His face was blooded.. his mind looked stunned.
Little 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh was pulled from rubble after an airstrike–either from Syria or the Russians, it is being reported by news agencies–hit a building in the Northern Syrian city of Aleppo.. And at this point, in a war of propoganda with all sides being slightly guilty, the strike could have been at the hands of anyone.
He was one of 12 childen under the age of 15 who were treated fopr injuries. All of this happening Wednesday of this week.
And since that time, the video posted by witnesses and journalists has quickly made its way around the world.
I watched the video .. you should too..
There are some particularly jarring moments during that brief scene of chaos..
One being the boy’s stunned look. His face of disbelief.. his shaggy hair.. and his CatDog T-shirt that he was wearing..
See, my son is also 5. You, the reader, may also have a child of the same age or at least know one who is.. That is the immediate connection I felt to this boy’s humanity after watching the video. He is a child. Minus language barriers or different culture.. regardless of the fact he is miles away from my safe location in a war torn nation, he is a child of God. He has a soul. He is a human.
He is also the face, suddenly, of so many other dead Syrians who have lost their young lives because of adults fighting in an endless civil war.
The war there has so many tentacles .. so many reasons, but yet so few that make any sense. There are some who side with Assad. Others will question whether the anti-government forces are too aligned with terrorism.. some who say Russia needs to be involved and others who decry it as hostile acts towards NATO and the world at large. World War III could start here. Then again, World War III could already be raging and we just did not name it yet.
Eliminate all of that political talk and war porn for a moment.. escape from the normalcy of this worldview and move to another place. And even displace for a moment the many voices online who are stating this video is a hoax from the beginning and that the boy has painted on blood. Just realize that the boy is not guilty of any crime. He is a young child who has a family, likes kids shows, had brothers and sisters, and parents who loved him. Oman does not understand geo political games or the type of talk that takes place behind closed doors in military strategy meetings.
Now he is wiping blood from his confused face and has nothing left of what was earthly for him.
Because of a war.
A war in the 21st century.
There is word that Oman has been reunited with his parents and that, upon seeing them, he began to cry.. The story doesn’t name the parents. They tell the reporters that they fear reprisal from Assad.. There is equally no word on whether the parents were ‘rebels’ and what rebel group they may have been from. There is also no Western reports as to who targeted the building for an airstrike and what military assets may have been there.
But a 5-year-old is not a military asset.
I guess humans are evolving. I suppose we are maturing. That peace is more abundant on earth and people are good. Whether it’s the United States playing chess with human lives or other nations just playing a bloody game of checkers, the world sure is a rotten place sometimes.
Maybe you disagree, of course. But tell that to Oman Daqneesh. Wipe his blood and his eventual tears, and you tell him that the world is better now than before.
I sure could not.
