Saving Face or Saving Syria?

BY SHIVANI DESAI

Smoldering fumes fill the air, casting a dark shadow over the unfolding scene. Interspersed images of ravaged landscape, debris-filled streets, and destructed homes flash onto the screen. But more heartbreaking than this portrayal of destruction is the depiction of pure suffering. Mutilated arms and legs; limp, lifeless bodies; blood-splatters and grimy soot cover everyone in sight. Images flash of children crying, abandoned in deplorable conditions. Mothers and fathers desperately search for lost family members. This is Syria: bodies lie every which way, innocent lives are changed forever, and the sanctity of the human right to dignity, safety, and health is shattered.

These images are unbearable to watch from half a world away. But to live through these horrifying events is a concept that I cannot even begin to fathom. I look down at my body and see a temple that is intact, healthy, and safe. I look at the screen, and I see hundreds of “temples” desecrated. But I – like my fellow Americans – cannot help but feel a sense of removal from the situation occurring thousands of miles away because I know that this would never happen to us Americans. The idea of our government turning against us is preposterous. The concept of conflict stripping us of our basic rights to health and safety is alien. Watching a special of CNN and seeing images from Syria is heartbreaking, but also foreign. It almost becomes easy to compartmentalize the suffering, and to change the channel to escape such unpleasant imagery. But we owe it to the Syrian people to pay attention.

We’ve heard the statistics; we know the facts. We know that in April 2011, a “peaceful revolution” quickly spiraled into a bloody civil war; that the Syrian government began massacring, raping, and kidnapping its own countrymen and women; and that bombings, chemical weapons, and poison gas were quick to follow. Since then, the world has waited and watched, planned and discussed options of intervention, but no concrete results have materialized. We know that in this two-year period of inaction, over 100,000 Syrians have died, and 2 million people (half of them being children) have become refugees.

But we must remember that these appalling statistics represent human lives, and countless individual tragedies. While it’s easy to focus on the numbers, the real story is the people behind them. These sinister realities, largely hidden from the American public eye, are barely given the attention they deserve, out-shone by the internal and grid-locked politics of foreign affairs. Examining the implications of a statistic such as ‘two million displaced refugees’ is crucial to understanding the situation in Syria. What are the effects on surrounding countries experiencing an influx of Syrian immigrants? How are the orphaned children surviving? What affects does this bloody war have on the identity, the psyche, and the mental health of the Syrian people? Beyond the 100,000 deaths, there is a black hole which begs the questions, how many people are injured, permanently disabled, or in need of immediate or long-term healthcare? The Syrian crisis has had devastating effects not only on the actual mortality rates of the Syrian people, but also on the quality of the lives of survivors. Approximately half of the countries’ doctors and medical professionals have fled the country, leaving desperation in their wake. More than a third of the hospitals have been destroyed. Everywhere one turns, someone is in need of urgent medical attention. But the combination of great need and diminishing medical resources ensures that this person will probably not receive the help that they need.

This is the real crisis of Syria. So why do the headlines always revolve around: “America Saving Face,” or “Obama vs. Putin”? Why is it that, in comparison, the media barely addresses humanitarian problems such as refugees and healthcare crises?? Why is it that when I search Syria, the first things that pop up are ceaseless circles of arguments about whether America should intervene militarily? The pragmatists will argue that it is not enough to be aware of the issues; we have to do something, and something in line with our national interests. The incerity of the United States’ humanitarian rhetoric is suspect. Would American intervention actually help the Syrian people, or would it cause more strife, injuries, and deaths on the ground? I’m not sure, and I cannot advocate for a single, simple solution. But I know that the media owes it to the Syrian people to focus more on their plight than on the politics of foreign policy. In the flurry of all of these discussions in DC and Moscow, Congress and the UN Security Council, it is important to keep in mind the human tragedy underway. It seems to me, that in all of the ensuing political chaos, the effort to help Syria has forgotten the Syrian people.

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