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In My Own Words
UT students join in protest against US involvement in Syria
September 6, 2013
Updated to the extended version published in The Independent Collegian’s Sept. 11, 2013 edition.
A crowd of people, among them University of Toledo students and their families, gathered at the corner of Secor Road and Central Avenue the evening of Sept. 6 to protest possible U.S. military action in Syria.
“We love America,” said Bouchra Doumet, a physician and native of Syria. “We love Syria too. We want peace for both countries.”
This protest occurred hours after President Barack Obama made his case for military action concerning the existence of chemical weapons in Syria during a press conference in Russia.
Stephen Swade, a third-year biology major at UT, attended the protest with his cousin John Swade, a second-year biology major.
“I believe there shouldn’t be any bombings, no war by us in Syria,” Stephen Swade said.
Joe Swade, who is Stephen’s father, said military action would put the U.S. on the side of rebels linked to Al-Qaida.
“They are dangerous for everyone,” he said. “We don’t want Al-Qaida to win.”
Doumet, who practices medicine in Spring Meadows, said the U.S. should “go for dialogue, and peaceful solutions.”
“We have to go for diplomatic solutions,” she said.
Joe Swade summed up his position by saying, “Throughout the years, war shows that it doesn’t solve the problem. It just destroys cities and people.”
Henry Naddaf, an alum of UTMC and Syrian native, talked about the history of the country and the dictatorship it has for its government in a phone interview.
“Whatever rules they have in place, that’s what guides their country,” Naddaf said. “If you follow the rules and you didn’t question the government too much, they basically left you alone. Whether you are a Christian, or Jewish, or Kurdish, or Druze, or Shiite, or Sunni, they didn’t really bother you much as long as you did not cause any trouble for the existing dictatorship.”
Naddaf said that the citizens of Syria were able to practice their various religions freely.
“They really let people practice their religion, really let them have their religious freedom and their political freedom, as long as they did not question the authority of the government or cause problems for the government,” he said. “So it’s kind of a funny balance. People were living in peace, all together.”
The uprising in Syria is a result of other recent uprisings in countries like Egypt and Algeria, Naddaf said.
The people of Syria started out with peaceful protests; Naddaf said that is no longer the case.
“You had groups coming in from Al-Qaida, you have groups coming in from Pakistan, Afghanistan, all these extreme Muslim groups that want to change Syria into something like what they live in, the kind of country they live in,” Naddaf said. “They don’t want [the government] to be giving back to the Syrian people who are moderate. These guys are extremists; they’re radical Muslim extremists from different countries.”
Naddaf said these foreign groups that are fighting in Syria are calling themselves the “Syrian Rebels” who are Muslim extremists from different countries.
“Very few, in fact, are actually Syrian rebels anymore, the Syrian people who originally stood up to fight against him…The majority of the people that are still fighting are not even Syrian,” he said.
Naddaf said he thinks the loss of American life is not worth taking military action in Syria.
“We’re not going to make the country any better today than we are tomorrow,” he said. “We’re not going to stop the killings.”
“It’s a tough situation and there is no easy answer,” he said.