“Damascus, where most of us are from, is known as the city of Jasmine because of the smell of the Jasmine from everywhere,” Zayd Bakdash, the president of Students Organize for Syria at WSU, told everyone who walked through the door of the CAC theater on Saturday evening.
The officers of Student Organize for Syria (SOS) spent hours in meetings, contacting speakers and budgeting to plan the guest speaker event, according to Mona Jesri, an officer of the organization.
“It’s been hard to plan all that not knowing what kind of a budget we’re working with, not knowing what we’d have access to,” she said.
All but one guest speaker had canceled, and despite contacting several Wichita politicians, mayoral candidate Lily Wu was the only one to arrive besides the main speaker, Omar Alshogre.
Alshogre, Syrian advocate and public speaker, shared his journey from a teenage political prisoner in Syria to today, choosing to focus on the hopeful and inspiring parts of his story rather than entirely around the brutalities he endured in prison.
“You can’t go up and talk to people about torture if they have not experienced it,” Alshogre said.
Instead, Alshogre put his effort into showing how Syrians are hopeful.
“They will forget about it because their brain will push it away because it’s so brutal or it’s, they can do nothing about it, so I give you an option,” Alshogre said. “I tell you a story.”
Bakdash said that apathy toward the Syrian crisis is a critical issue.
“They don’t want to support us because they think this is a lost cause,” Bakdash said. “(People) also think it’s too political. Nothing that we’re doing is political. We’re just advocating for our right to live and breathe.”
Bakdash said it was crucial to focus on the hope, love, and dedication of the Syrian people in their fight for peace.
“That’s why I focus on storytelling,” Alshogre said. “Because storytelling is how you build a bridge and you build the relationship between the people who are overseas and the people who are struggling on the other side of the world.”
The speeches left audience members in shock at the realities faced by Syrians.
“It felt like a fictional story to me, like Zayd said, like ‘1984,’” Yazan Bakdash, an attendee and Zayd Bakdash’s brother, said. “That really just took me aback.”
Jens Kreinath, a member of the Global Learning Center and associate anthropology professor, explained the importance of connecting communities through storytelling.
“We would like to invite others to support with these efforts that we are trying to do, by way of inviting speakers, but also we are aiming to … help the community to join forces and because with the Syrian conflict and the detrimental effect it has on Syrians in Syria, but also a broad effect on refugees.”
Alshogre also emphasized the importance of small organizations such as SOS.
“What smaller organizations are good with (is) efficiency,” he said. “They can move much faster, so when a crisis happens, they can respond to it immediately.”
Bakdash emphasized the importance of a city in Kansas making a stand.
“We want to establish Wichita as the city that will break the siege, the city that liberated a country because that’s what it starts with,” Bakdash said. “It starts with a small town. It starts with a small camp, and then expands to the whole country.”
