- Pathfinder

Reply To: How, if at all, did this course shape or change your perception of the ongoing Syrian Civil War?

#4987
AvatarAlice Maggio
Participant

It is embarrassing to admit it – but that word, ongoing, is very important: Syria seems to have been forgotten as other wars and catastrophes take up airtime, screentime, and worldwide attention. I recognize this is very not political correct to say so, but I do think it applies here: Syria is not advantageous or “important,” to world powers, and therefore, in general, people don’t care about what is happening there. It is also quite possible that because the civil war there has been ongoing for more than a decade now, it has become “old news.”
Of course Syria is very important historically, religiously, and in many other ways – however, it cannot provide oil like Saudi Arabia does, and it is not as important to America as, say, Israel is, and therefore it fades into the background. I was really grateful I took this course, though, because I was a high school student when the Arab Spring happened, and I recall being horrified when I watched the chlorine gas attacks occurring on the news when I’d come home every night. I had learned about chemical warfare of that nature in my high school history class in the context of World War I, but to see it before my eyes in real time, it all sickened me. I sympathize with the 14-year-old boy in one of the Youtube videos who despises al-Assad – even though the sentiment is horrible, I can sympathize with the anger and hate that has grown from the years of war and trauma and death.
Syria is a mess, I realize. It makes me want to do something about it. But I also learned by seeing further back in Syria’s history that it has not had a stable form of government for any long stretch of time. It has not functioned as a nation with any kind of normalcy, it seems, in recent history. With al-Assad being overthrown very recently, perhaps there will be hope and movement towards something better for Syria.