Moving Beyond Slacktivism on Syria: Samar’s Story

By Melissa Diamond

When my grandmother was born in France in 1939, World War II was on the verge of outbreak. As a Jewish child, she had to hide to survive. And, I n the face of her suffering and the suffering of millions like her, the world was silent.

When the world emerged from its silence, the words “never again” rang from the rooftops. There was no Internet at that time. There were far fewer ways to broadcast stories to the world than there are today. As the world became increasingly interconnected, we vowed that we would never allow mass persecutions of people because of who they are.

In 1995, when my friend Samar was born in Syria, fingers danced across keyboards as email took the world by storm.

By the time Samar was 15, the world congregated on social media. People sent their thoughts out to thousands with the click of a button and shared selfies at the speed of light.

When Samar was 16, a war broke out in her neighborhood. Her street overflowed with protests. In the evenings, the sound of gunfire shook her home.

Samar turned 17. Gunshots turned to bomb blasts in the mornings.

Samar turned 18. Her neighborhood was reduced to rubble.

Samar turned 19. She had more friends who had died than years on this earth.

Samar turned 20. A little Syrian boy’s body washed up on the shore in Bodrum, Turkey. The world screamed itself to sleep and then returned to its silence on Syria. A few weeks later a bomb hit Samar’s home and took her life.

On the day Samar died, no one screamed “never again.” Instead the Internet shook with calls to ban refugees and bomb Syria. Because it was the day after a group of coordinated attacks killed 130 people in Paris and injured another 368. In the wake of deaths that felt so much closer to home, the western world was, again, silent on Syria.

Samar’s story is one of hundreds of thousands of stories of Syrians whose lives have been cut short by war, but it’s one of the few that carries a name. Too many of these legacies have faded to numbers. In Aleppo in recent days, more than 82 civilians have been reported killed. We don’t know their names.

But deaths in Aleppo are not new.

Aleppo was already burning on the day that Samar died.

The world was silent.

Aleppo was already burning this summer when little girls showed up on my doorstep in Turkey, faceless and voiceless from a chlorine gas attack.

The world was silent.

Aleppo was already burning in August when aid cuts in Turkey left some families to choose between the slow death of starvation and the quick death of war.

The world was silent.

But now, five years too late, voices are rising for Syria, and we cannot allow them to cry themselves to sleep once more. We need to mobilize every voice to make a difference.

What can you do if you don’t have money to donate? What can you do if donating doesn’t feel like enough?

Take the time to have a conversation with someone who sees the situation differently than you do. Don’t lecture. Don’t reprimand. Take the time to really listen. Share the human stories you have read and listen to the responses of someone with whom you may not usually have the opportunity to speak. Put a name and a face to stories like Samar’s.

This is the only way we can break the stand still on Syria. Spread your calls of “never again” online, but know that preaching to the choir doesn’t break the world’s silence. Instead, reach out to those with whom these conversations are most difficult. That’s where change happens. That’s where you can make a difference. We can’t each do everything, but we can all do something.

Melissa Diamond is a social entrepreneur, speaker and writer. She is the founder of two non-profit organizations, A Global Voice for Autism and Roots for Refugees. A Global Voice for Autism has impacted more than 750 parents, children with autism, siblings and special needs professionals in the Middle East and continues to expand its private and community-based programs to locations around the world.

* Information about the image, an original piece of art by Melissa Diamond, inspired by Samar:

The hands say: “Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.” The blue background says: “With life as short as a half taken breath, don’t plant anything but love.” The purple girls say: “Hidden from all I will speak to you without words. No one but you will hear my story even if I tell it in the middle of a crowd.” The pink background says: “We are all the same. Listen to the reeds as they sway apart. Hear them speak of lost friends. At birth you were cut from your bed, crying and grasping in separation. Everyone listens, knowing your song. You yearn for others who know your name and the words to your lament. We are all the same, all the same. Longing to find our way back. Back to the one. Back to the only one.”