Let us honour the child Rayan

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood

In his brief life of five years, Moroccan child Rayan achieved something that even the United Nations often finds difficult to do– the coverage of his condition and rescue operations after he fell down a well in his hometown Chefchaouen province in the north of Morocco, transfixed the world.

For some hours, we all set aside our differences and were united in spirit as we prayed for the rescue and well-being of the boy.

He showed us that there are far greater things to desire than an unrealistic monolithic religious system or political belief and that the world needs to wake up and realise that adults should prepare the planet for the next generation.

Those children need love, security, good health and education as building blocks so that they are ready to take over the business of running the world when it will be their turn.

If we are careless as caregivers – if we invest in more of our own “toys” such as fighter planes and weapons and less in healthcare and education – we will go on to stage wars and win and lose battles.

Meanwhile, our children will face injury and death from our fighting and also the adjacent evils of war:

starvation, insecurity, disruption and little or no education. How can we expect them to be caring leaders then?

So that little Rayan’s death is not in vain and so that the death of the Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi whose body was washed ashore on a Turkish beach in 2015 and also so that the millions of children and adolescents around the world who suffer because of war and violence are not reduced to being mere statistics, let us pledge to make a difference.

How you ask? As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Become the change you want to see”.

Want a more peaceful world? Become calmer and fight less with your neighbour.

A peaceful street will link others and create a great neighbourhood; this will make for a peaceful country and region.

The world begins literally at your doorstep, my friend.

Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood