One Tweet Perfectly Sums Up Why We Need to Care About What’s Happening in Syria
Tech entrepreneur and designer David Galbraith from Geneva, Switzerland, tweeted out an iconic photograph of Steve Jobs and the caption: “A Syrian migrants’ child.”
His message: Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, was the son of a Syrian father who moved to the United States in the 1950s. According to the Chicago Tribune, Galbraith sent the tweet following the world outcry toward a photograph of a 3-year-old boy’s body washed ashore on a Turkish beach this week.
The young boy, his 5-year-old brother Aylan Kurdi, and mother were among 12 other Syrian refugees who drowned in an attempt to reach the Greek island of Kos by boat. The political upheaval in their home country has led to many families seeking asylum in other countries. Kurdi’s family had financially stable relatives in Canada who offered to provide for them, but they attempted to reach Europe after Canadian officials allegedly rejected their bid for legal entry. Canada’s Department of Citizenship and Immigration denied that assertion, but the relatives believe they were unable to help the family because the “bid was rejected by a system designed to fail.”
Galbraith’s tweet has since been retweeted over 3,300 times. In an email to Blue Sky, he wrote:
“I was prompted to post it after seeing the pictures of Aylan Kurdi. I could barely look as I have two beautiful young children of my own. It seemed to be that what the most precious thing in the world, a small child, was washed up on the sea shore like a discarded object of no value, when a child with a parent of the same nationality, given opportunity had created the largest company in the entire world. And here we are seeing an acrimonious debate, about stopping migrants.”
The tech entrepreneur is a partner at Anthemis Group, a digital financial services investment and consulting firm and the co-founder of MLS Ventures, an incubator that founded Yelp. Galbraith learned of the Apple founder’s ancestry from the authorized biography, “Steve Jobs.”
“Many fans of Steve Jobs, like myself, were aware of the story of both his biological and adoptive parents from Walter Isaacson’s biography, and I notice that Isaacson was one of the people that first shared the Tweet.”
“It contrasted that of Aylan Kurdi in every way and made me wonder what little boys like him could have achieved if they had been given the chance. In a medium restricted to 140 characters, a picture is worth more than 1,000 words.”
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