I have a son called Anthony – he is two and a half years old. I love my boy so much it hurts – most parents know that feeling.
I can’t bear him to look sad or lonely, so if Anthony wants someone to play toy cars or ‘tick tock’ (being swung upside-down like a pendulum) he knows his big soft daddy can always be fetched.
I always want Anthony to know I am there for him. Its no sacrifice at all, actually its like being wrapped up inside joy.
Last night I saw pictures of dead children, refugees drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. I needed time to reflect on that but I wasn’t given any because Anthony wanted to play “go to sleep”.
Of course it would have to be the “go to sleep” game wouldn’t it? We both hide under the duvet in the dark and pretend to go to sleep, I am careful he doesn’t drag a pillow over his face or get too hot, sometimes he gets tickled which makes him giggle endlessly, then with a shriek of delight Anthony yells “wakey wakies!!!” and leaps out of bed.
As I played with my boy I wept silently for those dead children , not safe with their parents, but screaming in terror as the sea closed in – needing someone to be there but their mother was drowning too and couldn’t save them.
This was not a tragic accident – we knew they were going to be there, we just didn’t do enough to protect them – we let them drown.
I claim no moral high ground either as a human being or as a parent – I know the horror I feel is shared almost universally.
Truth is, I did nothing to prevent this. I have seen other pictures of dead children in the Mediterranean and all I did was shudder inwardly and look away. I held Anthony tightly and put it out my mind – too painful an image to linger on.
Right now other children are on their way with desperate families to other boats waiting in the Mediterranean and if we don’t act now more will die.
Despite my lack of power, I can’t hide behind politicians, comforting rationales or even this blog, I must do more to try and prevent the loss of any more children.
By all means let us sort out this crisis from every angle possible, but first lets make sure nobody is simply abandoned in the sea, that isn’t beyond our material power (we all know this) so lets get on with it and sort the politics out later.
This is my son – taken on his first Birthday, looking out at the world with wide eyes.
If he had been born in Syria, Libya, Iraq or Eritrea, what would the world see when they looked at him? I suppose for some, he would just be a nuisance, a political problem, a news item, part of a ‘swarm’ of ‘migrants’.
But for his accident of birth he could have been drowned in the sea yesterday.
I must protest and challenge the insidious political culture of acceptance and amoral resignation that allows parents and children to drown in the Mediterranean.
We cherish our own children, we know that they are special and deserve our very best love and protection. We all know that a line on a map doesn’t convert anyone from being human into a problem insect – but knowing these things isn’t enough – we have to act from that knowledge.
There will always be haters and racists but whatever any politician or journalist may imply, nobody from any family, from any country – be they drowning in the Mediterranean, suffocating in a lorry in Austria, stencilled with numbers in the Czech republic or herded into football stadiums in Greece…
…is just another refugee.
Saturday 12 September 2015, 12pm, Assembly point Marble Arch
2pm Rally,Downing Street – on Facebook
Beautifully said. I have a French grandchild nearly three years old who looks a lot like Aylan. Can’t look at the photo without crying. We can’t keep punishing children- by commission or omission – for being born in the wrong time & place.
I too cannot look at the picture of the little dead boy without a searing pain in my heart. I could not sleep after first viewing it and no matter how often the photo is shown, it shocks me again and again.
I have a three year old grandson, who when he sleeps or rests, does so in the same pose as this lovely little Syrian child.
We all love our darling little boy and his one year old brother and would do anything to keep them from harm or hazard.
Any parent or grandparent can identify with the terrible human loss being experienced by refugees from war-torn countries.
That our “leaders” cannot feel any empathy probably has its origins in the loveless early lives they had in British boarding schools.
Thank you for a beautifully written tribute.