Words sometimes help people see and pictures sometimes speak messages everyone can understand. Words do matter and pictures can speak. There was one picture this past week that spoke to the hearts of people everywhere and made me see words that were hidden in plain sight. The image was of Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body being carried by a Turkish policeman. The words I finally saw (words that I had looked at since I was 7) make up the Latin motto of my state’s (Connecticut) Great Seal or coat of arms: Qui Transtulit Sustinet. I didn’t know what they meant before this past Labor Day weekend but, for some reason, the image of Aylan made me notice them more and pushed me to discover their meaning: He Who Transplanted Sustains.

The dream of Aylan’s father (Abdullah) was to transplant his family from a worn torn country into a place of peace where he could sustain and nurture his family. Aylan, as the world now knows, didn’t make it through the journey. Abdullah’s dream became every father’s worst nightmare. We can only imagine what it was like to be the Turkish policeman carrying Aylan Kurdi’s limp body in the photo that has appeared in almost every social and traditional media outlet in the world. You don’t have to be a father to feel Abdullah’s pain of loss when he not only had to identify Aylan in the morgue but his wife (Rehan) and older son’s (Galip) bodies too. The wave of refugees from conflicts in Africa and Middle East (especially the Syrian conflict) into Europe has had a severe undertow of suffering for years but Aylan’s death, captured in a single image, made it impossible for people to ignore any longer. A wave of empathy has finally met the wave of refugees (over 2,500 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea this year alone).

It takes more than empathy, however, to make a difference in the lives of refugees and immigrants throughout the world; it takes compassion. It appears that the image of Aylan’s little legs and shoes dangling from the arms of a Turkish policeman has ignited citizen compassion where there has only been political callousness in many of the world’s capitals. While most developed countries have been trying to keep back the waves of refugees attempting to enter their borders by walls of ignorance (strict border patrols and immigration policies with few exceptions), the citizens of European countries have decided enough is enough and have transformed their empathy into compassion.

Examples of citizen compassion have been reported from Hungary to Austria to Germany to England. National Public Radio (NPR) reported how Hungarian citizens were lining up along the road where the refugees from the Budapest train station were walking 110 miles to the Austrian border and providing food and clothing. We’ve all heard the empathetic saying of “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” Well, one Hungarian woman, according to the NPR report, went one compassionate step further and took off her sneakers and gave them to a refugee woman wearing flip-flops. While British citizens have taken to social media with pictures of themselves holding #welcomerefugees signs, Austrian and German citizens have been lining up with their cars along their respective borders waiting to drive refugees into their countries. We should all be riding the wave of citizen compassion. It appears that European governments are now following their compassionate citizens with the announcements of new and more humane immigration policies over the last few days.

Mahatma Ghandi said “Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior.” We should all live by our words. If we did, a handshake would still mean everything in the world to more than just a few of us. Trust, which builds strong societies, would gather strength. People would feel at home no matter where they are in the world. We all would know what Qui Transtulit Sustinet means.

Some nations are beginning to build paths into their countries for fellow human beings where all can walk no matter what type, make or size of shoes being worn. When you meet a refugee or immigrant from another country, are you a shoe giver, taker, thrower or ignorer? My hope is that you and I always have the compassion to answer in Hungarian. There is, however, at least one pair of little shoes no one can ignore.

Dr. Chris Kukk

Chris is Professor of Political Science at Western Connecticut State University, a Fulbright Scholar, Director of the Kathwari Honors Program, and founding Director of the Center for Compassion, Creativity & Innovation. He is also the author of "The Compassionate Achiever: How Helping Others Fuels Success" (HarperOne, 2017).