We are all flawed beings; nowhere more so than in our propensity to blind ourselves to the suffering of others to fit with our tribe or group. The alternative, constantly questioning to ensure we adhere to a true narrative, always risks isolation and exclusion from those we have identified with or love. This is where being true to ourselves becomes really hard. If we genuinely believe in the individual sovereignty and the equality of all, however, we have no choice but to recognise the members of other groups as our equals, and children in particular as free of guilt.
Recent wars and the hatred they promote have driven some of the people I have grown to respect greatly over the past few years to forget the basic truths they courageously upheld. After standing at considerable cost for truth, bodily autonomy and the rights of children over medical exploitation through Covid vaccine mandates, they are now dividing humans, including children, into those more worthy and those less so. After disputing the classification of occupations into essential and non-essential in 2020, they now seem to apply these very terms to humanity itself in social media posts worded to promote many of the same prejudices they supposedly abhorred.
Perhaps they had never fully understood why they were standing, or what they were standing against. Or perhaps we are all just prone to failure. Suddenly country, religious dogma, ethnic group or colour becomes a more important definition of human worth than humanity itself. God becomes a deity of a certain historical narrative rather than a God over all; a reaper commissioning the enlightened to sort the wheat from the chaff, rather than a Father gathering his children around him. Perhaps we regularly need to stop, examine our own hearts and see who owns them now.
Here is a hard example. I saw a video a few days ago of young girls dead, one with her head blown open. They had been sisters (and still were), but were no longer part of our collective humanity here on earth. This happened because some other people had made hard choices which they knew would condemn them, or someone like them, to death. Men were carrying their limp bodies, and someone was filming it because they wanted other people to see what people do.
It does not matter here, truthfully, who they were, who those who condemned them were, or why this tragic choice was made. They had been two sovereign, beautiful and alive children, like children everywhere. What happened to them has happened to children throughout history, from the sack of ancient cities to the pogroms of the medieval world, to the ethnic cleansings of the Americas and central Africa, to the concentration camps of Europe, to wars and tragedies of Asia and the Middle East. This is about how we respond to them.
The very worst we can do is find excuses to minimise the tragedy. I have watched a baby dying of tetanus, in a place where there was no pain relief, no drugs to paralyse and intubate, nothing that could be done to dull the agony of an infant wracked with horrific spasms. It is, I think, the worst thing I have seen; I have not witnessed such pain before or since. It was the result of what the parents did, which was the result of a cultural practice that was misguided and highly dangerous, but that is completely irrelevant to the child. To minimise this tragedy due to the parents’ fault or mistake would be callous. I think the people carrying those girls’ bodies were trying to get this message across.
At present, we are witnessing a lot of callousness. We are seeing children dying in wars and unrest. Social media is replete with posts minimising this because this group had previously done something to that group, or vice versa. Several of those I admired and supported through the Covid period are now prominent in doing the same, reposting statements that whole ethnic groups are “filthy vermin” or that a photo of a child carrying a toy gun proves he is a terrorist or child of terrorists, and therefore fair game as an enemy combatant. Somehow, a prior wrong means that the agony and pain inflicted on a child is less of a tragedy. Somehow, a child is held guilty for the perceived crimes of others and, because of the actions of others, is considered of intrinsically less worth. This child is worth this much, while that other child is valued differently.
Each child in Darfur, Yemen, the villages of central Africa, Gaza or Israel is a child of us all, and it is illogical, unless we are not all equal, to consider one child as more or less innocent than another. Our duty as adults is to understand that. It is also, sometimes, to carry out actions that result in these tragedies in an attempt to avoid worse tragedies. These are not games of numbers, but must be actions based on values of compassion and truth.
We will not stop the violent deaths of children; they have been part of humanity for 100,000 years. But we can reduce the pain and minimise the corruption that our failures cause. We can start to do this when we care enough about humanity to stop categorising children on a scale of worth. Put away this cold emptiness that is poisoning so many, and look into each bloodied face and see and understand their pain.
Dr. David Bell is a clinical and public health physician with a PhD in population health and background in internal medicine, modelling and epidemiology of infectious disease. Previously, he was Programme Head for Malaria and Acute Febrile Disease at FIND in Geneva and coordinating malaria diagnostics strategy with the World Health Organisation. He is a Senior Scholar at the Brownstone Institute.
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