A 3-minute challenge to see whether you are alive

Just because you have a pulse and you inhale and exhale, doesn’t necessarily mean you are truly alive. Below is a simple test that will tell you whether your inner self is alive – the part of you that connects with the human race and the universe.

This is a 3-part test. In Part One, you will look at a chart for a few seconds – just long enough to understand its message.

In Part Two, you will read several paragraphs from Save the Children.

Part Three is the true measure of your aliveness, your humanity. You’ll find the instructions when you get there.

Ready?

Go.

Part One: check out this chart:

Once you understand the message on the chart, you may move on to Part Two.

Part Two: read these paragraphs from a brand-new Save the Children report:

Five months of violence, displacement, starvation and disease on top of nearly 17 years of a blockade have caused relentless mental harm to children in Gaza, Save the Children said today. Parents and caregivers told the child rights organization that children’s capacity to even imagine a future without war has virtually disappeared.

The emotional distress of dodging bombs and bullets, losing loved ones, being forced to flee through streets littered with debris and corpses, and waking up every morning not knowing if they will be able to eat has also left parents and caregivers increasingly unable to cope. The support, services and tools they need to care for their children are further and further out of reach.

Lack of food and clean water is also creating a catastrophic hunger crisis, with nearly every child in Gaza at risk of famine.

Even before 7 October, children in Gaza were living with exceptionally poor mental health due to cyclical escalations of violence, the impacts of the blockade including restrictions on freedom of movement and access to essential services, economic collapse, and separation from family and friends.

Jason Lee, Save the Children’s Country Director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said:

“It is unacceptable that any child should contend with the horrors that those in Gaza have lived through. While dodging bombs and bullets, fleeing through streets littered with debris and corpses, being forced to sleep in the open air and going without the basic food and clean water they need to survive, children in Gaza are going through a period of mass-scale shock and grief. 

“Children in Gaza were already living with unimaginable distress following 16 years of blockade and successive escalations in violence. This war and the physical and mental scars it is leaving on children is further eroding their resilience. 

“There is still hope that, with adequate support, this can be reversed. Throughout childhood, there are critical windows of opportunity to address the impact of conflict. But none of this is possible without an immediate, definitive ceasefire and safe, unfettered aid access so that humanitarians can provide the critical support needed.” 

Save the Children is calling for an immediate, definitive ceasefire to save and protect the lives of children in Gaza and effective implementation of the provisional measures from the ICJ, and has called on the Government of Israel to allow the unfettered flow of aid and the resumption of entry of commercial goods into Gaza to prevent children from dying of starvation and disease.

Once you have read through the above paragraphs and grasped their meaning, you are ready for the most difficult part of the test.

Part Three: a moment of sacrificial love:

Acknowledge to yourself that, politics aside, it is wrong for children to live like this. (If this is a bridge too far, consider learning more about the issue – recommended reading is below.)

If you really, truly do not want children to live like this, it is time to prove you are alive: take a moment to send a message to your Congress members, the President, and the Vice President. Links are below.

Tell them, “For the sake of the children, stop the genocide. Stop giving weapons to Israel. Time for ceasefire.”

Reach your Representative here 

Reach your Senator here.

Email President Biden and VP Harris here.

Did you do it? Congratulations, you are alive!

I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter. I write about the Palestine-Israel issue regularly, and other issues relevant to progressives or those considering becoming progressive. If you would like to comment on this post, please pop over to my Facebook page. All of my posts are there and open to constructive comment. I welcome your thoughts.

READ MORE ABOUT PALESTINE ON PATHEOS:

Posts about my Gazan family (in chronological order):