Tima Kurdi's "The Boy on the Beach"

Critical Reflection Book Review
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Critical Reflection Book Review
Introduction and Summary
“The Boy on the Beach” is a memoir by Tima Kurdi. The memoir is about Alan Kurdi, a young Syrian boy who became a global sensation in 2015 during the Syrian refugee crisis. Alan’s body washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea on September 2015. The news opened the world to the realities facing the Syrian refugees attempting to escape the war-torn country. While the world understood the harsh realities of the Syrian refugees through the photo, Tima did not need a photo to understand what was happening; her family was already living in the same reality.
In the book, Tima presents her idyllic childhood in Syria, where she grew up in a tight family. She studied to be a hairdresser and dreamed of experiencing the world. Marriage allowed Tima to immigrate to Canada while leaving much of her family in Damascus. Growing up in a close knight family made Tima always torn between the new home in Canada and the world she had left behind. Tima demonstrates her attempts to assist her family members in leaving Syria and moving to a safer country. She tries navigating the complex refugee resettlement system process and fails to get the right papers to allow her members to escape the war-torn country.
Eventually, Tima decides to send money to her brother to pay smugglers to get the family members across the Aegean Sea by boat. As the family is smuggled, an accident occurs where his brother’s wife and two sons drown. When the body of Alan is washed on the shore, the photo captures the world's attention. Tima ends the book by focusing on the aftermath of the story of her nephew’s death, especially the father's attempt to come to terms with the loss of his wife and children.
Author’s Thesis
Tima indents to cultivate awareness of the plight of Syrian refugees and rouse the international community to come up with sustainable solutions to the problem of refugees. The author starts by demonstrating the challenges that Syrians face in the wakeup of a war. Tima indicates that on the eve of Ramadan in July 2011, hundreds of individuals in her father’s birthplace died due to the fight between the rebels and the regime. The rebel groups move to the local mosque and called out all the men between the age of eighteen and forty to join them and fight the regime (Kurdi, 2018). The rebels expect the citizens to take up arms against each other. At the same time, the government expects citizens to fight against the rebels. Many civilians are caught in the crossfire of the intermittent battles. Because of the war, Tima demonstrates how life becomes challenging for civilians. Basic survival becomes challenging, which makes people vulnerable to joining the fight in the hope of receiving protection.
Despite the suffering of the Syrians, Tima demonstrates that the international community is unconcerned about their plight. The author narrates her gruesome experience with refugees. For instance, ISIS was responsible for the murder, mutilation, rape, and displacement of thousands of people in Kobani. Critical infrastructure was destroyed during the sieges, leaving many...