Once I spent six
months in Syria, nowhere near a proper comparison to actually living there, but
that, combined with my annual visits, gave me a good enough perspective into
the country that was eternally labeled third world. Somehow though my eyes saw
it richer than the U.S. To me it was the land of opportunities (to come), the
land of potential to thrive, and although it had a long way to go, I witnessed
progress each time I stepped off that tiny stuffy crowded airplane. And despite
the negative feedback I heard from both Syrians in Syria and Syrians in America,
I had a different perspective of its potential every time I walked through the
corridors of the Damascus airport.
That airport is
closed now. It has been for quite some time thanks to this war. Yes, I call it
a war. Ask Syrians and each one will give you his/her own answer as to what it
is that is happening there now: From civil war, to terrorism, to revolution to
whatever. You want the bottom line? Innocent people are dying from the hands of
people fighting; and a land of history is almost entirely demolished.
On my last trip, the
six-month long blissful journey, I felt the truest beacon of hope, one that
words could not define. One so strong that I was ready to quit my final
semester of graduate school and stay in the warm shelter of my grandparents’
home in Abu Rumaneh. I wanted to hear the sounds of sirens, cars honking for no
reason and random people talking Arabic in the alleyways at every hour of the
day. I wanted to be able to hail a taxi and go anywhere for less than $3. I
wanted to be able to tell my grandma that I’m just going for a walk somewhere,
anywhere, because I could in the safe streets of ancient Damascus…and then hear
her scold me out of concern of me “a girl walking alone in the shawari’
(streets).” I miss her and her worry filled love.
Even now as I write
this I cry in realization that in my very own lifetime I will never get to
experience that again. Then I cry even harder when I recognize that that should
be the least of my worries because there are people being expelled from their
homes and even killed in their homes for no reason in Syria. People who had
faith that their economy would boom and their social issues would eventually
improve, the way it almost started to about four years ago.
I didn’t end up
quitting my final semester of my Master’s degree. Instead I bid my grandparents
and Syria what I thought would be a temporary farewell and returned to earn a
Public Policy & Administration degree with the intent of bringing it back
to Syria. It was only after this trip that I recognized the true value of an
M.P.A., even more so than I would have had I been thinking of the U.S.
Suddenly I was
writing papers and reading textbooks with the mindset of how my American made
skills and knowledge could be used to help my family’s homeland—a country called
Syria. How could I help its citizens raise its level from third world to first
world? How can I help bring it back to its elite status it once had? Did anyone
even know that Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world? Or that the
first alphabet to ever be discovered and actually documented came from Syria? I
wanted to save Syria. That’s right, as over reaching as that sounds, I wanted
to save Syria and I had packed my bags and my degree and was ready to do so.
Then it was March 2011 and it all changed.
But that’s not what I
want to talk about really. I want to go back to those six months, when I spent
hours on the balcony overlooking the Four Seasons and admiring the randomness
of my exotic Arabia. I had a notebook and a pen with me wherever I went and
always wrote down ideas. The one repetitive theme that kept appearing within my
words of what I wanted to change (besides economy, social welfare, and
healthcare) was the education system. These days many Middle Easterners, who
can afford to, send their children to study in Europe and the U.S. It is
considered prestigious and of higher quality than the Middle East. I understood
that it was also slightly easier to do so considering how difficult it is for
Syrians to actually graduate high school. The education system in the Middle
East differs and is far more complex and intimidating than it is here. But
ironically I think that’s why it creates stronger and smarter graduates than
anywhere else in the world. I’ll never forget when I learned in high school
that the best people to trust in medicine are Arabs; and after learning the
history of medicine and realizing it originated from within our lands I
recognized the value even more.
However, despite the
thick skin it forces many students to grow, I noticed how little room the education
system there provided for those who were more in tune with hands on or the life
skills style of education. These are the students who can’t do the whole textbook,
cram it in your brain type of studies. The artists and creative thinkers rarely
ever had a safe space to thrive. In my time spent with the high school and
college students in Syria I found that these were the following options to
success:
Men – Medicine or Engineering Women – Pharmacy
Anything else was leftover that you
received based on the scores you got on your senior year exams. Those are the
death of many poor students. One point below the requirement and you’re deemed
a failure and sent to a secondary level of education that eternally dictates
your career path. Many Syrian students end up repeating the 12th
grade to try again and obtain a higher score on those exams in order to get in
to the upper level career path schools and that broke my heart. I realized
that’s a flaw I wanted to focus on in order to help Syria nurture the talents
and skills often overlooked in many, actually all, of those students that
didn’t reach the standardized test score requirement.
