The Syrian dilemma

How would one feel if one’s country was on fire for years with no end or solution in sight? Ask a Syrian and he would tell you the only music he hears is the drum of the guns and the shrill falsetto of the missiles. This bizarre orchestra of firepower has become so much a part of the background noise that most Syrians are oblivious to it.
Yet, a whole generation is immune to the sound, their fear muted by resignation of the worst sort.
And you can repeat this scenario in so many nations today, Yemen being a prime example. A whole generation is growing up with the sight of blood as the only color in their lives unable to do anything to stop it.
The collateral damage is no longer just a label. It is the death of civilians who want nothing more than to go to work and make a living, bring up their families and put food on the table. How much more sacrifice can be expected of them?
When you really break it down into its most heartbreaking components it is the theft of schooling, of the right to care for one’s family, of basic tent of civilized conduct to walk into your home and see it as your castle.
In the most recent link in this blood-soaked chain, over 100 Syrians who just happened to live in the vicinity of the stronghold of the rebels in Douma who paid the price. This region is so close to Damascus that it can actually be called a suburb.
The attacks are so common and the fear of being blown up part of daily life and equated with buying vegetables that no one even pays attention to the air raid sirens. It is almost as if everyone has left it to fate, just zombies hoping that the after blast spares them.
We see statistics but we never see the pain and the anguish and the loss of life beyond the numbers.
As many as 7.7 million Syrians have been displaced and the number rises exponentially every day. Hundreds of thousands are refugees. The medical infrastructure has collapsed under the pressure. As many as 5 million simple people have been ripped apart as family units and sought the shelter of neighboring countries.
When will it stop? The question to ask then is when will it stop? Do we have a kill point that has to be reached before sanity is reintroduced into the equation?
The UN has to up the ante and do something to bring about a halt to the deaths. Mere rhetoric is not enough. According to a CNN report Antonio Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees, has called the mass exodus “the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation.”
This is not a record that anyone would wish to hold or try to break. It is a blot on our world and the times we live in.
At least let the disaster in Douma be seen as turning point where the world per se says enough.
There are already over 200,000 people who have paid the price, they lie in the sands forever, victims of a war that has become so old that no one notices it is still going on.