Bombs in Baghdad.
As I sat in the passenger seat of my brother's car yesterday, listening to a woman on NPR talk about the volatile living conditions in Baghdad, I thought about how many worlds apart our country is from that of those in the Middle East.
Car bombs go off daily. An unwelcomed visit of a much-hated foreigner can send thousands tearing through the battered streets, firing guns, shouting "death to ____!!", assailing anyone who displays resistance. Children, who could be running up to Iraqi soldiers asking for candy one day, may find themselves stiff and bleeding in a ditch the next--victims of a random detonation.
Imagine waking up to the blast of a car bomb or to the agonized cries of your mother as she clasps your brother's lifeless form--his death the result of unfortunate timing.
The conditions in Iraq and in other regions of the Middle East are so extreme. It seems every alley is a warzone, and every day is just one more day that you were able to live through. What goes on in the minds of these men, women, and children? What is it like to live in fear of living? What great will they must have to wake up everyday--to step out of bed everyday in rebellion to the cards that "fate" has tried repeatedly to deal them. And I'm sure many never reach their front door, but rather, sit back in the shadows that reign their homes, perhaps accustomed to only seeing the sky through a hole in the wall.
And I say, it's not fair, and you tell me, "C'est le vie", and I yell that this is bullshit, and you say, "Well, what you gonna do about it?" and I'll retract because I know that there is a scarce amount that I can do to change the world in the little window of time that is my life. (But that doesn't mean I won't try.)
And I will say again, that it is just not fair, and that I have just too much, and that I have so much privilege in comparison that I should be shot. And you'd have to agree.
How did we come to be so lucky in such a messed up world?
And must we succuumb to care only at arm's length, and will the only refugee faces we see be looking up at us from a t.v. screen? Or rather, down at the dirt, for that is the only position their dead, broken bodies will allow...