Neglected War.

TNobel Peace prize announced the winning of the Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to boost the he official site of the peace process in Colombia, after a 50 years of civil war. personally the one thing that I used to know about Colombia is that it is the home country of Gabriel Garcia Markaiz and Sofia Vergara, and I do not know how I dared to put them both in the same sentence " of course I like Sofia more" in fact I did not even know that there were an ongoing civil war in Colombia, I always thought the war there has ended long ago, with another dictator in rule, As usual! but as usual I was mistaken. Anyway, in website there was a questionnaire about whiter I think president Santos winning will effect the peace process in Colombia or not, my answer was No, not just because I firmly believe it would not make any difference, I mean 50 years of civil war and you want to give the credit of ending it to this prize that by the way Hitler was once nominated to in 1939 (if you do not believe me google it) nor because I have don't respect Mr. Santos, as I said before I did not even know the man. I answered with No over and over from different browsers -just like I did when I heard Donald Trump claiming that he won the first presidential debate and I had to vote in every electronic poll against him although I am not American but it seemed as a human obligation.

The reason I voted with no is because I was disappointed with the results, I wanted the white Helmets to win the award.

Who is the White Helmets?

The white Helmets are a group of nearly 3,000 civilian volunteer from all aspect of life some were teachers, housewives, carpenters, , etc. who took in their hands the task of rescuing people and minimizing the loss of life as a result of the escalating catastrophe in Syria. Their work includes warning and evacuation of the civilians, search and rescue in smoldering and destroyed rubble, providing emergency medical treatment, firefighting, and disposal of human corpses, along with other tasks to maintaining order in distressed areas.

They work in the opposition controlled areas because they are not allowed to work in the regime areas, in fact they are targeted by the regime's strikes for the hope and help they bring to people, especially in the besieged areas, in September 2015 alone four operations centers were damaged by airstrikes in one night in Aleppo. since 2013 more than 130 members were killed, and some lost members of their families and loved ones, but they continue the work that no one else is doing for the Syrian people. saving lives(more than 60,000 people were saved by them since 2013) which is something you can not claim for any of the other groups that claimed to work or fight for the sake of Syrian people.

Netflix documentary the White Helmets Wining the Noble peace prize was not to recognize the work of those heroes, the last thing they need is the world recognition, it aimed to highlight the need to impose a no fly zone over Syria that would prevent the continuation of air strikes against civilians. This cause was over and over repeated in the (let's hope the movie will make it to the Oscar for best documentary) that documented the work and life of group of the white helmets rescue workers in the city of Aleppo, and the story of saving Mahmoud the miracle child who was saved from under the rubble, and how the rescuers saw him as a gift that resurrects the hope in their souls.

According to the Announcements of the 2016 Nobel Prizes; the Norwegian Nobel Committee choose to give the prize to the Colombian president, because of his efforts to bring peace by initiating negotiation between the Colombian Government and the FARC guerrillas, his efforts did not pay off, anyway, as the Colombian people voted against the peace agreement the two parties have reached. Yet, the committee sought to give him the prize as a good gesture for the peace he tried to achieve, the same peace that became at real danger of coming to a halt and of flaring the civil war again (according to the prize website)

Now let me give a moment of truth, I did not feel bitter because the white helmets didn't win, I felt bitter because there was a civil war in Colombia that was going for 50 years, 220,000 killed, six million were displaced, and I didn't know about it. What if it was the Syrian war, what if after 50 years from now the war was still going and no one knew about it! The one differentiation will be that the war in Syria has been going for 5 years now and already the causalities outnumbered the Colombian 50 years of war with more than 400,000 died and 11 million displaced. 50 years from now are we going to be waiting someone to win the Noble Peace Prize to let the world realize that this war is still going?

#syria #war