Its a Regular Friday Morning

It a regular Friday morning. I wake up late since I ended up working till 3 am last night. I can hear the monsoon rain pouring outside. The smell of rain on dry tropical soil reminds me that I am home. It gives me an instant comfort. But that feeling of safety, warmth and comfort doesn’t last long.

As I scroll down the news and slowly step into reality, a feeling of discomfort, anxiety, sadness and frustration starts kicking in.

I am currently visiting my parents in Sri Lanka. South Asia is now the epicenter of the COVID19 pandemic as the number of cases rise above unprecedented levels, hospitals running out of capacity and health systems in the brink of collapsing. I have always had faith in the public health system of my country. Last summer when the western hemisphere was struggling with the Pandemic, that is what gave me reassurance; knowing that, despite living in a developing country, my parents were in the safe hands of a world class public health system.

However, what is happening in South Asia right now makes it apparent that public health systems and experts can’t manage a pandemic alone. You need leadership. Leadership that values human lives over the economy. Leadership that listens to science and act on logic, not rhetoric. Leadership that can not only respond in the aftermath of a crisis but can prevent crises from happening. Leadership that is empathetic towards the plight of the people. Leadership that is open, transparent, and clearly communicates the breadth and depth of the crisis to the public.

This makes me think about how leadership has generally failed in many parts of the world in recent decades. Neither leaders at the national level nor leaders at the international level, have been able to find solutions to the very real issues faced by very real people in many parts of the world.

My thought process gets distracted as I scroll through a news about what’s happening in Palestine. The news app auto-plays a video on loop. It plays mobile footage from the Al-Aqsa mosque and footage of an explosion in Gaza city.

My mind runs to June 2019. When the US government cut its funding to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees), I visited Westbank and Gaza on a trip to raise funds to reopen schools for Palestine refugee children. I saw with my own eyes, the plight of Palestinian people. I think of children like Deema and Kareem who I met in their middle school in Gaza. Deema wanted to be a basketball player, and Kareem a doctor. I wonder if they are safe. I think of the “Gaza sky geeks”, a group of young Palestinians who set up a coding camp and a tech hub in the middle of a warzone. My heart skips a beat as I notice that the crumbling buildings on the video look incredibly similar to where they set up shop and trained other young people. I pray that they are safe.

I am in disbelief as to how we allow such human tragedy, suffering and injustice right Infront of our eyes. Again, failures of leadership at the national level, failures of leadership of the international community.

I scroll further down as angry blood flushes through my veins. I see another news on Myanmar. “Over 100 days of the military coup”. According to BBC, over 700 people have been killed since the military grabbed power in a coup on 1st February. Many young activists are still on the streets. They continue their struggle despite being killed, attacked, injured, sexually assaulted, or threatened. We have a culture that thinks, if one wears a uniform, thy are a hero. For me, real heroes are those 17–18 year olds on the streets in their ripped jeans, with backpacks full of first aid.

Growing up in a war affected country, I ve seen and I continue to see the glorification of military on almost a daily basis. Of course, one has to be grateful for service of a military that for safeguards a country’s sovereignty against threats, but what do we do when they start attacking and oppressing the same people they are supposed to protect?

I scroll further down as I get distracted by an email notification from my team. A group of young Colombians have reached out to my office for support as they continue to face violence and retaliation for their activism. Since I assumed my role in 2017, there have been multiple instances of violence towards young Colombian activists, from peacebuilders to environmental defenders. From university students to young artists. I ask my team to connect them with the UN human rights offices following the case and share tools and resources for protection with them. I also ask my communications team to ramp up our advocacy online and offline on Colombia that demand for the young activist’s rights to be protected.

As I click the “send” button of multiple emails bringing this to the attention of various people who can potentially act on this issue, my heart begins to sink. I feel helpless. My role is to represent the UN for the world’s youth. But in situations like these, the only tool I have is advocacy, lobbying and issuing statements. I struggle to draw the link between how the meetings in New York and a press release on the UN website would help these young activists from Palestine to Myanmar to Colombia.

I think of ways to prevent such tragedies in the future. I think of big ideas that could perhaps help transform this violence into peace, this injustice into justice, this arrogance into empathy.

I look for the root-causes that have caused this mess we are all in. Colonialism, Capitalism, Racism and Patriarchy are clearly the values that are driving the course of our world and shaping our leader’s actions today. This greed for wealth, land, property, fossil fuels; this notion that one nation, race, gender or ethnicity is superior to the other; this system that glorifies incompetent strongman leaders and dismisses sensible empathetic leaders will continue to dig our own grave if we do not act fast.

I make a mental list of what I need to do today. I feel ready to use whatever the power I have to get ourselves out of this mess.

I finally get the motivation to step out of bed as the smell of freshly made coconut roti sneaks into my room through the window panel. I check my privilege once again to have a roof above my head, food in my stomach, a job that can make a difference and a conscience that helps me choose the right from wrong.

It a regular Friday morning.