Conversations with Oday
When I met Oday, he asked me why I didn’t share more photos of Gaza. I hated telling him that I couldn’t because I would hear, “I am sick of seeing photos of…., it doesn’t concern us, I don’t have the head space right now for…”
If I had any chance of helping Oday and his family, it needed to be a whisper rather than a scream. I focus on sharing his story because I hope people can see themselves in him and his. Knowing what the people of Palestine have faced for so long; it was difficult to tell him that I had to tread carefully so I didn’t offend people.
This current world reminds me of a story called, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K LeGuin. Omelas is an imaginary world that is perfect in every way and contains every delight known to mankind. At around the age of 12, it is revealed to the citizens of Omelas that this perfection relies on the abominable misery of a child kept in a dungeon.
When people are told, and then see the child, they are outraged, shocked, appalled, sickened and nauseated. They say under no circumstances, but eventually they accept it. After all, it is just one child, it is an imbecile, too animalistic to know any joy anyway. Most end up accepting that their suffering is reliant on the misery of one child.
Yet a few, some of them young, some of them old, a few of them cannot accept that their happiness is reliant on the misery of that child. They leave Omelas never to be seen again. The story ends with this, “They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”
In this story humanity is a choice, just like in our world.
When did humanity become a choice?
There are many ways you can help Oday:
The best way is to donate directly to his GoFundMe Account:
I also sell cards in store and cards and a small poetry eBook online.
Thank you,
xxxLara
Beauty, hope, joy, & inspiration
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