What are we supposed to DO?

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So, today, I see several posts about the horrors unfolding in Aleppo – and they are horrors indeed. One asks what we can do, another gives some practical suggestions re aid, and the the third tells us that we have done nothing, hence the horrors. It’s this one that gets to me – what exactly are you and I supposed to do to stop all future horrors? If I’ve personally neglected to do something that would have stopped the bombing of Aleppo, I’m sorry. I still don’t know what it is.

 The decision-makers

The people who make these decisions, the ones looking at stats and a map and thinking: “well, if we displace these 10 million people, it will weaken the region and strengthen us” are not reading your (or my) timeline. If they were, I’d bend all of my words to change their minds, but they aren’t. Do we imagine that one of their nephews or nieces are going to take a time-out from loading selfies off their diamond-encrusted IPhones to send their tyrant uncle a meme – at which point he will have a massive epiphany and reverse his decision to bomb civilians?

There is something

Of course, there are some things we could do, like voting in more capable leadership in all our own regions.
But in 2016 our criteria for leaders is very personal: do they agree with us on everything all the time, do they look like us, do they piss off our parents?
Not:
  • how will they behave if faced with an impending horror?
  • are they decisive?
  • do they understand and respect international law enough to protect the vulnerable?
  • do they understand basic cause and effect?
  • are they able to make hard choices that benefit their region far beyond their own political life-time?
Problem is, we’re the ones who choose them – do we understand enough about our world to choose wisely? If we do, then that’s how we end the horrors.

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