Bullets and Bombs: The Background Music for an Average Day in Damascus, Syria, Iowa City, Iowa, December 1, 2016

- I want to acknowledge our university and community supporters, the University of Iowa's international programs, and the University of Iowa's honors programs. They contribute vital time, talent, and logistics to our organization. I also want to thank the Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization for their financial support, and I thank today's special financial sponsors, Mace and Kay Braverman and Ed Zastrow. It is my pleasure to introduce Moe Shakally. Moe is a junior in the University of Iowa, and he is majoring in evolutionary biology on the pre-dental track, and minoring in international relations. Moe is also an ICFRC intern, which we thank him so much for. Moe is an asylum-seeker from Damascus, Syria. He was an immediate activist against the Assad regime at the onset of violence in Syria five years ago. At the urging of his parents, he fled Syria, initially to Egypt, and then to the United States. Please join me in welcoming Moe Shakally. - Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking the time out of your day. This is honestly a lot more people than I expected to come. Thank you for, my friends for coming. I love the support. This is by far the biggest presentation I've had to make, so I'm pretty nervous, if you can't tell. Like I said, like she said, my name is Monzer Shakally. I usually go by Moe because I found it a lot easier when I first came here. I actually have a fun fact. I learned a lot of my English by watching The Simpsons, and Moe Szyslak, the bartender, was one of my favorite characters, so I decided to adapt the name. It fit, and I've had it since then. I moved to the U.S. about four years ago. It was actually December 21st, 2012 so it'll be exactly four years in 20 days. It doesn't feel that long, but ... Initially moved to Des Moines because my brother lived in there. He was a doctor. He lived for five years at that time, and he had a family and a house, it made sense. I went to Dowling Catholic High School. I don't know if anyone... No? Then I came here because of the good dental school they had and the scholarships they gave me. This is actually the first picture I took in United States on day one, in Sears Tower, Chicago. It was, I remember the first day I came here, I went and bought a really heavy coat, because I've never experienced a weather that cold up to that point in my life, and then went and bought Starbucks, 'cause that's what America's about ... And, I just remember how amazed I was, of everything, how tall the buildings were, how clean everything was, how the Christmas lights were like. And I mean, Chicago skyline is amazing for anyone that comes even from the U.S., so imagine a 16 year old that lived his entire life in Syria. I was just, a dream come true for me. And like I said, I'm an intern here for ICFRC, I would usually be at the front desk, taking your money, so it's a nice change to stand up, but that's how I initially got to meet Ed and got introduced to him, and I remember him talking to me last summer, about speaking, he was asking me if I was interested in such a thing, and I wasn't really sure what I would speak about at that point, I kind of brainstormed. I remember at that point in the summer end, I mean, up to this point, when you hear about Syria, you mainly hear about ISIS and refugees. How many of them, where they're going. How half of them are terrorists or trying to take people's jobs. So I tried to talk about something different, something that people wouldn't necessarily turn on their TV and their news channel would be talking about. I thought about talking about the daily lives in Damascus, the city I grew up in and lived my entire life in, a city that's not like Aleppo, that's being constantly bombed and there's constant fighting. Something that's completely different, that's, it's hard to imagine what the daily life in Syria is like. I mean, even for me, I left four years, and I still, it's hard for me to kind of wrap my head around how life is still going on after five years of what's going on. My family is still in Syria, my mom, my dad, my sister, her son, and my brother along with his wife, and my extended family, aunts and uncles, and people constantly ask me how they're doing. Are they safe, are they okay? And I don't really know how to answer usually those questions. I mean, yes they are safe, but safe is a different meaning in Syria. It's not, Iowa City safe, it's safe considering the rest of Syria, relatively. But they're not really safe. I mean, how can people really continue their normal lives after five years of this kind of violence? Just to show people, this is where Syria is located on the map, I'm sure a lot of people have seen this. This is compared to the neighboring countries. Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan, south, Lebanon to the west, and Israel and Palestine, southwest. And then Damascus, as you can tell, in the southwest area so ... About a couple hour drive from Beirut, Lebanon, couple hour drive from the Israeli border. So, it's a very important, strategically, important city. Some background information about Syria, this is a picture of it during the night. It was a beautiful city, I'd love to go back one day. Some information about Damascus is, it's actually the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. There is some facts dating back to 9000 B.C. of life there, it's been mentioned in all of old scriptures, in the Bible, in the Qu'ran, the Torah, and it's very important historically. The last estimate of the population was in 2009, there was about a million, 711,000 people residing in the city of Damascus and the suburbs. At this point, there isn't really any reliable estimates on the number of people that are still living in there. I personally expect a number to be much higher, like I said, there's no really real estimate that's based off the information I have, it's much larger, which is unexpected, but what happened was, in Damascus specifically, the circle of where the city is, have kind of got shrunk to a small radius of about a few kilometers, where there isn't constant fighting, where you can continue your daily lives without being bothered. And a lot of people from around the country, from other cities, from the suburbs, from the countrysides, kind of seek refuge in the area, so you have a lot of people that came into a small area, and ... Damascus is a small city to start with. So this has created a lot of problems, clearly. I mean, people who live their entire life in Damascus felt like, people from other sides of the city were foreigners, because there's a lot of people in the country, in the city. It's created a lot of problems with jobs, problems that people are afraid of here for, because of immigrants. But ... But thiscreated a lot of problems, I'm gonna talk about it a little bit in ... I'm gonna talk about what the daily lives are like in Syria. So, this is ... So, life in Syria right now, in Damascus, is rough, to say the least. I don't think there's any better word to describe it. When you leave your home in the morning, you're not really guaranteed to coming back. Things like mortar shells and suicide bombs and kidnappings are something of daily lives. The intensity of those things have gone down in the past years, which is a good thing, but they still continue to be a daily life thing that people have to deal with. And that changes kind of how people think, the things that people care about. I remember when, even in 2012, before I left town, I was getting to that mentality, that people I was constantly reminded of, my mortality, of the fact that hey, there's a realistic possibility that you might not come home, and people just, I think accept that, at one point. And it's truly amazing feeling, I don't know if amazing is the right word, but it changes how you think. But this is a picture of my brother's home in Damascus, I don't know if you can really tell, but it's the front, side of the house, and the front window is broken, and the story behind this was, while my brother was out of the house, we had a family, a family friend and electrician, which is by the way, is a booming trade in Damascus, I'll talk about that in a little bit. But, he was in the house working on some electrical problems, and a mortar shell actually fell through the front window, and it killed him. Aand that's something that people have a lot to deal with in Syria, that's exactly what some people are worried about most of the times, and what's notable to say that, a mortar shell, and an explosion doesn't necessarily kill people itself, it's the shrapnels that are produced from it. It kills people or permanently disables them or causes serious injuries, so if a mortar shell falls in a highly populated area, you don't have to necessarily have it to be targeted anywhere, the shrapnel is kinda guaranteed to kill a few people. And it's really hard to kinda know who is responsible for those at this point. I mean, it's merely a by-product of the the fighting around the city. A mortar shell isn't really something sophisticated, by any means, you just throw it in a barrel and it follows a projectile motion, if there's any winds or anything that went wrong, it will fall in the wrong place, in a street where there's a lot of people walking. And I mean, the person that died wasn't really someone that was involved in anything. He never cared about politics, he was someone that was just a simple man that, all he cared about was providing for his family, and that's what the war does. It just destroys the ones that are least involved, I guess. Like I said, the, being electrician is a very profitable job in Syria right now, this is a picture, I can't tell with the lightning very much, but this is a satellite picture during the night, of Syria, showing the areas that are lit in the country, comparing March 2012 to December 2014, and I don't know if you can tell, but it's shocking, the amount of how dark it is. Estimates say that about, there has been an 83% decrease in energy production since 2011, in Syria. So, in Damascus, if you think of a very rich area in the middle of the city, this is, call it a spoiled area, their electricity situation is, they don't have electricity for three hours, and then they will get for three hours, and it'll rotate. This is a very like I said spoiled area, so for 12 hours of the day, you don't have electricity. And this is obviously a