IN AWE WE watch little Anne endlessly chatter on and on about stories of fictions on her mind, giggling mindlessly with her playmates, preciously clinging onto her stuffed animal and deeming it her best friend. During the night, she dreams of a life, uncertain of the risks to come, only with the idea that she finds joy in imagining herself with the ambition she wishes to reach. But for reasons she could have never comprehended, she doesn’t live through it all.
In her last breath, it wasn’t the rubble all around her that she wishes to understand, nor was it the military men. Deep inside, there remained a devastating and desperate plea to see the life she once had, longing for the comfort from her friend-stuffed toy, the presence of her playmates, and the quiet assurance her parents gave – the innocence of hope that would meet no salvation. This is what we let happen when state conflicts arise. An innocent life reduced to a number, statistical data, and mere casualty. R.I.P. Emily Dickinson, just like you, we can only hope they at least live through the words they leave behind.
The Diary of Anne Frank is among the few stories left behind that humanized those who were victims of state-inflicted cataclysm, for it was not written for the intention of educating those who may stumble upon it, nor was it written to make people understand the realities she lived through. It was a diary of a 13-year-old girl, wanting to express and feel through the words she had, in pages of a dainty diary all the other girls her age would own. Its publication may have the intentions of those aforementioned, but at its core, it is a diary that helped a girl navigate through life during a time of chaos and uncertainty.
”In her last breath, it wasn’t the rubble all around her that she wishes to understand, nor was it the military men. Deep inside, there remained a devastating and desperate plea to see the life she once had, longing for the comfort from her friend-stuffed toy, the presence of her playmates, and the quiet assurance her parents gave – the innocence of hope that would meet no salvation. This is what we let happen when state conflicts arise. An innocent life reduced to a number, statistical data, and mere casualty”
And in this age, as I read a fellow writer describe it, there are sadly millions of Anne Franks’ in the world. Those without diaries, but oddly the whole world stands as witnesses to their lives, or what little of it they have left before tragedies are unleashed upon them rooted in territorial or political disputes. In times when we think the wars and genocide have quieted down, it poses as a mere break for the privileged in witnessing the upsetting. When chaos falls silent during warfare, brutality does not just disappear – they move into secluded locations, and God knows how much dignity they steal from their “casualties”.
To us, they’re mere stories to tell. Too often we forget that the tragedies we come to know about from the comfort of our homes, through our small screens, are lived experiences of little girls and boys, who once got excited over the sight of their favorite colors, had nights thinking about the play-pretends they long to have the next day, who once dared to dream and hope everything goes back in the state of peace they once knew.
Yet, we can never fully confront these realities, for they are unsettling and devastating. More easily we can tolerate the stories of the past, such as Anne Frank’s, for they no longer walk on the same world as us. But how long will we let these stories exist among us? How long will we let worldly conflicts be the reason why too many children die, unable to live through their childhoods, unable to be truly just children?
As future leaders, we talk of the peace we cannot promise as means of furthering our cause and advocacies, we study laws meant to prevent or at least contain the violence during state conflicts yet we have to ask, why must we even let mere disagreements unfold into catastrophes that too often take away the innocence that never willed to take part in it?
This International Women’s Month, while we rightfully celebrate our gradual claim as women to the rights and safety owed to us, we must take into our hearts those who may never see and reap those that they suffered for. In the state of her today, we remember and dearly hold the lives of the children, mourned by the mothers of Palestine, Congo, Ukraine, Nigeria, and sadly many more. We remember the women whose partners and sons were taken away during the drug wars in the country, as well as the children they left behind and taken too soon. And oh, you little Anne I could only hope that the afterlife imparts a kinder life than the fate you suffered here.