#10YearChallenge: Hashtag used to highlight war and suffering

Editor | January 17, 2019 | Middle East | No Comments

The #10YearChallenge and #GlowUpChallenge have gone viral on social media this week.

Millions of social media users shared current photos next to what they looked like a decade ago.

While most of the craze has been for fun, thousands of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram users have seized the opportunity to address issues they say are far more important than selfies.

The hashtags have also been used to highlight the destruction carried out by Arab governments and foreign powers across several Middle East countries since the Arab Spring in 2011.

Societies across Arab nations revolted with mixed results following protests that erupted against autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Tunisia avoided descending into conflict but the revolts in Libya, Syria and Yemen turned violent and into civil wars with European and Western powers becoming primary actors.

Thousands of images have been shared highlighting the devastation caused by the wars, with several users showing the destruction in Syria since an offensive was launched against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

ANTICONQUISTA, the Communist Party of the Latin American and Caribbean Diaspora, shared a composite image of Libya with the captions before and after the “Imperalist invasion”, a reference to the NATO-led military intervention that led to the toppling of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The #10YearChallenge pic ameriKKKa doesn’t want you to see.

Within the last 10 years in #Libya, slavery, extreme poverty and femicide have plagued the nation. This, after the US & Europe overthrew leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 as part of a direct imperialist invasion. pic.twitter.com/CK4g1fvfLx

— ANTICONQUISTA (@ANTICONQUISTA) January 16, 2019

Muniba Mazari, a Goodwill Ambassador at UN Women Pakistan, shared an image of Syria, which has been devastated by eight years of war and led to an estimated 500,000 deaths.

Syria’s #10YearChallenge 💔 pic.twitter.com/8rK74DERaP

— Muniba Mazari (@muniba_mazari) January 16, 2019

The citizen journalist group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, shared a collection of images showing the aftermath of the devastating assault on the place often referred to as the capital of ISIL.

#10yearchallenge

#ISIS #RBSS #Syria #SDF pic.twitter.com/kXHKZAFIA5

— الرقة تذبح بصمت (@Raqqa_SL) January 16, 2019

Nadwa Dawsari shared an image of the old city of Sanaa, which showed showing the UNESCO World Heritage site before and after a Saudi-UAE coalition air strike.