I had a friend who ended up repeating
the entire senior year and I wanted to help her but couldn’t. She is so
talented, artistic, brilliant, witty and absolutely comedic. I knew that had she
been born and raised in my neighborhood in California she would have thrived in
any fine arts program. That’s what I wanted Syria to have—a more well rounded
educational system that would provide access to diverse studies, all of which
are necessary to build a stronger and more progressive country. And that was my
long-term goal. I kept seeing what Syria could become and realizing that it
failed to reach that level because it was lacking in the variety of
professionals, like women's studies or gender studies or social sciences or environmental health. What happened? Syria had such creative talented people that
were magnificent in their non-medicinal or engineering work and yet had a
positive helping hand in government and politics. It could happen…or so I
believed until 2011.
My parents I know suffer far more than
I do because that is where they grew up. Cities like Aleppo and Hama were
places they visited in summers and winters on family road trips and now they
don’t exist anymore. Really, go to Google and type in cities like Homs, Hama,
Deir Ezzor or Aleppo and you’ll find maybe two beautiful historical pictures
(and by historical I mean about five years ago) and the rest are all rubble.
Gray, stone, ash, and blood. I’ve seen my parents watch the news and my mom
ends up in tears. After the first year she had a fit and realized she couldn’t
just sit around and do nothing.
“Dania, I need to help Syria,” she
said, “but I don’t know how. I want to do something for my country.” Mental
pacing for weeks until an idea was hatched: Create a phenomenally beautiful
historical and culture exhibit that portrays the beauty and riches of Syria so
that the world may know…A Country Called
Syria. Once you put a face to the name everything changes, and we want to
put a face to the name of this country that is being bounced across every news
station. We found a way to alter the education system, maybe not in Syria, but about Syria. And that was when Syrian American Mothers (S.A.M.) was
born.
She called up every Syrian American mother
she knew and set up an official meeting. One glorious spring morning almost every
Syrian American mom in SoCal was sitting in my living room, cross-legged and
eager to hear of this new “plan for Syria.” I sliced up the deli sandwiches,
whipped up the Arabic coffee and tea and listened to my mom’s speech. Suddenly
everyone’s eyes lit up. The wheels of our minds started turning and they have
not stopped till this day.
S.A.M. has put together four amazingly
entertaining and educational exhibits across Orange County, and because of our
great success we have been invited to host our exhibit at the Pico House
Gallery in the Historic Los Angeles District in Downtown Los Angeles. When my
mother received the invitation she cried. It was the hardest I had ever seen
her cry because I knew she saw the Grace of God in her dream come true. When we
took a tour of the facility and saw its glorious walls and corridors we knew
this time A Country Called Syria
would be the greatest it has ever been.
And so I would like to invite every
reader within (and without) driving distance of Los Angeles to make an effort
and come attend this nine-day exhibit. Attached to this post is our event flier
designed by another Syrian Mother who has graciously donated her time and
efforts to create every flier and poster utilized in our past, present and
hopefully future exhibits. Thank you Dima A.K.H. You are outstanding! And to
the ladies of S.A.M. (especially the Palestinian American amazing women who have joined
our team and are even more enthusiastic than we are!) thank you! And to my fiance :) who is putting up with the stress and cancelled dates, thank you for your support and faith in S.A.M. It is a big therapeutic relief! And to my mom
who is constantly having panic attacks and fluctuating blood pressure levels,
thank you! Thank you for being the amazing woman you are, who never gives up,
always is on the run, and never stopped believing in this dream. I can’t wait
to keep growing up and be as wonderful as you are and to continue this
beautiful creation you have made.
Our exhibit of A Country Called Syria will be opening on Saturday, February 15th
2014 at 10:00 AM and closes on Sunday, February 23rd 2014 at 3:00
PM. The exhibit is open for the entire nine days of that week from 10:00 AM to
3:00 PM daily and is free to all. I urge you to come. Come meet our volunteers
who have dedicated their time to put this together. Come read about our history
and our contributions to civilization. Come and recognize who Syria is and who
it will one day be!