very frustrating thing for students trying to study, mom's trying to cook, store owners trying to keep their dairy products just viable, and people just trying to operate fans in a country where 109 degrees is not very uncommon, it's very heard of. So, what's fascinating to me, is that electricians have taken advantage of this, and they've come up with truly innovative and creative solutions. What people do in Damascus, is they take a car battery, something that's very, it's designed to discharge and recharge very many times, and it produces large amounts of energy. They take this battery, and they connect it to a transistor and a converter. And while the electricity is on, the car battery is being charged. Once the electricity goes off, it'll automatically switch and it'll start producing the energy to an outlet, and over time, they started maximizing this, they built more, they took more batteries, they started using LED lights that'll minimize energy use. Connected the wires in certain way that will produce energy in the most maximal, efficient way, and at this point, people are just like, when you buy a house, you ask, is this, do you provide this, within the house? Like, people building a house will build it within the foundations, they'll design a room underneath the staircase or something, that will be filled with batteries, and it's pretty efficient, I mean, my brother, when I would be talking to my brother, I can, on Fiber, if you've ever seen it, it's, it gives you like the internet connection, how good it is, it'll go from good, to poor, for about three seconds, and it'll go back to good, and that's how I know that the electricity went off. So I think it's pretty creative, how people have taken advantage of this, and I think people would truly be impressed with, if they were to come here. But what's interesting to me, is that most people don't really complain about the death and the bombs and everything like that. People somehow get used to it, like I said, they just ... Expect it, and they're fine with it, but what people are always complaining, everyone complains about this in Damascus, is the rising price of everything. Food, transportation, clothes, entertainment, you name it, it's gone up at least 500 or 600%. That's what the inflation rate is in Syria right now. Unemployment is about 50%. Extreme poverty is around 80%. People are struggling, 80% of the population is struggling to get food. Can you imagine half of the population isn't working? To put this in perspective, in 2011, one dollar was equivalent to 45 Syrian pounds, now it's 213, and it's usually very unavailable, if you tried to look in the black market, it's more like 250. And in Syria, especially in Damascus, most people are government employees. They receive a monthly salary and they live off of it, and an average employee is about 10,000 to 15,000 Syrian pounds, so, 2011, this was about $223, $333 a month. Not, it's about $40 to $75. So, you have salaries remaining the same, over the five year period, while everything else have gone up. Demand has gone up, supply have gone down, my parents say $15,000, if you don't think about rent, if you don't think about bills, you don't think about any sort of emergency medical conditions, food and drinks will get you about two weeks. And I think for the other two weeks of the month, people survive on very minimal amounts of food. People rely on relatives outside of Syria sending money back and I mean, that's, I don't doubt it, I don't think, just the math doesn't add up for how people are really surviving at this point. But what's also weird to me, is that my parents say everything is available, there's nothing that you can't find if you wanna Twix, if you wanna Pepsi, if you wanna get the newest movie in the U.S., you can have it as long as you have enough money for it, they say, new restaurants and new entertainment centers, new high-end shopping centers are opening at a higher rate than ever before. Like I said, what happened is, the circle have gone such a small amount, and the people have risen up, that if you have all your assets in the middle of Damascus, and nothing is affected, then you are in a very good shape. But if you have a factory or a shop in another city, or ... In the suburb, then your main source of income has been destroyed. And this is what it's, it's, that's what, if you go down, my parents say, if you go downtown and try to eat in a restaurant, you probably won't find a spot. It will take you a couple of hours to get seated, even. And like I said, most of this problem comes from the fact that a city that was already populated, highly populated, have increased the population, decreased to a small size, it created so many different problems, economical, the electricity, another part of why it's going out, regardless of the fact that a lot of the production facilities were affected, and a lot of the raw material can now be transported, cross-country, it's the fact that the usage, the demand for it have gone up much more, that there isn't really possibility to provide. This is a picture of something, it's called Uptown Cafe, it's a very new amusement park that was built in 2014, costed $40 million, it's a 15 minute walk from where I used to live in Damascus. It's just a