It’s very hard to believe that in a world run by the press and the media that a group of people can have a hard time sharing their voices. This, unfortunately, is the case of many Middle Eastern people. The amount of news this group of people gets is a lot—but the amount that is actually personal, that actually tells the stories of those suffering through the horrors of the Middle East, is nearly non-existent. Day in and day out we hear news reports on threats coming from terrorist groups, which country was hit by another air strike, how a religion may be to blame for all that is happening, and whether or not the United States is actually doing anything to stop all of this. This is the news we hear every single day.
Someone has to ask: in these times of terror and confusion, is hearing this news actually doing anything to harness hope for the people who are suffering from all that is happening? No. Coming from a family that is from one of the affected countries, Syria, it’s easy to say that seeing these reports on TV every day are not giving us hope. It’s only giving people like my grandparents despair for a country they know will never be the same again.
We don’t need this. We don’t need the constant playbacks of ruin and destruction. What we need are stories—stories of truth, and stories of hope. This is exactly what Brandon Stanton, photographer of Humans of New York, does.
If you haven’t heard of Humans of New York then either you’ve never been on social media before, or you live under a rock. For years the photographer has been taking pictures of people around the Big Apple, accompanied by a quote that tells a brief and often inspiring story that the subject of the photo gives in an interview with Stanton. More recently, however, Stanton has been traveling the world to listen and share the stories of more than just the people of New York.
He has traveled to Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and many other countries that are being affected by the ongoing violence in the Middle East. In these countries, his subjects are telling stories unlike any you’ve heard on the news. They’re telling stories of survival, family, friendship, loss, and love. They are telling the stories of humans, not of terrorists—not of the depressing destruction that takes over our televisions every day. These are the stories that give the Middle Eastern people hope, not the ones that are infecting every other media outlet.
One of the photos Stanton took while in the Middle East: "We just want to be together and not be afraid." (Erbil, Iraq)
Hearing these stories lets people that are being affected by what is going on know that they are not alone. It lets them know that others are suffering as well—that they are worrying for their families and want to find safety too. Not only that, but it lets them know that just because they are from the Middle East, that does not mean everyone thinks they are terrorists. There will always be the people that see a terrorist just because of the way someone dresses, but these photos bring out the people that don’t believe that—they bring out the people that say they want to help, the people that believe terrorism has no religion.
Humans of New York is an outlet that the people of the Middle East need more access too. It’s popular on almost all social media sites, but these stories that Stanton provides us with need to be more than that. They need to occupy television news stories and radio shows and they need to be more available to those who can’t speak English. That way, they too can see that they are not alone in their suffering and lamenting of their home countries.
For the people who are familiar with English, however, Humans of New York is a place of hope and sanctity. It is one of the few outlets that provide true stories of what is going on in the Middle East and how actual humans (not terrorists) are enduring the horrors of every day life there. To see that they are alive and telling these stories not only gives other Middle Eastern people around the world hope, but it gives them hope as well—hope that their stories are being told, and that people out there are listening.
