The image that heads the post, is being disseminated for a few months by social networks and media around the world, under a version accepted by the majority of users who share it. However, probably behind that Iraqi girl (supposedly) orphan who has drawn her mother (killed during the war) on the floor to lie on her lap, there is another purpose.
Bahareh Isfahan is the Iranian photographer who is behind the authorship of "I have a mother", and it seems that it has come to the step of the speculations that placed the small one in such different locations like Pakistan, Egypt and Syria. Somehow someone invented that the caretakers of the orphanage where she lived, found her asleep in a drawing that she had supposedly made herself. However, it was Bahareh (relative of the girl) who wanted to take the snapshot of a little girl exhausted from playing and lying (or sleeping) on the floor. As part of the creationIt was he who drew a 'mother' with chalk and then climbed the ladder to take the picture.
It is not uncommon that by serving the possibilities of the Internet, all kinds of false stories, rumors are generated, and even that there are those who take advantage of the work of others for their own benefit. I say the latter because Dozens of links are found that tell the false story with several modifications, but also some people have claimed responsibility for the image.
In what could be Bahareh's open letter, the artist also exposes his complaints about the misuse of the photo, a series of explanations related to the political and military interventions of the West in the Middle and Middle East, which I will not detail because they are not the object of this post.
What I come to say is that, obviously it is very sad that there are so many children who lose their parents during the war, and even sadder is the indifference of the rest of Humanity to the facts. But it does not seem very correct to move from indifference to easy tears, disseminating information that does not fit the origin of different facts.
What to believe then ?, I think you should try to go to the origin of an information, and I said try, because the goal is often diffuse or remains hidden. And then apply our criterion and common sense when analyzing the information we receive. For example, I wonder if it is true that the girl is asleep, since it does not seem so, but it is not very important either; and I say it because there is another image in the Bahareh he has drawn two other figures accompanying the little one, and he has a very deep sleep so as not to wake up with so much trajín, or he has voluntarily participated in the composition.
Notice that with this photographs of 'sleeping' children with mother drawn, confusion has been generating for a long time, without going any further three years ago, another child (this was really Iraqi) shook consciences; and yet there was also a different story behind the photos: a campaign by an Iraqi NGO giving a touch of attention to the consequences of the wars (in the year in which the occupation / war of Iraq ended).
