The Unwritten Realities Behind a School Photo

The picture above from The Dallas Morning News carries with it many poignant subtexts on the role of education in the face of terrorism, particularly in light of recent Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in Paris, and the less-reported ones in Beirut only a day earlier. The photograph shows Lebanese school children quietly drawing the flags of France and Lebanon as a demonstration of solidarity against such horrific acts of violence. However, so many stories are behind this photograph, which cut straight to the heart of a tragedy enveloping our world.

The most obvious of these stories, is the fact that the terrorist attacks in Beirut were largely under-reported in the Western media as compared to those that happened in Paris. It is suggested that this is because victims in Paris are of a more newsworthy skin color than those in Lebanon. I would also argue that a major difference is the western perception (read: delusion) that, whereas terrorism disrupts the relative calm of Parisian café-goers, terrorism in a Middle East country like Lebanon is more frequent than the cup a coffee itself. In reality, one activity is more frequent in Paris and Beirut than people sitting in cafés or blowing up bombs: that is, children going to school. What does it say that children in a Middle East country have the humanity to draw French flags on Monday, while media in the West barely reports on a tragedy in those same children’s capital five days earlier? The picture above demonstrates the lengths to which Western education, and media, fall so far short in fostering empathy about the rest of the world.

The civil war in Syria is also greatly informing the above picture. Lebanon is host to over 1 million Syrian refugees, who are fleeing a conflict that produced ISIS, only to have the violence follow them into their places of asylum. While it is apparent that people flee conflict to avoid violence, they also flee because of losing access to basic resources. Surprisingly, what refugees often ask for first, in many cases more than food and shelter, is school, a return to normalcy for their children. As one woman expressed in this article from Middle East Eye: “We just want peace, the minimum a human being can ask for, so our children can grow up and go to school normally.” The above picture is a demonstration of children advocating for this peace by reaching across the same national boundaries where their bodies are often unwelcome.

The third story behind the picture is the schooling alternatives that are not seen. Education in conflict affected areas can just as easily be used as a tool for reproducing violence and animosity as it can be a source of peace. One Lebanese woman speaking to a New York Magazine reporter pointed to a school and shared that Hezbollah “take[s] most of the boys who graduate from there straight to fight in Syria.” On the other side, ISIS also has schools, often where refugees once lived. Of course students in these schools do not draw Lebanese or French flags. Instead, as The Daily Beast reports, their newly distributed textbooks show images of children dressed as soldiers, carrying machine guns.

There are also schools in the US. However, 26 governors, representing over half of the US landmass, have responded to this recent violence by announcing that they will not accept Syrian refugees settling in their states. If Islamaphobia is so prevalent in these governors’ politics, how far could it be from the school agenda’s they set? While children, possibly refugees, in Lebanon draw French flags as a statement of profound interconnectedness, leaders in the US shut them out. In the hopes that they will go where? ISIS schools? The above picture also tells of the progress and empathy that is carried by today’s children, but lost on their leaders. And, perhaps most unsettlingly, it forebodes a future that has no place for these young minds to flourish.

Sources

• http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20151116-in-paris-and-beirut-isis-attacks-an-empathy-double-standard.ece
• http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/12/beirut-bombings-kill-at-least-20-lebanon
• http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/culturebox/2015/11/the_media_covered_the_paris_attacks_more_than_the_beirut_bombing_the_problem.html
• http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/country.php?id=122
• http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/beirut-between-resilience-and-desperation-aftermath-deadly-attacks-1429923170
• http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/lebanon-isis-problem-is-out-of-control.html#
• http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/29/back-to-school-in-mosul-the-isis-curriculum.html
• http://www.vox.com/2015/11/16/9746456/map-syrian-refugees-governors