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Indy Media, UK
Sept 4 2014
Pity the Syrian Children
Dr Declan Hayes | 04.09.2014 08:56 | NATO 2014 |
I recently toured the Armenian village of Kasab where the Free Syrian
Army and their Al Nusra allies slaughtered 88 of the 2,000 inhabitants
and publicly beheaded 13 of these defenceless civilians, deliberately
destroying the fabric and harmony of Kasab in the process. Some of the
residents I spoke to were inconsolable while others such as 86 year
old Sougman Saghdhian and his 95 year old bed-ridden brother Joseph
try to get on with life as best they can and to put the carnage and
their cynical Turkish incarceration behind them as best they can.
Although media personality Kim Kurdashian, to her eternal credit, did
send a single, solitary tweet about the rape of Kasab to her millions
of online disciples, the horrors of Kasab, like those in the rest of
Syria, largely passed the rest of the Western world by. To them, it
was just another pointless day in Hades for the Syrians and Iraqis
beyond the media's celebrity-obsessed Pale.
To the children of Kasab, however, this barbarity is their present-day
reality and, most likely, their future as well until the jihadists and
their Turkish controllers force them to permanently evacuate their
ancestral homes and scatter them, like Iraq's Christians before them,
to the four corners of the earth. Like the remaining Palestinian
Christian children of the West Bank, they know that, when all is said
and done, this is most likely the only viable future the West will
allow them. Because of circumstances beyond the reasoning of children
or, for that matter, of our own, the Middle East must be cleansed of
Christians and other minorities so that an artificial narrative
serving the "manifest destiny" interests of civilisation's ruthless
enemies can become facts on the ground, as the Israelis say.
Although the minds of the children of Syria are as sponge-like as
those of children anywhere else in the world, what they have to absorb
is not fit for adults, never mind children. Give me the child, the old
maxim has it, and I will give you the fully-formed adult. Many of
tomorrow's Syrian adults will be as seriously flawed as the Free
Syrian Army rebels who raped Kasab and who brought their little
children along for the entertainment of watching innocent Christians
being beheaded and for the excitement of watching stacks of burning
tyres destroy the insides the churches "the cross worshippers" used to
sing their hymns and practice their harmless rites in.
Not all of these invaders and looters are necessarily irredeemable
monsters. Although, for example, most of those who crossed her path
insulted and threatened 91 year old Dikranuhi Mangigian and even
smashed up her prized piano in front of her, two young Al Nusra thugs
did bring her bread and water and a female jihadist from Raqqa also
showed her some of the kindnesses we, in our turn, might extend to a
stray dog. Samuel Poladian, a colourful 75 year-old character and
George Kortmosian, his 70 year old drinking buddy, also have some good
things to say about their captors.
But against that, we should remember that even Hitler's SS engaged in
occasional acts of kindness as well and many of them apparently
enjoyed happy family lives when not gassing their Jewish captives to
death. None of this should surprise us as, when all and said is done,
even psychopathic killers need a break and an excuse to believe they
too, unlike their hapless victims, are human and have loving, caring
families they dote on.
The extremists who stole the teddy bears of Kasab's children probably
had such families, children who liked fluffy, cuddly toys and, like
their parents, were not too concerned that those toys had been the
treasures and comforts of other children, who were well-adjusted until
the teddy bear thieves came to town.
I spent quite a bit of time with those children. We toured the
burnt-out churches together, we picked up the discarded British and
German medical supplies the invaders left behind them, we collected
their discarded Saudi propaganda tracts, we collected bullets and
machine gun belts from the refugee-camp ambulances the jihadists left
behind and we joked and laughed with the Syrian Arab Army soldiers at
the checkpoints.
Though all of these things are not the standard or preferred fare for
transforming the child into the fully-adjusted adult, they are what
passes for normal life in Syria. True, in Kasab, as in Ma'lulah, we
did run some impromptu karate classes for the local children but
therein too hangs a tale. Although their sponge-like minds are
absorbing the horrors of the Syrian crisis, these children still want
to be children. They wear the football shirts of Barcelona and
Germany, they text and Facebook as much as their circumstances allow
and they crave for normality, attention and plain, innocent fun.
