Syria

Earlier this year, someone close to me who lives in Saudi Arabia told me something quite scary and somewhat unimaginable to me - one of the guys from his circle of friends, Ahmed (I changed his name) had disappeared and was not heard from at all. He had been gone for almost a month at that time. A few months later, they heard that Ahmed was seen in Turkey, had sold the family car he took and was presumably about to use the cash to get himself across the border to Syria. They feared the worst, thinking he had joined ISIS but were hopeful he would come to his senses and then come home safe. A few months after that, they found out that he did manage to get into Syria but was not involved in crackpot delusional ISIS but had joined the rebels to fight against the Syrian regime, against Bashar Al Assad. A few weeks ago, that someone close to me came back to KL. We had a fun week that was spent watching movies, eating a lot of food and just generally caught up on the time spent apart doing things that normal young adults do. Days before he was supposed to return home, he got news from home telling him that his friend Ahmed had been killed while fighting against this demon regime.

When he told me about what had happened to Ahmed, I was stunned and did not know how to react at all. This was foreign territory to me - how do you respond when you hear that someone close to someone you care about has not just died, but killed while fighting? Do you say sorry? Doesn't that sound a bit weak though? So do you reach out for a reassuring hug? What? I just stayed silent.

After a while, we were back to normal and continued our usual activities without a mention of Ahmed. But occasionally he would say things like, "I was really looking forward to him coming back home" and "I bet he must have kicked ass while he was out there", again throwing me into those unknown waters, not knowing how to react and hoping he'd go back to normal.  

Fast forward to the present, about 2 weeks after hearing about Ahmed. My friend has gone back to KSA, I'm here at home in KL. It's almost midnight, I am sitting on my living room floor with the TV playing in the background. I had a good dinner a few hours ago but my stomach has just started rumbling again and I was looking through the stories of my friends on Snapchat with my 64gb iPhone that my dad bought for me a month ago. I looked at my friends Stories and thought, "Ugh they're at a mamak shop having supper and they didn't invite me?". Then I watched Masterchef on the 30 or 40something inch TV we have in the living room in HD which only further reminded me of my rumbling tummy. I then head into the kitchen and get myself a giant bowl of cereal. I walk to the living room again and plonk myself back down onto my comfortable couch with an ample selection of big fluffy cushions. I grab my laptop and start scrolling through Twitter. I've got Star World playing in the background and the program has switched from Masterchef to Candidly Nicole. Nicole Richie has now apparently picked up online dating to help her friend find a partner. Nicole insists on tweaking her friends profile on the dating site because apparently "you won't get a man just by being completely yourself", to which her friend just replies with a stony stare. I think that is supposed to compute as funny in the viewers head.

At this point, I'm only half listening to Nicole's opinions because I found a link on Twitter depicting a timeline of the Syrian crisis that has just massively blown up since the pictures of the toddler washed up on a beach has spread across the internet. I click on it. It's a series of tweets by a Syrian activist who has been documenting the crisis from the 2011. Then I find another link to a YouTube video. It was a group of men who had found the body of another activist who had been killed. His larynx had been ripped out, the men around him were saying words like "Shaheed (martyr)" and "Allahu-akbar (God is great)", at which I realized I had tears in my eyes and I felt a little nauseous.

I look up at the TV and see that Candidly Nicole now has a bunch of frat boys who are playing that weird beer game where they do a handstand over a barrel while trying to chug down lots of beer until someone throws up. Everything in that show seems to deliberately show how wonderful it is to be American and rich. All the colors are so vivid and bright. Why is her garden so green? Why is that red bucket so brightly crimson? How is their sky so incredibly blue? I look around my house - at my comfortable couch with my ample selection of big fluffy cushions, my HD tv, my iPhone, this laptop I am staring at. I think about my mother sleeping soundly in her bed, safe in the knowledge that she is there and is alright and will wake up tomorrow safe in that same bed.

Then my thoughts switch back to Ahmed, who is my age and has been killed in a fight and to the dead activist who had his larynx ripped out and then I realized why I teared up. This issue is so real and is happening right this moment, as I type these words out. As I am sitting here in physical comfort on my couch, there is someone out there who is just like me and going through what seems like hell to me. No six degrees of separation between me and this crisis, even though it is happening half way across the globe. No distance or buffer anymore, no feeling of "it's just something on the news". This has affected someone that I know and care about which has subsequently affected me. Yet, here I am like many lucky others in this world, in my comfortable home with the world still safe for me. I am enjoying these privileges merely because I am allowed to. Because I am lucky. Because God has granted me this blessing of a roof over my head.

Why me? I don't know why. Why not them too? I don't know either. Allahu-akbar.

What do I do now? I remember that this life isn't about finding the perfect partner through online dating. The grass isn't always that TV green, sky isn't so bright hyper blue, that bucket isn't that red in real life. There are other things happening in real life that are terrible and unimaginable and cruel. You're just a little speck of life in this life of millions but someOne has chosen to bless you with this life of joy and comfort and stability. Some people like Ahmed may choose to leave all that and try to make a difference. But you are you on the other side of the world and all you can do is watch everything around you happen. You may wonder why such bad things happen and you may never find an answer to that. But you will always remember that you are one of the lucky ones and maybe you can do your part in just remembering that and being thankful. Being thankful means you are aware. Being aware means that maybe one day, you'll be able to take part in doing something about it.