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Aleppo, the UN, and the latest addition to my Netflix queue
A man in a construction helmet is shouting in the streets.
I want to ‘shhhh’ him. Not because he’s a loudmouth workman (yes, I’m looking at you construction workers of New York).
I want to ‘shhhh’ him because I’m scared his shouting will attract the attention of snipers or worse. But I can’t help him as I’m in a packed room at the United Nations and he’s in Aleppo.
And he’s on a show on Netflix. I was going to go home and watch Netflix anyways, so going to watch it at the UN, 13 subway stops closer, just seemed to make sense. That’s where the UK and the US Missions to the UN co-hosted a viewing of The White Helmets, the short documentary that depicts the hell that has engulfed Syria.
And the heroes hellbent on saving it.
The film starts with a man shouting in an empty street and you instantly feel anxious. Anxious about barrel bombs, gas attacks and so much more. When the scene eventually shifts from Syria to a training ground in Turkey, I could feel the room collectively exhale. The situation in Syria is almost too scary for reality. It’s something you read about online, not a place with real buildings and real people.
The shouting man is one of the White Helmets [aka Syria Civil Defence], a group of former tailors, blacksmiths, electronics salesmen, and other normal people who became Syria’s search and rescue squad. They are normal people, no different to you and I. And yet they work in a world where 400,000 people have died since war broke out in Syria. Thanks to the White Helmets, 50,000 people have been saved.
Of course, I had heard of them before tonight. I cover virtually every session of the Security Council where they’re often praised for bravery and courage. But seeing them up close gives you an entirely different perspective. I watched them talk about the relatives they’ve lost. I watched them struggle. I watched them refresh a casualties list of a hospital bombing like it was a football game… on a Samsung phone that looks so much like the one have in my pocket right now.
White Helmet 1: “Are these today’s victims from the hospital?”
White Helmet 2: “Updated 9 minutes ago.”
Seeing that opens your eyes in a way that UN meetings just can’t.
As I watched Mahmoud, the ‘miracle baby’, being pulled from the rubble of a building that had been demolished around him 16 hours before, I sat two seats down from ambassadors of the permanent five members of the Security Council. I was in the very front row. And I cried.
The suppressed sobs were echoes of the White Helmets’. They were all crying in the scene. For them they were tears of joy. An act of immense hope. The ever-optimistic White Helmets rally around this moment. They say “to save a life is to save all of humanity.” They view all children as if they are their own.
But for me, it wasn’t that. This one month old infant, along with the other bloodied survivors portrayed in the movie, they were the lucky ones. Those less fortunate were still waiting under the debris. They were still waiting for their heroes. And hundreds of thousands of times over the past half decade, not even the White Helmets could reach them.
One of those casualties was the man who rescued the miracle baby. The film was released before it happened, but I knew.
When we say “we have failed the people of Syria” at the UN, it’s not a catchphrase. It’s not a sound bite. It’s the truth.
But while high level UN figures are confined to the word “we”… I’m not. “We” haven’t issued four vetoes blocking meaningful, live saving action in Syria in the past five years. “We” are not dropping the bombs. “We” aren’t lying directly to the world.
Unless if by “we” they mean Russia.
One of the rescuers recalls the day they pulled Mahmoud from the ruins of his home. Do you know what he said?
“On that day our work was very hard.”
I thought about that as I struggled to write a tweet after the film had finished. I couldn’t find the right words. I couldn’t do them justice. I ended up saying “A powerful example that humanity still exists in Syria.”
I know that doesn’t cut it. Had I not just heard his words, I might have said that my work was hard that day. But the point is that we can’t do these heroes justice. At least not with words.
We can praise courage and bravery as much as we want. We can point out the unexpected humanity in the warzone. We can do it in the UN, in blogs like this, or in living rooms after watching a short documentary. And we should. They certainly deserve it.
But Ambassador Peter Wilson in his closing remarks at the film screening said what needs to be done. He said those of us in this room have a duty to spread the message, and “those of us who sit in the Security Council have a duty to do something about it.”
If we want to really honour the White Helmets, honour those heroes in the movie that have died, honour those who inevitably will, 15 people will have to agree in a chamber at the United Nations.
And in a way, 14 already have.
The road to peace in Syria doesn’t end in New York.
But it could start there.
