The Lens We Refuse to Hold

We live in a world that often feels like sitting in a 3D cinema. The screen is dazzling, the lights are overwhelming, and the sound drowns out the whispers of truth. The spectacle is so grand, it distracts us from the still figure blurred in the background.

But if you lift a lens, you begin to see what the noise tried to hide: a child standing amidst rubble. A child who once carried a bookmark that read, “Live Love Read.” A child who should have grown up believing “A good book is like a good friend.” A child who should have known that “Reading is awesome.”

Now, in Palestine, those children’s classrooms have been turned into ashes. Their crayons snapped, their laughter silenced, their futures stolen.

This is not simply a “conflict.” It is genocide — documented by doctors, journalists, and human rights organizations, even as much of the world debates in the language of public relations.

History has shown us before: silence in the face of atrocity is never neutral — it sides with the oppressor. The Holocaust, Bosnia, Rwanda — all teach us that looking away does not absolve us; it condemns us.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt warned of the banality of evil — horrors become possible not only because of the wicked but because of the ordinary who refuse to see. And Elie Wiesel reminded us: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”

Empathy does not require a political title. It does not demand strategy or power. You only have to be human.

And so, even if my words here bring no benefit, even if no one listens, even if I am reduced to a label — I write. Because to remain silent would be to place myself among those who chose not to see.

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Place your hand on your heart and tell (me).

Will history forgive us for turning a blind eye to the genocide in Palestine?

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Sometimes writing on Steemit feels like shouting into the wind. Who will read? Who will care? People already have their own perceptions, their fixed positions. Some will label me — “Oh, she is a Muslim, so of course she is siding with Muslims.” True. But words are more than air. Words are archives.

On Steemit, our words are sealed in iron on the blockchain

I am not writing this to win an argument, or to be placed neatly into anyone’s box. I am writing because I had to. Because silence is heavier than words.

Perhaps my writing won’t stop a bomb, but it may stop a heart from hardening. And that too is resistance.

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_{The images I chose tell what words cannot; take a closer look!}