In a retweet, I saw someone criticize the “able bodied men” in the video, because they weren’t helping carry the two babies. I’ve been angry and trying to get it out of my head, ever since. Westerners really have no clue about the logistics of genocidal mass displacement.
When you’re on foot through a conflict zone, do folks have any idea how easy it is to get separated and never ever see each other again. If shooting starts, everyone scatters and you just have to hope that you’ll see everyone from your original group at the planned destination.
Tying her babies to her is that mom’s best chance at keeping them safe and together. Children that age may not even know the names/faces of whatever distant relatives the mother may hope to find where she’s fleeing.
Even if some stranger carrying a baby separated from their parents wanted to return them to their relatives, how could they without the baby being able to tell them where to bring them? Do folk’s know how many children end up in refugee camps with no known relatives?
Thinking about this last night, I half remembered a story in the Christian bible. Jesus’ parents and entire community were traveling to Jerusalem. Nobody was chasing them. It was just a happy religious occasion. He was an adolescent, but he still managed to get separated.
His parents had to trust that he was somewhere safe with other family members, because you can’t stop an entire caravan for one person, even if you want to. Even at the destination point, Jesus’ parents couldn’t find him. That’s not surprising given the circumstances.
Here in Bulbancha, hundreds of thousands of people crowd into the city for Carnival every year. That sudden temporary swell shuts down nearly every social service in the city. That’s even with the benefits of modern highways and hotels and police departments.
Imagine if, instead of using cars and planes, everyone of those foreigners were trying to travel to the city on foot. That’s the kind of conditions the Jesus’ story describes. Ultimately, Jesus’ parents eventually headed home to look for him. That didn’t work either.
They had to travel against the tide of people headed back home and return to Jerusalem once the city was a lot more empty. Then they found him and had to go back home together again. That’s what it took to give that fiasco a happy ending.
Now imagine if bullets were randomly being fired at the caravans as Jesus’ parents were trying to move within and against the flow looking for a child who may not even be staying still in one place. Those around you may not even be able to keep track of their own kids.
Looking for another person’s children could mean a death sentence for your own and everyone knows that.
At university, I had a course where we studied lifeboat ethics principles as a part of medical ethics discussion of allocation of healthcare resources.
At university, I had a course where we studied lifeboat ethics principles as a part of medical ethics discussion of allocation of healthcare resources.
That was one of the most dismal period of realizations in my young adult life. I can’t sum it up in tweets, but it made me understand that having a right to live doesn’t mean someone equally bad (or worse) off has a responsibility to make sure you live.
You can’t put the responsibility for the horrors of Gazans like this mother on the heads of her fellow sufferers. They, too, have to prioritize in absolutely horrific ways that will traumatize them for the rest of their lives.
This is 100% on the heads of the colonizers.
This is 100% on the heads of the colonizers.
I think I accidentally broke the thread.😰
By the way, it seems she made it to the safer zone.
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