The small sound of what seems like a siren starts. A teacher shouts out some orders and all the children in the room act as swiftly as they can to get under their desks and position themselves. The sound of the siren stops. “Too slow,” says the teacher shaking her head softly. Just a few miles away, a child at daycare is asked what he’s drawing. “It’s me,” replies the small boy, “I’m doing an honorable sacrifice.” On the paper, a small male figure is shown. He wears what looks like a belt with dangling spheres around his waist, his face is colored all dark, his hands colored all red and as if dripping with blood, and he stands in front of a building with a six-pointed star surrounded by other red-colored figures drawn lying around the main male figure.

Sirens wailing, bombs exploding, the stabbing of a teenage boy-this has become all too familiar and repetitive in the paper and on screen. Each time it is viewed it is overlooked more and more. People expect it because it’s been going on for years and nearly every day. However, does it ever cross people’s minds that while it’s no surprise to them and comes to them as a meaningless subject, the ones going through it suffer each time it happens just as much as the first time? How can they not take notice of the crying and gasping of the mother on the screen whose child or children have just been killed at school or on the streets by a bomb falling from the sky? Can we ignore the tears, clutched fists, and far-away, lost stare of the child whose father just left to make an “honorable sacrifice”? Or the fact that a small boy draws himself older and shows he’s prepared to kill innocent neighbors as a result from the hate that has been inserted into him towards those neighbors even though they, too, are innocent and suffering?

This is no longer about religion, but it seems more like an unconscious tradition now. And it’s not about who the good guy is and who the bad guy is, though we all have our opinions based on what we’ve seen. This is about brothers fighting a war that does not belong to them. It is about neighboring children who would love each other and play with each other all the same had it not been for the trauma, violence, and hate inflicted unto them. This is about people who are family, coming from the same father, and yet they kill each other just because they don’t want to follow the same rules, dress, customs, and other small things that seem not to be a problem for the rest of us. We have groups of friends and family whom all have different lifestyles, likes and dislikes, dress, habits, beliefs, and more but we still love and respect each other. So why can’t they?

It’s a complicated and controversial subject of which all people should think about and mind. It should not be something that just happens, or is the way it is because a suffering, traumatized child and a crying mother full of hurt should not be something we get used to and overlook. And maybe we can’t do anything about it and the biggest possibility is that we won’t convince them to stop and change their ways. However, we can stop judging and giving our opinions on who’s guilty and who’s the victim because the one who seems victimized might actually be the one stirring up the trouble and the one who seems like the fire starter might just be showing defense for themselves and their children. Either way there is anguish, affliction, and dolor on both sides. And then, after all, we realize that there is that small but hopeful possibility that we can do something about all this. Now it is just up to each individual to find their ways of how.