huge entertainment complex that, it has everything you can think of, a water park, amusement park, hooka bars, nightclubs, restaurants, everything, basketball courts, soccer fields. From the pictures I've seen, we don't really have something like this in Iowa. And this is what it's created, the war have created something like this, 80% of the population is in extreme poverty and the rest are living lavishly and have extremely profited from what happened. So this is what's happening, it's a city filled with contradiction. You have 12 year old orphans trying to find food for their eight year old siblings, while the rest of the population are wondering what nightclub to get drunk at, and what bar to spend their money that they've never had before, you have students that are dreaming about going to school, that, they haven't received an education in years. And that's why I think civil wars are so much harder than any other interstate war, they just destroy the basic fabric of society. They, even if ... If everything goes back to normal, those people will never grow up, those kids will never grow up without hatred in their hearts, while they're roaming the streets trying to find food while they look across the street and they see half the people are spending money they've never dreamt of doing. It's just interesting. So another aspect I wanna talk about is the social changes that are taking place. It's not something that people necessarily think about or talk about, and this is kinda silly to think of, but what happened is, in Syria, all the men are gone. I mean, either at war, dead, missing, refugees, in different countries, and so when you listen to people in politics, especially in the last period, do you hear about how they say, look at Europe, look at the refugees in Europe, they're all men, you don't see kids, you don't see women, what are those men doing in there, why aren't they going back to their country to fight or help end the problem? And to a certain extent, that is true. What happened is, the problem is, the refugee journey is such a dangerous and rough journey that most people end up either drowning, getting kidnapped and sold as organs in the black market or end up in a back of a truck. I don't know if you've ever, you have never seen this picture. It's an abandoned refrigerator truck that was found in 2014 on the sides of Austria, it had 71 dead Syrian refugees that were thought to have suffocated, that were trying to go to Germany. The place where it's a safe haven for Syrian people that are trying to go there. I personally have experienced something like this. My brother-in-law has actually, in Germany right now, as a refugee, he was a chemical engineer in Damascus, he got married to my sister, she's a pharmacist, and they had a kid, and they were fine, they were living their normal lives, getting by. But they felt like there was no future for them. I mean, they were living until they were living, but there wasn't really anything more than that, there wasn't any opportunities that can come out of it. So, they tried to go to Europe, to Turkey, at the beginning. My dad, my brother and my brother-in-law, they tried to start a business, and after a little bit, it failed, because of the strict laws on Syrians living in Turkey at this point, there's just so many that if you have to open a business you need to employ three Turkish people for every one Syrian employee, and it's just unsustainable business models, that fails unless you have just a huge amount of startup money. So, he decided to take the, to travel, to take to the Mediterranean, trip, to Cyprus at the beginning, and the follow a trail that's constantly changing, and at this point, isn't really available, but he told us to the horrifying stories, that the mobs of smugglers, it's, you get on a boat, on a rubber boat made for about six people. You have 50 people or so on it. You drive half, you're on the sea for half of the way and then the smuggler will destroy the rubber boat and jump and another boat of smugglers will pick him up and the people on the boat will have to swim their way to the other half. If they're lucky, they'll get picked up by the coast guards and if not, they will drown. So, that's what happened, men will try to, they would rather risk their lives rather than their wives' and kids' lives, and if they somehow get there, they would after living for awhile and getting some sort of a legal status, they'll try to bring their families there, in much, in a less dangerous way. So, what this has created, is a country with no men, pretty much, I mean, my parents say, for every ten girls walking down the street, there is a couple guys. And it has very much longer effects than short-term. Think of World War II when men were shipped to Europe and women were faced with jobs that they never had to deal with, they were faced with operating factories, running countries, raising kids without their fathers, and it had much longer lasting effects on them, but at least the men came back. I don't know if that's gonna be true in Syria, and I'm not sure if it's gonna be, I hope it has such a positive impact, I would like to think that experience in World War II for the U.S. have enabled such movement, like the feminist movements, the civil