REST IN PEACE-AYLAN KURDI
He's maybe 3 years old, maybe a little older.
Lying face down, his head to one side with his bottom slightly up, the way very young children like to sleep.
Lying face down, his head to one side with his bottom slightly up, the way very young children like to sleep.
But the water is lapping around his face and his body is lifeless.
The boy, in a red T-shirt, blue pants and tiny shoes with Velcro straps, was one of 12 people who drowned off Turkey and washed up on a beach Wednesday, September 2, 2015.
The boy, in a red T-shirt, blue pants and tiny shoes with Velcro straps, was one of 12 people who drowned off Turkey and washed up on a beach Wednesday, September 2, 2015.
I do not typically publish graphic images of dead bodies.
I decided to use the photos of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, because I believe the emotional value of these photos outweigh my deep reluctance to publish such pictures.
I believe in respecting the dignity of this child more by publishing the photos of his body, than by not publishing them.
Words intellectually sanitize horrific scenes while photos capture the insanity of what has happened.
If the pictures move a single politician, a single person holding an unhelpful position, his death would not have been completely in vain.
Do not look closely at the photographs here.
Do not look at them at all.
They will, in an instant, inspire pity, revulsion, perhaps anger, and then it will drift away from your mind in a few hours.
There is something obscene here. Tragedies are all too common in today's world and hardly hold the attention span of most.
The daily tragedies outdo the prior days horrors, making people immune to feeling anything real about the plight of other human beings as victims.
This immunity from feelings lets us compartmentalize the horror and allows us do what we really want to do with it: forget about it.
A Turkish police officer stands next to the dead body of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi off the shores of Bodrum, southern Turkey, on Sept. 2, 2015. (Photo: AP)
Two police officers carry the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi after a number of migrants died when the boats carrying them to the Greek island of Kos capsized, near the Turkish resort of Bodrum on Sept. 2, 2015. (Photo: AP)
This is what we know so far about the young boy who was found washed up on Bodrum resort beach in Turkey:
The father of a three-year-old boy photographed lying dead on a beach has said all he wants to do is "lie in a grave" with his children.
Abdullah Kurdi, a Kurdish Syrian who also lost another of his sons and his wife, described the moments before he realized his family had drowned.
He said he was forced to take control of the boat after the captain panicked and jumped into the sea in high waves.
"We went into the sea for four minutes and the captain saw that the waves were so high and as he tried to steer the boat we were hit immediately," he said.
"He panicked and dived into the sea and fled.
"I took over and started steering, but the waves were so high that the boat flipped immediately.
“I wish I could transfer my breath to them, to breathe life into their bodies again,” he said. “We spent a whole hour holding on to the boat.
My children were still alive. The first one died because of the raging waves. I had to leave him to save my second son, who also drowned. I turned around to find that their mother had drowned as well.”
Abdullah described the harrowing last moments with his wife and sons:
“I wish I could transfer my breath to them, to breathe life into their bodies again,” he said. “We spent a whole hour holding on to the boat.
My children were still alive. The first one died because of the raging waves. I had to leave him to save my second son, who also drowned. I turned around to find that their mother had drowned as well.”
He added: "My kids were the most beautiful children in the world. Wonderful. They woke me up every morning to play with them and now, they are all gone.
"Now all I want is to lie in a grave next to my wife and children."
“I don't want anything else from this world,” their father, Abdullah, who tried to save his family, told CNN, “Everything I was dreaming of is gone.
After he spoke through a translator to reporters, TV footage showed him wailing in despair.
The local Coast Guard says the Syrian refugees had crowded onto two inflatable boats which were launched in darkness in the hope of reaching the holiday island Kos.
It's a 12-mile boat journey which thousands of Western tourists enjoy each year.
But as these ugly images reveal, Syrian migrants are paying with their lives.
The cheap dinghies carrying a total of 23 people, launched from the Akyarlar area of the Bodrum peninsula, disintegrated in the Mediterranean sea, sending those on board into the water.
The confirmed dead included five children and one woman.
The images have been shared widely on Twitter, especially in Turkey.
Seven people were rescued from the disaster and two reached the shore in life jackets.
A Turkish navy official said hopes were fading of saving the two people still missing.
Every day the world ignores the killing of innocent victims lives all over the world, not just"migrants" in war zones.
Every day in civilized countries no one pays any attention to the tragedies of innocent victims murdered, killed, while the media endlessly spoon feeds the public with reports about the daily stupidity coming out of Donald Trump's mouth, or what Justin Bieber has to say about anything, or the latest Taylor Swift "words of wisdom", and meaningless "news" about the other crap of the day.
"Civilized" society spends its time in denial, a deliberate ignorance of the crisis in Europe, plus the zero value of human life in most places of this sick world.
After all, these are not YOUR families, it can never happen to YOU, fed by the denial that is needed to remove any feelings about how far down our world has sunk.
There is nothing but cold blooded indifference by YOU in removing these images of all victims completely from your mind.
In this death of 3 years old Aylan Kurdi, dehumanizing words readily dismiss him and others as "migrants", somehow that means this child is not as important as your children, not a human being, and that his family is unlike yours.
Wrong!!!!
The innocent victims in your town, country, elsewhere in this world are sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, your neighbors.
They are that dead boy.
Your coldness and acceptance of the killing of innocent human victims all over the world, in your community, your country, whatever your reasons are that create ignorance, lack of compassion, not even a thought about those less fortunate than you, all are the excuses of cowards.
YOU are LOST in your cruelty of ignorance, self denial, self indulgence, and inhumanity to the suffering of others.
Do not look at these pictures.
Things could be done to avoid the killing of innocent victims in the future, but those things won’t be done.
YOU will keep forgetting, erasing the lives of others as cheap because they are not you, and no-one will take care of reducing the suffering in our world.
YOUR response will be to turn away when the body of a child washes up on a distant shore, or to ignore those innocent victims, their families, in your own community who are killed by injustice, indifference, negligence, and the reality that no one cares.
Rest in Peace little one, Aylan Kurdi such a waste of a short life.
My sincere condolences to Humanity for YOU are not human.
