I have decided to no longer use the term unspeakable.
We use terms like, “unspeakable horrors” or “unspeakable crimes” to describe atrocities that are horrible beyond description, yet it seems that the more gruesome these atrocities are, the more we must speak the truth and call the world’s attention to brutalities that have claimed millions of victims across the world.
“Unspeakable” recalls for me my parents’ experience as Holocaust refugees. They quickly learned that their traumatic memories of torture and loss were not to be spoken of in their new world. Instead, they were expected to erase the past and begin again.
In today’s brutal world, news of “unspeakable” violence is an everyday occurrence. Logic might lead us to conclude that awareness of human suffering would lead to efforts to end it. Yet, bearing witness to atrocities doesn’t move us to act to stop them.
Statistics are numbers. The dead are usually nameless and faceless, and the farther from our borders the victims live, the less sensitized we are to their misery. We relate best to those who are most like us in terms of race, religion, and cultural practices. We mourn the deaths of victims of terror in Paris. Remember “Je suis Charlie Hebdo?”
Yet, the murders of human beings in places like the Congo, Afghanistan or Iraq, as well as the deaths of African-Americans in the U.S., rarely make front-page news.
March 15 marked seven years since President Bashar Al Assad responded with bullets and bombs to Syrians’ calls for democratic reforms. Half a million people in Syria have died since 2011, when Syrian children were tortured and murdered for writing anti-government graffiti on the walls of their school. More than half of the population has been displaced, creating the largest humanitarian crisis since the Holocaust.
The war has occasionally captured the world’s attention: in 2012, when Assad’s use of the poison gas sarin, resulted in then-President Barack Obama’s “line in the sand,” Syrians hoped that the U.S. would not let Assad again use chemical weapons against his people. Lines in the sand disappear, and so did Obama’s promise. Fears that Iran would turn against the U.S. led to Obama’s change of heart. Later that same year, nearly 1,500 people were murdered by a regime-initiated chemical weapons attack.
In 2015 when the image of young AylanKurdi’s body washed ashore went viral, the world responded with an outpouring of sympathy for Syria’s children, placing the war at the forefront of media coverage. It was during this time that the Valley Syrian Relief Committee held “Songs for Syria” at First Churches in Northampton to raise funds for medical assistance for the Syrian American Medical Society. Supported by a strong interfaith community determined to keep the war in Syria at the forefront of their communities’ attention, the Valley Syrian Relief Committee continues to raise funds, collect clothing, medicine, and other supplies for Syria, organize educational programs and implore our leaders to stop the killing.
But seven years later the violence has escalated, with no end in sight. Assad is supported by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Assad continues to target the civilian population, who are buried in the rubble of barrel-bombed homes and hospitals. While many parts of Syria are in shambles, the carnage in East Ghouta, only 15 miles from Damascus, has recently captured the world’s attention. Or has it?
News reports list the weapons used to destroy Syrian civilians: napalm, chlorine gas, barrel bombs, missiles, sniper fire, starvation, and detention camps that rival Auschwitz. Does the repetition make us immune? We ask ourselves, How can Assad and Putin carry out these heinous war crimes with such impunity? Why is the world throwing up its hands in helplessness, while innocent people are dying in this hell on earth called Syria?
When we don’t know how to combat such brutality, it’s tempting to turn away from what are deemed “unspeakable” crimes against humanity. But whether or not we turn away from the unspeakable, the dying continues.
What does it take to fuel our compassion for victims of a war that has dragged on for seven years? Can we empathize with the anguish of a Syrian mother’s grief or do we feel more empathy for puppies in distress than we do for Syrian parents, who pray that their children will make it through another day?
We may not be able to stop the war, but our humanity demands that we not turn our backs on such suffering.
On Sunday, April 8, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., First Churches of Northampton on Main Street will host “Keeping Hope Alive: An Interfaith Service for Syria,” presented by the Valley Syrian Relief Committee along with 19 co-sponsoring local organizations. Join with others to bear witness, take action, and give voice to the unspeakable misery that has consumed Syria.
Sara Weinberger, of Easthampton, is a professor emerita of social work and writes a monthly column. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.