Teen’s poem demands action to stop gun violence
NEWTOWN — When 15-year-old Mariam Azeez learned of Tuesday's school shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 children and two teachers, her mind raced back in time to the day nearly 10 years ago of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting — and the terror she felt.
“I was in the (Hedaya Islamic) center. And I was with other kids and we were just crying and hiding under the desks,” said Mariam, who attended Hawley Elementary School in Newtown and is a sophomore at Danbury High School. “It was very close to where we were.”
Mariam said she was so upset by the incident that her mother, Eman Beshtawii, encouraged her to express her thoughts on paper.
“I saw she had so much emotion so I told her, ‘Why don't you write something?'” said Beshtawaii, director of the Al Hedaya Islamic Center and a member of the Newtown Interfaith Council.
It took Mariam about one hour to write her poem, which, after reading it aloud at Thursday night's vigil at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, brought everyone to their feet in a standing ovation.
The message in Mariam's poem was strong and clear, and shot out across the entire chapel — don't let any more children die in mass shootings.
“They went to school, they had cereal, they said goodbye to their parents, were on the bus and then they just never came back,” said Mariam, referencing the children — not only in Uvalde, but in Sandy Hook, who were killed in school shootings.
In her poem, called “When I grow up,” she names different careers that kids could want to pursue when they're older.
“I remember seeing a picture of a girl that was killed in Uvalde and she was with her baseball uniform. She was smiling, and that was what she wanted
to grow up to be. So I put that in there,” she said. “There was also one for Benjamin Wheeler (who died in the Sandy Hook school shooting) becoming a lighthouse guard, since he loved lighthouses.”
The other careers her poem makes reference to are those that children typically want to become when they grow up, she said.
“Those are just normal references because I was trying to say (getting shot in school) could happen to anybody, any kid,” Mariam added.
Growing up in Newtown, Mariam said her life was “deeply impacted” by the Sandy Hook shooting.
She said her own innocence, and the innocence of her peers, was lost on Dec. 14, 2012 — and replaced with a feeling of powerlessness.
“We never really thought this could ever happen to
us. I mean, we're just 56-year-old kids and we would have never imagined such a horrifying thing could happen, and the fact that it happened in this town, the town we grew up in, was really scary,” she said. “And it just made me feel powerless.”
Bringing awareness
After the Sandy Hook shootings, Mariam's parents took her out of public school and enrolled her in a private school, where she stayed until the eighth grade. She and her family live in Danbury and Newtown.
She said her family and others in her community keep the memory of the children's lives that were lost in Sandy Hook alive by attending events such as Thursday's vigil, which was co-hosted by the Newtown Action Alliance and Newtown Interfaith Council.
“Especially in December,
we'd always go to the vigils like the one at Benjamin (Wheeler's) house,” she said. “It's very, very important to us because this is our town and this happened to us.”
Mariam said she's making it her mission to “bring awareness” to school shootings and their impact is far greater than Newtown or Uvalde.
“Just put into perspective that this is not just something that happens 45 minutes away. This is not just something that happens in a different state or in a different country,” she said. “This is something that can happen to anyone, anywhere.”
One way for mass shootings to stop in the world, Mariam said, is through education and understanding of those whose cultures, religions or practices are different from one's own.
In 2018, at the age of 11, Mariam co-wrote and selfpublished
a book called “Soulful Sydney Explores Diversity,” which brings attention to “the fear, the hatred we have in society is due to misunderstanding,” she said.
“We have these conceptions, ideas, of what people are, and they're not really like that. And when we get to know people, when we get to empathize with people, that's when learn about them,” she said.
She added many people have misconceptions of those who wear hijab, like she does.
In her book, she tells children it's OK to be different.
Mariam runs the Asian club at Danbury High
School, and said through the club, she hopes to continue to promote awareness of people's differences.
“The reason why I wanted to run this club is because I want to promote differences. A lot of people have stereotypes about people that have color or people that are Asian. They expect us to look the same,” Mariam said. “But there's so many beautiful cultures and people in Asia that many people do not know about. So I started this club with my friends and I wanted people to learn about us, learn about our cultures, learn about the beauty of our food, get to know us as people before they get to know us as stereotypes.”
She added, “We're all human at the end of the day.
‘Actions and policies’
Mariam said that saying there needs to be change is not enough. Prayers are not enough, either, she said.
What's needed is action, she added.
“We said we were never gonna let it happen when Sandy Hook happened, and then over 3,000 mass shootings in the United States happened again. If we keep giving our thoughts and prayers and not our actions and policies, we're never going to be making a change,” Mariam said. “We're just always going to be saying, ‘Sorry, I wish I could have done something else' and we haven't done anything else.”
She said if politicians can't take action, then kids will have to — but their age prevents them.
“If they can't do something, then we're gonna have to do something ourselves,” she said. “And we obviously can't because we're just kids. We don't have a voice in the Senate or the Congress. We need to make sure that everyone is speaking up for the kids — and doing something about it.”