My name is Haniya. I’m a teenage Muslim, a reader, a writer and a baker. I hope to complete my education and, God willing, go on to become one of the best writers the world has ever known. Through my work, I’d love to spread peace and happiness and put a smile on people’s face. I’d love to be the voice of the voiceless and that distant ray of hope for the hopeless. I’d love to make a difference.

There may be another girl like me, perhaps in a refugee camp in Syria or Palestine, one who may be a Rohingya, or one who may belong to the Uighurs of China. She too would perhaps have ambitions like mine. She too may want to become a writer one day, spreading peace and happiness and changing the world for the better.

But the trouble is, dear leaders, these dreams are mere aspirations for her. Whenever she looks ahead, it’s all black and dark and cold. Education is a dream unlikely to come true for her. Her biggest aim is to survive, survive all of the injustice she faces and stand tall, unbroken.

Why, I ask, does she have to go through all of this? What has she done to deserve this? Doesn’t the humanity that runs through your veins make you grieve, that you are the reason scores of people have to give up their aspirations, and instead learn to survive violence, bloodshed and the loss of loved ones? I always held you in high regard and thought that you were reasonable, intelligent and smart, but in recent years you have proved me wrong so many times. You go on declaring war on countries, sending in your military, bombing innocent children, hurting people and destroying lives never once thinking that these are people and children you are playing with. It’s their lives you are playing with.

And then after some bombing or shooting, when you say, “No major causalities, only three dead”, you are saying that three families have lost a loved one, that children have become orphaned or parents childless. It seems to me that you think of lives lost as mere numbers and of people suffering as those who are destined to suffer. You pretend that you are forced to do what you do. We all know, war and violence has never been the answer to anything; history proves that. Then why are you making the same mistake? Why are you wiping out civilizations, cultures and ethnicities?

I realize that hundreds of people have written about this; they have raised their voices against all of this injustice. I choose to join those voices because as a young girl, I cannot anticipate living in a future of misery and sorrow. As I see it, this is nothing but selfishness, acquisitiveness, greed and play for power. And I cannot contemplate living in a world where these are the morals practiced. I raise my voice on behalf of all those girls, boys and little children who are suffering, who upon looking ahead can only see darkness and no light. They deserve better, much better.

All of this, dear leaders, rests in your hands, all these lives. So do what you must.

Haniya Bint Nabil

International Indian School – Jubail