I wanted to write a post about this crazy world, and to try to figure out how on earth it is possible that Syria would be a declared candidate for the UN Human Rights body in 2013. I wanted to write about the mad irony of how this was discovered in the same week that the horrendous report about the torture chambers all over Syria was published, containing blood-chilling testimonials that normal people cannot even bear to read, not to mention bear to live through.
I wanted to write about the unbelievably brave Syrian women who go out to protest in the streets knowing that if they are captured by the authorities, they will be raped in jail by a bunch of sadist policemen as a manner of procedure.
I thought I would write about the madness of this extremely important international human rights body that was established for such a noble cause. A body which was supposed to look out for the less fortunate people of this world and help them out, because if it won't, no one else will. I wanted to write about how terribly sad it is that this Human Rights body has backed people like Gaddafi and might effectively back Assad, and how it's become a corrupt, fixed slate voting body, that aids murderous dictators instead of their victims.
I thought about assuming that this unexpected turn of events began as a beautiful gesture of the free world. The free countries wanted to embrace the non-free ones and influence them with their ideas, and therefore granted them voting rights and influence in this important issue, as well. I wanted to say how in the end it seems that what was actually achieved is exactly the opposite: the UN became a political, cold hearted greedy and power-driven entity. How sad it is that the non-free countries were the ones that shaped the personality of this Human Rights body, instead of the free ones. Because in the end -- whose ideas influenced who?
Then I started to wonder how it could be that after 10,000 Syrian people have been murdered in the past 16 months, and after thousands of children were tortured and starved, and tens of thousands fled their homes in fear for their lives, the only activists who are trying to change the situation are the ones in Syria itself. Why aren't people all over the free world protesting to their governments to put a stop to this year-and-a-half-long massacre, that still takes place simply because the courageous UN prefers to mumble cliches and slogans, and then look the other way? So I googled the term "pro-Syrian activists." I found 10 results. I tried "picketers" and found a few hundreds. I tried "protests," but only came up with items describing the life-endangering protests carried out by the Syrian civilians themselves.
This search brought my whole theory tumbling down, and I realized I couldn't really write what I'd meant to. It's easy to blame only the rot in the UN, but it seems to be deeper than that. It's the people of the free-world who don't care enough. Who won't go out in masses and protest to their governments to put a stop to this atrocity, in which human beings are being brutally murdered every day, while we go on with our normal lives.
So maybe in a terribly dark, scary way, the UN has not completely turned its back on its role. Maybe it does represent us and our priorities after all.