I still remember the feel of string cutting into my neck. I was so proud of that aching feeling; it meant the little orange box was full of money for what I understood to be a good cause. I understood myself to be making a difference. 

Years ago, I trick or treated with a UNICEF collection box that was meant to benefit kids in far-away places. I carefully took my haul of coins back to school on November 1 each year – after just as carefully hiding a haul of candy from my little brother. 

A week ago, I opened mail from UNICEF: they had catalogued a series of global horrors in a little booklet. This material had gone to print long before the attack on Israel, long before the gruesome response on Gaza. So, even as a new crisis dominated the news, here was a brochure to remind me of so many other challenges that are ongoing. In short: Send more coins. 

I’ve opened this computer multiple times to write…something. I’ve stared blankly. I’ve scrolled through others’ thoughts. I’ve picked up pens – and put them down again. I’ve worried; I’ve cried. Unlike 30-35 years ago, I do not understand myself to be making a difference. 

I’m reading accounts of increased attacks on Jewish people outside Israel; I’m also seeing photos of Jewish people gathered in New York and calling for a ceasefire to halt the killing of Palestinians. I’ve listened to stories of Muslims in Canada being threatened with rape and murder; I’ve seen reminders – over and over – that all Palestinians are not Hamas.

In the years since I carried that little orange box, everything has come to feel a lot more complicated. 

In those years, I’ve learned a lot about borders and who gets to set them. I’ve learned about sickening war “strategies”. I’ve learned about geopolitics, which is a fancy word for the ways that some people use other people as pawns. Most recently, I’ve been watching tutorials about how to notice when a photo is being repurposed from unrelated events, and how to tell when a video might have been made by artificial intelligence. 

When I carried that little orange box, I understood that killing people was wrong. Thankfully, I didn’t know much about rape, torture, hostage-taking, or the reasons someone might situate a secret tunnel under a hospital…but I would have been understandably shocked and upset by all these things.

Today, among many other resources and decisions, the coins are still be needed (and you can donate them digitally here) – and perhaps so is a child’s understanding of right and wrong. 

I said earlier that everything feels more complicated…and that feeling certainly appears as reality when I think of the people who have been condemned in the last three weeks for speaking seemingly-obvious things. Perhaps this post will have me join them, and yet I can’t help myself from listing my own series of seemingly-obvious, perhaps childlike, beliefs. 

So, here goes: Decades of occupation and limited human rights is wrong. Retaliating by invading peoples’ homes, killing families, and carting off hostages is shocking and horrific. Moving from that loss into one that wipes out entire communities, starves survivors, and leaves people without so much as a cell signal to call for help: pure devastation. And all of it is worsened by people outside the region threatening their neighbours, spitting, shouting, condemning each other. 

One thing I innately understood when I carried that little orange box: the more we hate on each other from outside the crisis, the closer we are to becoming the crisis. 

I no longer see myself as making a difference…but I sure as hell hope I’m not making things worse. 

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