and millions of others, who find the doors of justice shut on them forever. I wonder about what it means to them to know that they may never be able to go back, be a part of the streets and neighborhoods that shaped their lives or visit the houses that were once their homes; what it means to be forcibly displaced, and be told by some of the very countries that were on your side at one point, that we no longer care about you.

The Syrian situation, while disturbing and unjust, is unfortunately not entirely unique. Accountability is rare, and the voices, and even screams, of the weak and the vulnerable are easy to ignore and block. We have had plenty of our own episodes where we have chosen to move on (remember 1971?) without any accountability. How we treat ethnic Bengalis in the country and what we think of them is a reminder of how much we care about justice, self-reflection and human dignity. Communities in KP, Sindh and Balochistan have deep scars and raw wounds that go way back, but we continue to first deny the evil we perpetuate, and then tell everyone to bury the old chapter and press the reset button once again.

I am all for peace and peaceful coexistence and find the idea of a war abhorrent and evil, but no one should be allowed to erase the past. We should not be OK with ignoring the plight and pain of millions because the political winds start to blow in a different direction. Just because the political calculations are heartless, or without regard for those who are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, it should not become a licence for us to look the other way and move on. If we choose to consider human dignity as a useless and dispensable notion, the evil we refuse to acknowledge will eventually consume all of us.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2023.

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