Can one picture say two stories? At first, it seems like there is only one way to interpret the picture of the body of a drowned three-year-old boy, lying washed up and lifeless on the beach. The viral image of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless little body on a Turkish beach shook the western world, even though more than 10,000 Syrian refugees had died before him. He initially became a symbol of the painful and horrific nightmare, which the Syrians undergo in reaching safer shores. Thousands of people in the developed world attended his candlelight vigil, as a tribute to him.
He also came to symbolise the sheer indifference of Europe in dealing with the crisis, who had closed their doors to the refugees. Adjectives like ‘collective failure’, ‘inhuman’, ‘heartbreaking’, ‘nightmare’ and ‘hope’ began to bandy about.
His picture became the face of a humanitarian movement as thirty people wearing red t-shirt and blue denim lay down on a beach in Morocco in a macabre recreation of Aylan Kurdi’s fate. And then there were these disquieting rumours about the whole photograph actually being staged and that the story put out by his father – apparently the sole survivor in his family when the boat they were travelling in capsized, simply doesn’t add up.
The protest in Morocco
In the face of such intense speculation and pressure, some countries relented and allowed a limited number of refugees to pass through. What so many dead refugees and alive people could not accomplish, was finally done by the picture of one drowned 3-year old boy, tiny in death. The symbol of hope, they now call it.
That is just the story that this picture shows to the rest of the world, where the ISIS is but a distant echo of a nightmare, happening in a faraway land. But do people living inside the ISIS occupied territories see the same symbol in this picture?
A new story accompanying the same photo of the drowned boy has emerged from these territories. ISIS has now begun to use the picture to further its own propaganda. The group used the photo in an article titled The Danger of Abandoning Darul-Islam, which preaches that voluntarily leaving the group’s claimed territory is a dangerous sin.
“Some Syrians and Libyans are willing to risk the lives and souls of those whom they are responsible to raise upon the Shari’ah — their children,” the article states. At one point it claims that journeying to lands outside of Islamic State control can reach the level of apostasy.
At first, when I read this news, I found myself gasping in outrage at their cleverness in turning this situation to their advantage. The next instant realisation – the perils of the existence of an outfit, which could stoop so low and leave nothing untouched.
Islamic State’s use of Kurdi in its propaganda, and its warning to potential refugees, is especially grotesque since the group’s actions are directly responsible for the conditions that drove his family from Syria.
The world may always see Aylan Kurdi’s photo as the catalyst that finally woke Europe to the refugee crisis. But the Syrians who live in terror will always remember that photo each time they contemplate escaping from the ISIS and running to Europe.
It just goes to show that one photo can be both a symbol of hope and terror. Seeing is believing, but a picture never tells the absolute truth. It only tells you what you are conditioned to believe.
Image Courtesy: Reuters
More on>> Balancing Act
