With the publication of the incredibly powerful photograph of Aylan Kurdi, the boy who drowned while fleeing the fighting in Syria, let’s hope the world pays attention to that awful war for more than one news cycle. Aylan has become the symbol of the current refugee crisis, the largest mass migration since World War II.
Yes, the image of Aylan Kurdi is iconic, but I hope the world remembers all the un-photographed people who have died before him— and that we are finally able to come together and help stop the war(s) that are creating refugees in the first place. I sure hope a certain poem on a plaque in New York isn’t just a tourist attraction now and nothing more.
Germany has stepped up and is planning to take in 800,000 refugees, I sure hope people in the United States can stop obsessing about ISIS for long enough to accept some desperate families into our country. (Just because ISIS is fighting the evil tyrant who is killing your neighbors doesn’t mean you are a terrorist by default.) Be sure to look beyond the tragic photo and dig deeper into some of the links behind the cartoon— and help out the heroes at Doctors Without Borders and other organizations that are trying to make the world a better place against tough odds.