I'm not here to talk about politics. Not right now at least. That subject is getting juicier by the minute but it will have to wait. There's been a rash I've needed to itch, festering into more of my reoccurring thoughts on a daily basis. I started this piece right after the Sarin gas attack in Syria a couple of months ago. I openly claim ignorance on the extremes of violence and oppression in that area of the world. I try to stay informed, I listen to NPR on my commute every weekday. I choose a few articles from the New York Times to read over each morning. I'm too cheap to actually pay for a subscription, so I'm cut-off at 5 per day- I have to choose wisely. I watch Stephen Colbert's and John Oliver's monologues before bed every night. It may not be the most well-rounded information possible, but regardless, I care about what's going on. I try, try to grasp the existence of conflict and anti-democracy outside of my white-privileged little bubble. With that out there, let us ascend to the point of all of this. We saw the footage: the wailing father carrying his limp child, the descriptions of the fog that engulfed the street, the immediate frothy coughing and chaos of people falling down dead. The horror of this entire scene, the massacre of anyone, any age, any potential, unlucky enough to be there that day. Per my usual habit, I read through the comment sections after each article, I brought it up with co-workers and friends, I watched news coverage on several different platforms.... there seemed to be one thing that was present on each level of discussion: God. Whether it was the overplayed mention of prayer for the victims and their families or the notion that they are now angels in Heaven (the Christian Heaven, of course, the only one that matters). In almost every corner of the discussion by Westerners, the Almighty deity had some role involved.
My beliefs are valuable to me, I am opinionated about them, but I have to hold myself back at times to not imitate the reason I detest overly zealous believers. I am Agnostic; what I have heard described as an Atheist without balls- not a bad summation. Nonetheless, I believe there is a glue holding us together somehow. I am open to many ideas; poltergeists, energy, aliens, even the Christian God, sure why not? The whole logic/science argument is absolutely the only conclusion I have deemed worthy, which so, may make me an atheist, but the point of my hard stance as an Agnostic is that I do not know the answer and accept that uncertainty. This plays into my straining eye roll when reading or hearing Western sentiments toward these sort of headlines, people who usher in their God for victims of humans at their very worst.
No matter what spiritual belief, can the question be laid out simply?: Perhaps a God that allows such horror, may not be worthy of faith or worship? After seeing and reading the dirty political motives behind said attack, God is the last thing that comes to my mind, unless, we are talking about a lack thereof. These moments in time, in history, make me ponder this supposed God's intentions with us, His little paper mache science project; claiming to love us, yet puppeteering us through plague, famine and war. We just accept this and continue to go about a practice of blind faith? Christians would follow this argument with a bullet list of: 'He has a plan'- 'He works in mysterious ways'- but how does killing and orphaning children weave it's way into something good? I am not using this as a soap box to denounce God's existence, but more so to question American Christian's utter naivete on the truth of human pain in places that have seen real violence- violence of biblical proportions.
Starting this piece, I knew I wanted to incorporate Christ. Throw in some dead Syrian children underneath His Holiness? Seems fitting. Then, as I continued to torture myself reading through the growing comment columns, my anger at these first world sentiments was getting out of control. How can anyone have the complete lack of empathy or self-awareness to bring God into the subject? If the same were to happen here, certainly, many religious Americans would be outraged upon hearing those in a wealthier, more developed nation were saying they'd pray to Allah for us. Hypothetical, yes, but I prod Christians to imagine it.
There came a moment as I was critiquing my method of the children's expressions; thinking: 'how to accurately draw the look of death on a child's face?'- the idea, that not only is my mind actually computing this but that it is a reality, started to gnaw at the non-cynical half of me. The two were one, the mass murder and the overwhelmingly accepted God that let it happen. Jesus Christ, the Savior, watching these small souls die in agony. There came a point that I had to put down the Bristol board for a few weeks. I binge watched Parts Unknown, planted some flowers and tried to extinguish those feelings of anger. Yesterday, I picked up my tablet again and opened to my sketch. I was trying to evaluate the technical details again when I felt that deep rage kick back in- but this time, I wanted to harness it, feel it seethe out onto this image. Perhaps more of my outraged emotions will show through more vibrantly after I have added ink and watercolor, but for now, I needed to discuss it. Call it surface level or trying-too-hard, but it is coming from a place of authenticity; that fire that rises up in me when I hear the God plug into such unimaginable pain and suffering. Typing those prayer messages into subjects of a massacre of this level, let alone of a Muslim based people, is nothing short of arrogant. Can't we all as humans provide a tender thought without assuming that this mythical ruler's grand plan for humankind is the message that needs to be heard? Can we step back for a moment and just agree that this was an injustice on mankind, by mankind. Perhaps God is listening to all of those prayers, perhaps those Syrian children are skipping around heavenly, oil-painted cloud tufts- but- when the next act of violence surely happens, instead of evaluating logically why our prayers weren't heard before, we'll just keep asking God for mercy post-mass-murder.