A remarkable humanitarian position deserves recognition from Lolwah Al-Khater, Qatar’s Minister of Education and Higher Education and a prominent Qatari diplomat and politician, whose statement on the International Day to Protect Education from Attack offered a powerful perspective that goes beyond politics and geography.
What makes her statement particularly striking is not only the scale of the figures and the painful realities she highlighted, but the profoundly human way in which she approached them.
She did not limit her message to one tragedy or one region. Instead, she drew attention to the suffering of students, teachers and academics in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Ukraine, Myanmar and other parts of the world where conflict has deprived children of one of their most fundamental rights: access to safe education.
Even more significant was her decision to place Qatar itself within this broader human context. She recalled the attack that targeted Qatar on September 9 last year, in a residential area surrounded by schools, emphasizing that the threat to education and the safety of children knows no borders. This is precisely what gives her words their particular significance.
For a government official to look beyond the boundaries of her own country and speak about the suffering of children elsewhere as a shared human concern is a form of leadership that goes beyond the traditional language of political statements.
A child in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen or anywhere else in the world is, above all, a child who deserves to learn in safety. A teacher working in a conflict zone deserves the same protection as any educator elsewhere. And denying children education today does not only steal their present; it risks creating deeper crises for societies tomorrow.
What is also commendable is that Al-Khater did not stop at condemnation. She called for governments and influential powers to take decisive action to protect the right of millions of children around the world to a safe place in which to learn.
Her statement therefore deserves to be read not merely as a political position, but as a deeply human message — one distinguished by its awareness, breadth and ability to think beyond borders.
A commendable position from Qatar’s Minister of Education and Higher Education.
Because true responsibility is not measured only by how we speak about the suffering of our own people, but also by our ability to recognize, feel and defend the rights of others.
TunisianMonitorNews ((By : Douha Essaafi)
