Day 25: N.U.S.S. and finally posting my blogs!!!

            This is the third day I’ve gone without being able to post my blog, so hopefully people aren’t thinking I dropped off the face of the Earth. I’m just in Syria, which seems to like to keep a close watch on everyone. Facebook is blocked (supposedly to prevent networking?), which makes me sad because I can’t communicate with my friends back home.

            Apparently there are an unknown amount of plainclothes undercover policemen watching us wherever we go. Two nights ago some of our group went to a nightclub and got into some trouble because they were passing around a cigarette, which the staff mistakenly took for hashish or some other illegal substance. The next morning, our tour guide and security officers assigned to us asked how the club was the night before. It was interesting that they knew the name of the club the students were at; I guess the club owner called the police, which then in turn called our tour guide to complain about the student’s behavior.

            We aren’t doing anything illegal, and we’re hosts of the government so we’re very safe here, but it’s interesting how the government here is able to monitor everyone. I wonder what it would be like to be a normal citizen living in Syria, and if it would bother me to have the government always watching. As one of our hosts put it, “nothing is prohibited in Syria, and nothing is allowed.”

            This morning we met with the president of the National Union of Syrian Students (N.U.S.S.), who explained how the organization is kind of like a national student government association. The group serves as a forum for dialogue and debate on various topics important to students, such as college admissions requirements, required military service upon graduation, and maintaining the higher education system that provides education free of charge to all students.

N.U.S.S. is also very politically active, and takes a firm stance against the Israeli occupation of Syrian land. We didn’t debate politics too much this time, but the Syrians explained how this issue is inevitably intertwined with their daily lives as most families in Syria have suffered at least one “martyrdom” of a family member serving in the military. Clearly this conflict is very near to the hearts of the Syrians and many other Arabs, and its good that we’re hearing their point of view to contrast what information Western media has provided us.

Despite their political stances, the Syrians we have met so far have made it clear that they distinguish between the American people and the late Bush Administration. We have been welcomed very warmly here, and I think that the U.S. should definitely take Syria off its list of members of the “Axis of Evil”— as long as they unblock Facebook first

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