rights movements, it had at least a role in it, but, I don't know if that will be exactly how it will be in Syria. So ... I'm sure a lot of people are gonna ask this, so I'm gonna talk about how I think this will end. So, from a international relations, international conflicts point of view, the situations here have reached something called a mutually hurting stalemate, neither side are strong enough to completely win, but they're strong enough to kind of keep enduring a fight and keep hurting the other side, to keep the war going. And historically, and statistically speaking, after five years of a civil conflict that reaches this kind of stalemate, there's close to 0% chance of a decisive victory, military victory, as an end. Which I believe, I think a lot of people have realized at this point, neither side are gonna win. After that, the fact that both sides are allied by two very strong coalitions, add to that the ethnic and the religious aspect that the war have taken in Syria, add to that ISIS and all the strategic aspects of Syria and Damascus, and you have yourself just a complete mess. So, I, for how I think this will end, I honestly have no idea. I think ... It's, experienced negotiators and diplomats, who have worked with things like this in the past, and were able to solve stuff that are complicated, people like Lakhdar Brahimi and Staffan de Mistura seem to be just frustrated about to give up, I mean, they reach a wall. Neither side is willing to back down and neither side are willing to talk to the other. But ... Well, so, people are gonna probably ask me where I'm personally at, at a legal point of view, at this point, like I said, I'm an asylum-seeker. So four years ago, I came in here on a student visa. It's called an F1 visa, it's what most international students come on, like the Asian or the Middle-Eastern students on campus are most likely on. It doesn't really provide you with anything other than being able to study, some cases, it will allow you to have an employment on campus, but it will just provide you with the ability to stay in the country as long as you are studying. So shortly after I came here, I applied for an asylum, before I was 17, and for people, I'm sure not that many people are familiar with the asylum process. The way it works, is you submit an application. You send in, you go and give your fingerprints, you eye prints, your medical records, anything you can think of, pretty much, everything. And then you wait. And then after a while, you get a date for an interview with a federal judge. You go to this federal judge, and talk about your case, why you think you should be allowed to stay in the United States, what exactly you are afraid of to go back, how you will benefit the American society, what have you been doing up to that interview. Just everything you would like to help your case with, and then, you go home, and that judge makes a decision. Either yes or no, and then your name gets compared with a bunch of different federal agencies, international agencies, and security agencies, they will check your name against a list of, black lists, like, have you ever been, have you ever committed any violent crimes, have you ever ... Received any military training, have you anything. And the process is a very rigorous process, it's not simple, I mean, my lawyer tells me about people, about this case that he had to deal with, where a man from, I can't remember exactly, but it was an African country. His father was kidnapped by some of the militias, a group that was classified as a terrorist organization, according to the United States government. They kidnapped his father, and they wouldn't release him without a ransom, so, the man had to deal with them. He negotiated, and gave them eventually a ransom. Once they released his father, he escaped here. And once he applied for asylum, and he told them what happened, he was actually denied, because technically, he negotiated with terrorists. And there's many different stories, that are almost ridiculous, if you ever kind of try to defend for yourself, you have committed a crime. But you'll go home, and you wait on a mail, a piece of mail that says yes, you are granted asylum, no, you are not, this is how much time you have left in the United States, please report to your deportation center, or legal punishments will take place. There's many ways after that to try to fight it, but once you get no, it's kind of a, it's a hassle, it's hard to get a yes after that. So I'm personally, and by the way, if you go on the USCIS website, it's called United States Customs Immigration Services, it's the agency responsible for any sort of, all visas, go through it, all asylum processes go through it. If you go ont he website and look at average times of waiting, duration between applying and getting an interview, and getting a decision, the average time between getting an interview and applying, is between six months to a year, and then between getting your interview and hearing a decision is two months to about six months. And by the way, the federal agency is self-funded, almost self-funded, all the money of it comes from applicants' fees, if you wanna send in any application, it costs $300 and $400. To give your finger prints, it costs you $85 biometric fees. So, for people saying that it's costing a lot of taxpayer money, that's just not true, it's self-funded. But for me personally, I applied, and I received an interview after two years. And then it was actually last year I had the interview, and I continue to wait. I have not heard anything, and it's a very frustrating process, it's just, I mean, me and Sandra were talking a little bit earlier, she was an immigration lawyer, and she decided to stop practicing, because of how frustrating this process is, how kind of, you're in the dark, really, you don't know. It's frustrating for me personally, because I, it's not like I'm scared of being deported at any point, I'm living my normal life every day, but it has far more implications. I can't apply to dental schools before I know the answer, most dental schools don't accept international students, and the ones that do have a very slim number of people they accept, and can't get loans, you can't get scholarships, it's just a very frustrating process, I mean, you're, for anyone who goes through med school or dental school process, you know how frustrating it is with normal situations, so imagine adding a factor that you really can't control whatsoever, but is pretty much the most important factor. And there isn't really any way to find out where the process is at, I mean, even if you call, you are, they refuse to talk to you, because of security reasons, your lawyer doesn't know where it's at, so you're completely in the dark. But what I wanna conclude on is that no matter what, how horrible life looks like, everything will be okay. Life keep going on. People move on from their lives, people continue to smile at the end of the day. People are just, humans are extremely adaptive, and they're the most resilient species out there, and no matter what, even death, even this worst situations, people will move on. That's what war does, it exposes societies. It does show the worst, but it also shows the best. It shows how people can unite together, and how they can stay together when they don't really have any other choice. I don't really know how the future looks like for the U.S. and for Syria and for me personally, but I'm very optimistic. I don't know what it will look like in a month or two or whatever, once Trump takes place, but I, I'm extremely optimistic. I mean, I've been, I mean, I have the chance to stand right here and speak to a group of people, and the people have accepted me in here and never made me feel different. I'm a Muslim, and I went to a Catholic high school, and I've never felt discriminated against. People were always happy to invite me over, to Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas parties, just because they weren't really sure what I was gonna do at that time. And I think it's really important to kind of point out and talk b those stories, because it's usually only the bad stories that will get mentioned, and I think people start to lose faith in their neighbors and other citizens, and I think it's important to just note how nice people are usually, and it's the few people that will, that will kinda, you can know some more, and they're much louder. But like I said, I'm very optimistic about the future, and everything I believe, everything have worked out for me, somehow. It's, I think everything in the end will be good and everything will be okay, and if it's not, then it's not the end yet. Thank you everyone, hope you have a good rest of your day. - Alright, so for our first question, what can you say about the role of the U.S. and other developed nations in the economic development in central Damascus and in the growing black market? - The role of the United States. I mean, in any country, you need a lot of foreign investors to make the country work, and that was one of the main, that's always the main problem in a country that's dealing with conflicts inside of it, a lot of the foreign investors pull out, you're dealing with just a crash, right away. Luckily, I mean, I don't know if luckily is the word, but there wasn't much foreign investing at the beginning, in Syria to start with, especially United States. I mean, there was one KFC in Syria, I remember, it was close to my house, but ... I think there's still some investment in Syria, I mean ... I'm sure the weapon market have gone up, the sales have gone up pretty high. I don't know how after everything is done, the money for reconstruction, I think estimates say a few trillion dollars is the cost. I'm not really sure where that money is coming from. I mean, all the embargo on the government is making it even worse. I completely disagree with governments imposing embargoes on governments, because it's really the people that are affected, it's never really the government. But the growing black market is, I don't know how to describe it, but I don't think people have, understand how big the black market is, it's not just dollars, it's not just food, even food is sold in black markets and areas that are, food isn't going into. You have black markets for organs, you have black markets for sex slavery, I'm sure. You have ... For oil. You have black market for, even old artifacts. Everything is being, I mean, that was the main problem in the Egyptian revolution, they