HIR Blog Articles

Having taught Sarah Emily Shroud and her fiancé Shane Michael Bauer in Damascus, Syria, I was able to learn about their goals and aspirations, one of which was to leave the comfort of their homes in the US to help poor communities living in the Middle East. They strived to use their privileged status, education, and experiences to help those living under a dollar a day. Sarah and Shaun did this in various ways such as teaching refugees in Damascus and helping the people to chart their way. Having gotten to know the couple, I learned that their intentions in the Middle East were not political but rather, humanitarian.

The current administration set goals to double exports by 2015 and to increase exports to China. In order to meet this goal, exports must grow from $1.57 trillion in 2010 to $3.14 trillion by 2015. At present, high levels of economic interdependency have made Chinese and U.S. interests highly intertwined. Some suggest that rather than increase exports there should be a cut back in both exports and imports due to "unfair" trade practices of the Chinese trade system. In both cases, there are several issues that should be addressed.First, one must take into account Chinese violations of intellectual property rights (IPR), piracy, and counterfeit goods.

The recent upheavals in Homs, Damascus and Latakia have generally been interpreted from a culturalist or structuralist perspective. Some attribute the emergence of the democratic uprisings to historic long-term tensions between different ethnic groups which include Alaawite, Syrian Turkmen, Armenians, Druze, Sunnis and the Assyrians (a significant Christian minority in Syria). Although the Baa’th Socialist Party dominates Syrian politics, other political parties such as the National Progressive Front as well as Kurdish and Assyrian parties have been viewed, by some, as another source of the conflict.

Human rights groups have reported that more than 1300 protestors have been killed since the demonstrations broke out in Syria in mid-March. At first, Syria’s militaristic, harsh, and stubborn dictatorship seemed to be immune to the wave of unrest that swept through most of the Arab world, specifically after the successful Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of January and February 2011. However, in mid-March, demonstrations broke out in several Syrian towns and cities such as Homs, Dar’a, Banias, Latakia and suburb of Damascus.

Despite the unsuccessful responses employed by the Egyptian and Tunisian governments, Assad’s regime insists on responding in the same way. He has employed repressive 19th century tactics in response to the Syrian people’s legitimate 21st century demands.