The Image We Deserve: On the Visual Philosophy of Survival

In an age when words are no longer believed, and maps no longer point to the earth, the image arrives as the final testimony. Not a testimony of war, but of life. Not a document of destruction, but a glimmer of resistance against annihilation.

Because in moments of great collapse, what remains of a person is their image—not their face, but the image they choose to present to the world. That image is not decoration, nor propaganda, but an acknowledgment of existence.

Syria has come to be seen through the lens of bombs, measured by scales of ruin. Every image published about it in recent years has resembled a mass funeral: smoke, rubble, stunned children, women weeping in silence. Honest images, yes—but images gathered from a single angle: the angle of killing.

And the question never asked: Who holds the right to choose the angle?
Who decides what is seen, and what is forgotten?

In our time, the image has become power.
Power that shapes consciousness, that redefines reality.
Whoever controls the image, controls memory.
And whoever controls memory, writes history.

But there is another kind of image.
Not the one taken after the explosion, but before it.
Not the one showing bodies, but hands reaching out to save.
Not the one emphasizing division, but one capturing meeting under the same sun, on the same land, sharing the same concern.

No people have collapsed as the Syrians have, yet no people have remained as aware of themselves as they have. Amidst fragmentation, a new consciousness has formed: that survival means not only escaping bombs, but insisting on a different vision of the world. A vision that refuses to be reduced to sect, stored in ethnicity,´-or-hijacked by a power claiming to represent.

And here arises a simple, yet revolutionary idea:
What if we chose one image to represent us?
Not a national image in the sense of a flag´-or-emblem, but a human one—embodying diversity as essence, not exception.
An image that does not hide difference, but reveals it as strength.
An image that does not deny pain, but refuses to make it the sole identity.

In this context, the image is not a visual luxury, but an ethical stance.
A stance of those who refuse to be reduced.
Who refuse to be mere victims, mere fighters, mere sectarian pawns in the games of the powerful.
A stance that says: We are here—not to evoke your pity, but to demand that you see us.

Regimes have long known how to rule through images: the president’s portrait over the square, the soldier’s image in the classroom, the enemy’s face on the screen.
But those living on the margins know that the image may be their last weapon.
A weapon that does not kill, but revives.
That does not divide, but unites.
That does not leave behind ruins, but grows flowers beneath them.

The image we are considering as the entry point to any discourse about Syria is not an idealized one.
Not one showing a forced celebration,´-or-faces assembled artificially.
But a real image, carefully chosen: a hand holding a hand, an eye meeting an eye, a silence carrying more than words ever could.
An image that says: We are different, yet we live together.
We disagree, yet we defend one another.
We grieve, yet we do not surrender.

It is an image of decentralized humanity.
A nation not in a palace, but in a glance.
Unity not in a slogan, but in action.
Homeland not in borders, but in a shared will to survive.

Someone might ask: What good is one image against the power of weapons, money, and diplomacy?
But history is not written by weapons alone.
It is written by memories.
By paintings.
By stories.
By images that are passed down.

One image, repeated, adopted, referenced, may become a symbol.
And one symbol, in an age of fragmentation, may become the seed of a nation.

The state that promised unity has died, because it built its unity on the denial of the other.
But the state that may rise from beneath the ashes will be built on mutual recognition.
And it will not begin with a constitution, but with an image.
An image that says: We are all here.
And no one has the right to erase us from the scene.

Therefore, let us choose the image we deserve.
Not the image that shows what we are now, but what we wish to become.
Not an image of the past, but a testament for the future.

In the end, a person is known not only by what they do, but by what they show.
And the land forgets neither those who cultivate it,
nor those who photograph it with love, not hatred.

The image, then, is not a luxury.
It is the last frontier of dignity.
And the first step toward return.

Rate the article
Bad	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Very good
Result : 100%							Participated in the vote : 1