Memories of Syria: Abraham Younes & Danna Ghafir

By Tina Nazerian     9/11/14 12:15pm

Before the Syrian Civil War broke out four years ago, Will Rice College junior Abraham Younes and Martel College freshman Danna Ghafir would visit Syria during the summers.

“[I would visit] maybe every other year or so,” Younes said. “My dad's family is from a small village in the mountains near the Mediterranean Sea. It was beautiful. I had a lot of relatives there, my grandparents lived there. I have very fond memories of it. When I got older, I would sit on the roof of my cousin's house, and we would drink tea and just talk about stuff. It was just a beautiful view.”

Ghafir remembers spending six to eight weeks every summer in Syria.  

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“It was always a huge part of my life,” Ghafir said. “I have a few good memories of just being with family, that's the main thing that I miss, and I find myself thinking about [that] a lot when I think about Syria.”

Ghafir, who was born and raised in Houston to a Syrian father and a Syrian-American mother, said she has not been able to go back to Syria in four years because of the Civil War. She is part of the Syrian American Council in Houston and is trying to bring a chapter of a starting organization called Students Organize Syria to Rice with Jones School of Business student Raji Al Atassi by next semester.

“There are activists at different universities, so it's already been established at other universities, and they're working with STAND, which is an anti-genocide organization,” Ghafir said. “That's what I want to mention for people to look out for here. There are over 9 million displaced persons in Syria, more than 200,000 have been killed, even though the last UN count is 191,000, it's way more than that. A third of those are civilians.”

Younes, who was born in West Virginia to a Lebanese mother and a Syrian father, and was raised in Alexandria, Louisiana, said he does not think there is a lot American college students can do about the Syrian conflict.

“Our government plays a limited role in the events, unlike, say, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or what's happening in Ferguson, where our own tax money determines a lot of the outcomes,” Younes said.

According to Younes, the best thing Rice students can do if they are interested in Syria is to read more about the conflict from various news sources, in addition to learning about the Syrian people and their history, and donating to relief efforts through UNICEF or another organization.

“The hundreds of thousands of Syrians in refugee camps are in desperate need of food, medicine, and other basic services.”

Ghafir said her main effort at this point, in addition to helping create a Students Organize Syria chapter at Rice, is helping the SAC organize events like film screenings and protests.

“I'm working on figuring out how to throw a benefit concert in Houston,” Ghafir said. “I have a friend who organized his own music festival so I will be talking to him about getting bands to perform in order to raise funds for those in need in Syria. At this point, SAC has the permission to screen "The Suffering Grasses" and we're looking for a location right now. Once [Shiyam Galyon], the president of SAC finds a location, I will help plan out the screening event itself [by] advertising.”

Ghafir said people can also look into Dylan Connor’s EP “Blood Like Fire (Songs for Syria), whose proceeds go to the Karam Foundations’s Zeitouna program.

Younes said his relatives in Syria are in a currently secure area of the country.

“They're obviously very scared,” Younes said. “That's the scary thing about this conflict - you could be in a completely stable area, and then something happens, and all of the sudden, you're not. It's very dangerous.”

Ghafir said her fondest memory of Syria is sitting with her grandfather watching TV and understanding a joke he told her.

“I did not speak Arabic very well at all [back then],” Ghafir said. “It was kind of a breakthrough when he told me the joke and I actually understood it, and I laughed. You can only say hi, how are you, I love you so many times to your grandparents, before you're wanting a deeper connection, and I think that was when I achieved that breakthrough.”

Younes said just four years ago, parts of Syria were safe enough that many people felt comfortable leaving their doors unlocked at night.

“It's crazy to me how much a country can be changed by war,” Younes said. “Now the fabric of the country has been torn apart, and it's become one of the most dangerous places in the world.”

Younes said he remembers how he and his cousins would play hide-and-seek in the village graveyard when he was a child.

“That was fun,” Younes said. “It seems terribly ironic now, given how the country has changed so much in five years, but we were just kids, running and hiding among these weathered stones, not thinking about the fact that there were corpses just below the surface.”

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