Winter has descended with its crisp, dark mornings and cooler temperatures. This time of year is when I feel most called to take things slower, following nature's example by resting to rejuvenate for next season's beginnings. Wherever this newsletter finds you today, I send you all my warmest well wishes for a slow season filled with your favorite things.
I have been purposefully quiet and unable to write The People’s Pediatrician for the last few months. Since my last newsletter, I have been emotionally afloat the waves of indescribable feelings considering the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza. My personal nature is to go insular when events outside of my control and comprehension overtake my heart and mind, spending time trying to ascertain which is the best direction to head towards. That is where I have been philosophically these last weeks since October 7th, but I write this to you from the protection of my fully upright and intact home, with running water and electricity, a fridge full of food and my children safely asleep in the warmth of their beds. I know I have had the benefit and privilege of safety to consider my words carefully. I have started and stopped writing many versions of this newsletter, fully aware that if I do not write about this in some capacity, that I will never address another equity topic genuinely on this platform again.
By this point, we have all had extreme exposure to this topic and I ask that you read this newsletter with compassion and with clarity of my good intentions—if this is too much to request at this time, please meet me here next month.
I am not here today to discuss who is right and who is wrong in this geopolitical conflict—alternatively, I thoroughly disagree with the rigid, uncompromising, uncompassionate binary set up in this conflict by some folks demanding that we must align ourselves with one “side” or risk being considered either Islamophobic or antisemitic. I am not here to discuss which children are worthy of living into old age, of seeing their beloved parents again, of getting to experience childhood safely and lovingly. In fact, I hope that if you have been reading this newsletter for any amount of time, you know that as a mother and as a pediatrician, this is a nonsensical argument impossible for me to seriously address.
Instead, I am pondering another deep set of questions that has crossed my mind repeatedly over the last few months:
What is the responsibility of our major institutions in society, like Medicine, to speak out and against the human right injustices that we see around us? What about the responsibility of the individual physician, who has been granted the tools to decrease suffering, treat, and heal humans of countless diseases and ailments? Does it matter whether these injustices happen in our backyard or across an ocean in a land we have never set foot upon?
These questions I am posing are not just isolated to the horrific genocide in Gaza or the violent taking of hostages in Israel, but also the incredible destabilization, displacement, and carnage in Sudan, Congo and Haiti. It refers also to Black Lives Matter and the potential impending US revocation of asylum seekers from all over the globe, escaping situations of violence and extreme poverty. As I write this to you, I struggle with great uncertainty as to whether I personally have done enough to speak out about these human right violations and made my stance clear: Protecting children from the life-altering harms that come from decisions adults make around them should be a basic, minimum standard for human rights everywhere on this planet. When we fail to shelter them from these horrors of war and political unrest, they become human collateral despite having no say in where, when and to whom they were born. Because I believe in this premise so strongly, I have wondered incessantly these last few months—-could I have spoken more boldly and loudly, posted furiously to social media, protested defiantly in the streets, called my representatives or donated more to ease my own discomfort in the images I have witnessed?
This month, dear readers, I cannot provide a personal, full circle story that tidily addresses the topic of the newsletter. But after much contemplation, what is most important to me is for all our readers to know that my heart has been heavy with emotion these last few months for all of these reasons. I present myself here as an expert that has something valuable to share and teach on this platform, but I am also on my own personal odyssey to evolve into a better version of myself, as a human being and physician, by asking myself painful questions, ruminating the full scope of my answer and evaluating what I can do as one person.
I know that for some of us, our personal proximity to these issues have made these weeks even more unbearable, and I stand right beside you. What helps me most in times like these of great uncertainty is to lean into the sharing of our collective humanity and express love deeply to those around me. So, if you also have felt great pain, I hope you recognize that this signals your humanism and compassion, both attributes that are of tremendous benefit and worth in communities everywhere. To express our deep-felt feelings in witnessing these injustices and to break a silence that messages complacency----this is true bravery and love in action. This month, I share with you these thoughts as a small token of recognition and deep respect to the pain, suffering and incredible resilience of ALL our fellow humans, however close or far away they may be.
I have included a few items below that have brought me a moment of respite and solace from my troubled thoughts recently.
May you all have a peaceful and safe holiday season.
Amna
