Stand Up For What You Believe In

I want to start off by saying that I'm not writing this to talk about these two women, I'm writing this to share my opinion on how we should always speak up for what we believe in and to not let fear hold you back

-Amal



The other day, I was having a conversation with two older women, both married with children my age and older. They are both from Syria. They were conversing about how upset they were that their children and husbands have been participating in protests here in the US, saying that they would never be able to enter Syria again. I kept on bringing up the fact that if they weren't protesting or speaking up against the government, none of us would be able to go to Syria again. I reminded them that once the Assad regime is toppled, Syria will be a hundred times better than we left it. Then one of the women brought up a random scenario where a Syrian man was in the protest in Washington DC a few months ago. The man sang a song at the protest against the Syrian government. She said that him singing just that one song, only one, made the Syrian government send forces to his home in Syria, kidnap his parents, and torture them. All because he sang one song.

Of course, this is a tragic case, but I couldn't help but think, "How does this relate to anything?". The women were talking about how their children and husbands were in a protest, not about them writing a song! There is a similarity, yes, but the difference is that that man willing wrote that song, included his name, and sang it at a popular protest in the USA, knowing it could cause his family harm. The women's families did not include their names in anything. The only thing you could see were their faces. And as much as people deny it, it is highly unlikely for someone to torture your family based on just seeing your face in a video on youtube. And these people are in the United States, so the chances of the Syrian government finding out their identities is even MORE unlikely!

It just made me upset that these women want freedom, but are too scared to do anything to try and get it. All out of sheer fear.

Like I said, the reason I'm writing this is not to complain about two older women who upset me a little bit. Actually, these women are both very kind and respectable. Even though they do not want to be involved in public things for Syria, they still donate large sums of money to Syrian refugees. I wrote this to share my opinion on how I think that the longer we wait to finally speak up for our freedom, the longer it's going to take to actually get it. Which, by the way, means longer before we can once again enter Syria.

Stand up for what you believe in. It will always be worth it in the end.

In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.