As Another School Year Begins, Whose Children Do We Remember?

Summer passed. People traveled, went into nature, spent time with family, laughed, rested, and enjoyed life—and that is a good thing. Now school has started again, and children are walking back into classrooms with backpacks, excitement, and plans for another year.

But for many families, there is no return to normal.

Since the war in Iran began earlier this year, civilians have been killed, injured, displaced, and traumatized. Sometimes their stories reach us. Sometimes they barely break through the noise.

I still think about the girls’ elementary school in Minab, where more than 100 children were killed. They were children. Students. We call children “angels,” and then somehow their deaths become another statistic of war.

I will continue doing whatever is within my power—peacefully—to advocate, speak, question, educate, build bridges, and push back against the idea that one innocent life should matter more than another.

And now another story.

On September 1, a wedding celebration in southern Iran was struck. Families, women, and children were gathered there to celebrate a beginning. Instead, civilians were killed and dozens were injured.

A wedding.

Children.

Families.

Read those words again.

And yet stories like these can pass through the news cycle astonishingly quickly.

We have watched versions of this same human tragedy in Gaza, Sudan, Iran, and far too many other places. Different governments. Different conflicts. Different explanations. But ordinary people keep paying the price.

What a nasty world we are living in. Seriously, nasty.

What happens to us when war can be discussed in the language of “peace,” while dead civilians become “collateral damage”?

We are rightly taught: Never forget. We remember our national wounds. We remember the mornings when ordinary people left home and never returned. We remember atrocities and tragedies because remembering human suffering matters.

But “never forget” cannot be selective.

If we genuinely want a more peaceful world, remembrance must extend beyond nationality, religion, ethnicity, politics, and borders. A child should not have to belong to our country, our community, or our side for us to recognize the value of that child’s life.

And yes, I understand emotional exhaustion. Ordinary people become tired of war, death, images of suffering, and terrible news. Sometimes putting our heads in the sand feels like the only way to continue with our own lives.

I feel that exhaustion too.

But I keep coming back to something very simple:

Killing civilians is not peace.

Ignoring their deaths does not make their lives matter less.

And silence should never determine whose suffering the world is willing to see.

Politician, educator, community leader, friend—whoever we are—saying that we care about humanity and peace means very little unless, within whatever small sphere of influence we have, we are willing to protect those principles consistently.

So if you see me and ask, “How are you?”—this is part of my answer.

I am sad. I am tired. I am angry at how easily human suffering becomes normalized.

And while I sometimes want to put my own head in the sand too, I will continue doing whatever is within my power—peacefully—to advocate, speak, question, educate, build bridges, and push back against the idea that one innocent life should matter more than another.

No hatred. No revenge. No selective humanity.

Just the stubborn belief that peace has to mean something more than a word.s.