The enemies of Syria are determined to destroy those innocent
pursuits. They wish to take those young children and give us even more
fatally-flawed adults. They do not want to build a caliph but rather
they wish only to destroy. Their targets are not confined to the
bricks and mortars of the towns, villages and communities they overrun
but they extend to the local children and even to their dreams and
simple comforts such as their teddy bears and the safety and normality
of family life.
Despicable as these jihadists may be, we cannot say the West is much
better. Our leaders' occasional crocodile tears notwithstanding, we
have very much placed our money on the rebel camp prevailing. We have
armed the rebels and provided massive logistical help to the Turkish
camps they operate from. We have allowed these mercenaries traumatize
an entire generation of Syrian children so much so that, even though
the most resilient will survive and even thrive, every psychological
disorder imaginable is becoming manifest amongst the rest of them.
When you visit Kasab's remotest homes at dusk and when elderly
residents such as Samuel Poladian or the children accompanying us can
differentiate between the different pieces of heavy artillery being
fired a few kilometers away, you know this in not life as God intended
it for children or for anyone else. Someone has caused all this
carnage and visited it upon the innocents of Kasab and all of Syria.
Though we have not stolen their teddy bears, smashed up their
playgrounds, murdered their neighbours or looted their homes, our
indolence, ignorance and apathy have allowed the foot soldiers of
Syria's false revolution to do just that. Unless we make amends and
work towards eliminating this takfiri cancer that warps all it
touches, we are just as culpable as them.
Dr Declan Hayes is currently on his third trip to Syria this year. He
is helping organize a conference in Damascus for April 24th 2015,
tentatively called: Syria: Between Destruction and Reconstruction to
mark the murder of all Syria's innocents and to help plot a way
forward out of the morass. He may be reached at [email protected]
Dr Declan Hayes
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/09/517873.html
From: A. Papazian
Sept 4 2014
Pity the Syrian Children
Dr Declan Hayes | 04.09.2014 08:56 | NATO 2014 |
I recently toured the Armenian village of Kasab where the Free Syrian
Army and their Al Nusra allies slaughtered 88 of the 2,000 inhabitants
and publicly beheaded 13 of these defenceless civilians, deliberately
destroying the fabric and harmony of Kasab in the process. Some of the
residents I spoke to were inconsolable while others such as 86 year
old Sougman Saghdhian and his 95 year old bed-ridden brother Joseph
try to get on with life as best they can and to put the carnage and
their cynical Turkish incarceration behind them as best they can.
Although media personality Kim Kurdashian, to her eternal credit, did
send a single, solitary tweet about the rape of Kasab to her millions
of online disciples, the horrors of Kasab, like those in the rest of
Syria, largely passed the rest of the Western world by. To them, it
was just another pointless day in Hades for the Syrians and Iraqis
beyond the media's celebrity-obsessed Pale.
To the children of Kasab, however, this barbarity is their present-day
reality and, most likely, their future as well until the jihadists and
their Turkish controllers force them to permanently evacuate their
ancestral homes and scatter them, like Iraq's Christians before them,
to the four corners of the earth. Like the remaining Palestinian
Christian children of the West Bank, they know that, when all is said
and done, this is most likely the only viable future the West will
allow them. Because of circumstances beyond the reasoning of children
or, for that matter, of our own, the Middle East must be cleansed of
Christians and other minorities so that an artificial narrative
serving the "manifest destiny" interests of civilisation's ruthless
enemies can become facts on the ground, as the Israelis say.
Although the minds of the children of Syria are as sponge-like as
those of children anywhere else in the world, what they have to absorb
is not fit for adults, never mind children. Give me the child, the old
maxim has it, and I will give you the fully-formed adult. Many of
tomorrow's Syrian adults will be as seriously flawed as the Free
Syrian Army rebels who raped Kasab and who brought their little
children along for the entertainment of watching innocent Christians
being beheaded and for the excitement of watching stacks of burning
tyres destroy the insides the churches "the cross worshippers" used to
sing their hymns and practice their harmless rites in.
