Two days ago it was published in the press, and since then it has not stopped appearing on social networks, the photo of a 3 year old boy drowned on the shore of a beach in TurkeyWhen his family tried to reach a better place, far from a war that has no mercy. He is not the first child to die because of our incompetence as a plural society, of course, but he is probably the one who is harming us the most because for the first time many of us are unable to turn our backs.
I at least felt that way. I saw the picture and I couldn't stop looking at it until I started crying, imagining her life, looking at her little hands, her clothes, how small she was, the innocent, the pure, and feeling the desire and the need to hold him in his arms to give him peace, or perhaps to give me peace to myself. I did not want to turn my back, and in fact I will not, because after several hours without knowing what to do I decided that I would never forget him. Yesterday was the day I decided to never forget Aylan.
And now what do I do?
It was to see the photo and share it immediately on my Facebook wall. I am, or are, relatively numb with other images. We know that other children die, we know that adults die, but it is so common that, unfortunately, we have come to normalize their suffering. Already, it is not an excuse, we should suffer for everyone, but it is what they have achieved because there is no day when the newscasts do not teach us and it is, surely, a defense mechanism own before the impossibility of doing something that really changes the world.
But Aylan's photo has reached us all much more because he is a 3-year-old boy, and that means that "this is how far we have come", that now this is serious, that childhood is sacred, that children They are sacred, that this is not done. What's good about this farce. That no child would have to die alone, fleeing from bad people, without even knowing where he is going or why he is leaving. That's what hurts the most, that he simply got on that boat with his parents because he trusted them, because he simply went where they told him, because without any ability to decide, he ended up on the shore, alone and lifeless.
That is why many people have not wanted to see this photo. That is why many people have said that they will be a few days without entering Facebook. Therefore a lot of people are asking us to stop sharing. Because it hurts. And I don't blame them, nor judge them. You have probably reached this part of the post and are criticizing me for putting it back. Maybe they even stopped reading. They are in their full right. But I have decided that this picture will accompany me all my life. I look at her and suffer. I look at her and cry. But I don't want to turn my back.
There were several minutes that I was watching her, this and the other in which her little body is picked up, and I could only say: "What do I do now when I see this?", "What am I supposed to do?", because I look at him and I see a child of the same age as my little son, the one I spoke of a few weeks ago because he is at the age I want him to grow but, at the same time, at the age at which I want him to he stays like this forever. And I feel miserable for not being able to do anything for him. And as I said, I would have liked to be there to catch him, maybe before he fell into the sea, or later, to help him, to help me, I That.
But it is absurd, what nonsense, there is nothing I can do now. And thereafter? Choose the rulers with conscience? Yes, it's something, but I feel ridiculous with a ballot in my hand after seeing Aylan. I will, of course, I will vote for those who consider that they can try to change this world a littleBut honestly, there is little hope I have because even they have it raw, no matter how good their intentions and desires. It is money that handles everything, not the intentions. But of course I will, I will choose well.
The day I change, the world will change
Don't ask me who it is, because I don't remember it. I read it once and I kept it for myself, forever. It is a text that has always motivated me and that helped me yesterday to make a decision about it:
When I was a child I wanted to change the world, when I was young I realized that I had to change my country, as an adult my family, and now that I am going to die I have understood that if I had changed, I would have changed the world.
I can not change the world. I can't make a war end. I can't do anything for Aylan, nor for the next Aylans, but I can always remind you, yes I can decide at the polls, yes I can be consistent with my way of life.
Maybe it helps me to give thanks for being born in a country far from so much barbarism, to value the life I have, or some children who can go to the beach, to the coast, to play and have fun, and not to die. And always remind him.
Yesterday I was reading a girl on Facebook criticizing us all for sharing the photo: "If it were the mother, I would kill the messenger," he said, "explaining that it is worth putting the child's picture. I answered what I felt, what I feel: "If I were the father, I would appreciate maximum dissemination." Because it is not morbid, they are not eager to see a child in that situation. It's the reality, it's the world we live in, and as a father what would hurt me the most is that my son died without guilt and was silenced and concealed. As a father, I would like to see what is happening, that many people open their eyes, feel the pain of something like that, motivate many people to try to do something, to try to change this world.
A tribute to Aylan
Numerous illustrators and many people who are not wanted to pay tribute, a kind of tribute to what is already known as "the beach boy" and they wanted to give a message to that photo, imagining a different scenario, or adding their own vision. We have seen them on several pages, like Magnet, and I want to leave here some of those drawings, like the one I just put the child in the crib:
And I also wanted to contribute my grain of sand with the one you see on the cover, which I put here again:
An Aylan who, despite everything, embraces a dark and dark world. A large, very large Aylan, larger than most of humanity, because it is what children have, purity and innocence, two characteristics that many elders, unfortunately, were left behind from those that should never have come off. An Aylan who tells us what we would have to repeat each day: "I just hope we are in time to change."
That's why yesterday I decided that I would never forget Aylan.
