Last week, social media was saturated with stories and pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s tiny body washed ashore on a Turkish beach after he and his family’s attempt to sail from Turkey to the Greek island of Kos.
News agencies that chose to run the photo of the child lying face down in the surf received backlash on social media. Some commentators said if the child were Canadian the news agencies wouldn’t have run the photo, evidence of the tendency to dehumanize those with refugees status.
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There were also critiques of the “social media activists” who shared the image because they were fooling themselves by thinking they are actually helping the situation from the comfort of their keyboards.
The image brought to the forefront Canada’s dealing with the Syrian refugee crisis. Some of my social media connections are not shy about their opposition to allowing almost any foreigners into the country to “steal our jobs and deplete our health-care systems,” but even they had to feel remorse for young Alan Kurdi, his brother and mother.
Canada is one of the world’s wealthiest countries and few people will argue there was nothing more we could have done to support Syrian refugees over the past five years.
The already iconic picture has catapulted Canada’s system for handling refugees into an election issue.
Have Canadian values been represented by the Conservative policy during the past decade of tightening Canada’s asylum system and ignoring the appeals from organizations that help refugees?
Should Canada accept more refugees than it already does?
Sharing images and stories on social media about the death of Alan Kurdi will not immediately affect the lives of the people struggling to leave Syria. There are significant limitations to “social media activism.”
But over the past few days, I’ve witnessed some great discussion about Canada’s immigration policy by friends and family online, which wouldn’t have occurred without the terrible images of Alan Kurdi.
The use of the images by media organizations has helped prompt an overdue discussion about Canada’s responsibility to the world, as a country that has the wealth and power to help these refugees in a meaningful way.
