For the sake of children
Shaadaab S. Bakht
Shaadaab S. Bakht, who worked for famous Indian dailies The Telegraph, The Pioneer, The Sentinel and wrote political commentaries for Tehelka.com, is Gulf Today’s Executive Editor.
- 25 Jul 2024
Only a demon will ignore their (below photo) right to live, right to grow, right to enjoy the fruits that life offers, right to become the insatiable love of their parents and right to become the only reason for their mum and dad to stand up to the vagaries of existence.
The attackers in conflict zones are killing children and calling it war. The coffining of innocence can never be described as war. Wars are waged either to seek justice or decimate evil or fix some ba….d of a threat to universal harmony, which can safely be defined as the fulcrum of indispensable material progress.
Some never return home
A total of 468 million children globally are living with the effects of war, according to one research. That’s more than one in six children on the planet living in a conflict zone – that is anywhere within a 50-kilometre radius of armed violence.
“Often forced to flee their homes in search of safety, many remain displaced for extended periods of time, or never return home. Some are orphaned or separated from parents and caregivers.”
Tens of thousands of children have just started life. Instead of helping them prosper people are leaving them to the mercy of bullets of paid personnel, who are told every day that the beating heart of international dignity is territorial expansion. But they are never told that the first first fallout of that belief is body bags.
Well, that doesn’t really matter to their bosses as long as the shroud covers people they don’t love. Some people are setting up special panels to manage wars, which means managing more deaths.
Granted, the bombs aren’t aimed at the children, but the bombs, unlike the bombers, don’t have eyes.
If nothing, at least for the sake of children the wars should be brought to an end. Adult desires shouldn’t be fulfilled at the expense of children.
One couldn’t agree more with Pope Francis who said that he hoped the Paris Olympics would be an occasion for truces in the world’s conflicts, urging athletes to be messengers of peace and models for young people.
He mentioned the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar and other countries, saying “let us not forget war is a defeat.”