Not all of these invaders and looters are necessarily irredeemable
monsters. Although, for example, most of those who crossed her path
insulted and threatened 91 year old Dikranuhi Mangigian and even
smashed up her prized piano in front of her, two young Al Nusra thugs
did bring her bread and water and a female jihadist from Raqqa also
showed her some of the kindnesses we, in our turn, might extend to a
stray dog. Samuel Poladian, a colourful 75 year-old character and
George Kortmosian, his 70 year old drinking buddy, also have some good
things to say about their captors.
But against that, we should remember that even Hitler's SS engaged in
occasional acts of kindness as well and many of them apparently
enjoyed happy family lives when not gassing their Jewish captives to
death. None of this should surprise us as, when all and said is done,
even psychopathic killers need a break and an excuse to believe they
too, unlike their hapless victims, are human and have loving, caring
families they dote on.
The extremists who stole the teddy bears of Kasab's children probably
had such families, children who liked fluffy, cuddly toys and, like
their parents, were not too concerned that those toys had been the
treasures and comforts of other children, who were well-adjusted until
the teddy bear thieves came to town.
I spent quite a bit of time with those children. We toured the
burnt-out churches together, we picked up the discarded British and
German medical supplies the invaders left behind them, we collected
their discarded Saudi propaganda tracts, we collected bullets and
machine gun belts from the refugee-camp ambulances the jihadists left
behind and we joked and laughed with the Syrian Arab Army soldiers at
the checkpoints.
Though all of these things are not the standard or preferred fare for
transforming the child into the fully-adjusted adult, they are what
passes for normal life in Syria. True, in Kasab, as in Ma'lulah, we
did run some impromptu karate classes for the local children but
therein too hangs a tale. Although their sponge-like minds are
absorbing the horrors of the Syrian crisis, these children still want
to be children. They wear the football shirts of Barcelona and
Germany, they text and Facebook as much as their circumstances allow
and they crave for normality, attention and plain, innocent fun.
The enemies of Syria are determined to destroy those innocent
pursuits. They wish to take those young children and give us even more
fatally-flawed adults. They do not want to build a caliph but rather
they wish only to destroy. Their targets are not confined to the
bricks and mortars of the towns, villages and communities they overrun
but they extend to the local children and even to their dreams and
simple comforts such as their teddy bears and the safety and normality
of family life.
Despicable as these jihadists may be, we cannot say the West is much
better. Our leaders' occasional crocodile tears notwithstanding, we
have very much placed our money on the rebel camp prevailing. We have
armed the rebels and provided massive logistical help to the Turkish
camps they operate from. We have allowed these mercenaries traumatize
an entire generation of Syrian children so much so that, even though
the most resilient will survive and even thrive, every psychological
disorder imaginable is becoming manifest amongst the rest of them.
When you visit Kasab's remotest homes at dusk and when elderly
residents such as Samuel Poladian or the children accompanying us can
differentiate between the different pieces of heavy artillery being
fired a few kilometers away, you know this in not life as God intended
it for children or for anyone else. Someone has caused all this
carnage and visited it upon the innocents of Kasab and all of Syria.
Though we have not stolen their teddy bears, smashed up their
playgrounds, murdered their neighbours or looted their homes, our
indolence, ignorance and apathy have allowed the foot soldiers of
Syria's false revolution to do just that. Unless we make amends and
work towards eliminating this takfiri cancer that warps all it
touches, we are just as culpable as them.
Dr Declan Hayes is currently on his third trip to Syria this year. He
is helping organize a conference in Damascus for April 24th 2015,
tentatively called: Syria: Between Destruction and Reconstruction to
mark the murder of all Syria's innocents and to help plot a way
forward out of the morass. He may be reached at [email protected]
Dr Declan Hayes
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/09/517873.html
From: A. Papazian