Thursday 9 July 2015

Road to Damascus


Watching the London commuters trudge home looking for transport reminds me of why I turned down any request to go in today.
Contrasting the disgruntled London commuters with the scenes which had proceeded the London story, one has to thank ones lucky stars that we live in a country which often feels peeved but has little to cry about.
The picture of Syrian families fleeing across the boarder into Turkey was truly heart breaking.
We have become used to the pictures of little African children sick and in many cases dying projected into our living rooms by the Charities asking for donations. Somehow we have become immured by these pictures, perhaps we even turn away because we feel impotent.
The sight of the long lines of dusty, exhausted Syrians shuffling along with few belongings clutching the most precious thing in their lives, their children, the concern and the anguish etched in these faces which have known only hardship. The mothers, fathers and the grandfathers and grandmothers with their little ones perched, like little birds on their shoulders bobbing around in a sea of humanity heading for who knows where or what.
The grim determination to keep going no matter how far they have walked to get here or how far they will still have to walk to reach a destination. But what sort of destination what sort of resolution of their fears. How do they counter, as all parents try to counter, the pain of hunger and dread in their children's eyes. The children trusting in their mother the mother loaded with that trust turned to guilt, yet knowing full well they are destitute with no solution. Only life itself has any meaning clinging to that they trudge past, faces etched with a mixture of fear, apprehension and grim determination.
The Londoners today have around them the cafe, the bus, the taxi, and the overground train service only the underground is out of reach for a day yet to hear some of them complain of their  "Road to Damascus" experience bears no comparison to those who are trudging down the actual road.

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