had a lot of the museums being stolen and all the artifacts sold in the black market, so ... I don't think that developed countries have a role, I don't think they're really concerned with black markets unless they involve selling of weapons. But that's my opinion on the involvement, it's definitely very devastating to have investors pull out, but there wasn't many western investors to start off with in Syria, at that time. - What can we in Iowa City do to help? - It's a good question. I mean, something like this, I guess would help to start with. I think ... I think change happens in a small time, I don't know if you remember when Janine di Giovanni came and spoke about how even small voices will eventually be heard. I think unity and talking about the problem, it's talking about how, it's not just people are dealing with death, there's many things. People can relate to not having electricity for 12 hours a day, you can definitely relate to what that would be. I think it's sympathy more than anything, for people who don't really understand. I think just pointing at someone and telling them, you're wrong, because you don't want immigrants in here, you're wrong because whatever, that just never works. I mean, from your personal experience, when does that work, ever? I think talking to people, and telling them how we're not different, I mean, I went to Catholic high school and all the things I learned about Christianity was that 90% of it is exactly the same as Islam, they're, the same stories, same ideas, be good to your neighbor, don't steal. So I think just being open and encouraging talking about, just don't let it die, I mean, don't let people be left, I think that's the only thing you can do, write to your representatives. I mean, that's the beauty of being in this country. You can talk to other people you've elected. Oh, areas for daily prayers. - Sorry. Where did you learn your english, and do you have any problems finding areas for your daily prayer? - I'm sure the second question is part of what happened on Ohio State, but ... I learned a lot of my English, like I said, Simpsons, I think watching TV shows and movies is a great way to learn a language and advice for anyone that is planning on going abroad, to try to study abroad, is immerse yourself in the culture, don't go to areas where, I see, mistake a lot of people do, is they go to Barcelona, and sign up for an American College with easy classes, and try to party, which is fine, I mean, it's fun, you'll have fun memories, but you won't have the experience that will actually grow who you are and force you to be more knowledgeable of the language. I think, associate yourself from the people who are speaking the same language, that's what you are going to be doing for the rest of your life, and force yourself to see the culture. Learning a language through a textbook is completely different than going and actually living in that country. I think TV shows and movies will help you very much. Areas on campus to pray? I'm not really, I'm not very practicing personally, but I think ... I don't really know if there's any areas on campus to pray for Muslims. I feel like it's a pretty small campus, if you want to, you can go home. I'm sure if you can find an area, if you were to ask a teacher if he would allow you to pray for ten minutes in their office, they wouldn't really care that much. I'm not really sure, to be completely honest, maybe I should look into it. Yeah. - How often do you get to talk to your family? How are they surviving? Are any of them able to work? - I try to talk to my family every day. It's harder, I mean, I have school, and the time difference, I only really get to talk to them around this time, from one to three. It's like an eight hour difference. They are surviving very well, they are very, like I said, they're in the middle of Damascus, so they are surviving better than others, and like I said, that's exactly what I was talking about yesterday, they were saying, no matter what, life keeps going on. They're happy that I'm here and in a better position than I would be in Syria. They're kinda concerned, at that point, they're more concerned about what's going on with my sister and my brother, they want them to kind of leave. They feel like they've lived enough to kind of just want us to have the more perfect life. And they continue, my dad is almost 65, I believe, and he continues to work because he wants to provide for us, so ... I can't appreciate anything more than that. Oh, yeah, sure. - Is that sit, or get? - Fit. - Oh, fit. Where do the Alanites sit ... - Alawites. - Alawites, my apologies, fit, into Islam? - If you're familiar with Islam, there is ... It's divided, a lot. Every time you go into another divide, there's more divides. We start with Sunnis and Shia, then in Shia there's Alawites, and I don't even know how many different provisions, and then Sunnis, there's four different ... I don't even know what they're called in english, but I refuse to identify myself as Sunni or Shia or Alawite, I think it's just ways to further divide people. It's, Sunni and Shia, the main problem, started 1400 years ago, over who was the leader of the country, I think it's a very stupid argument, and people need to move on and live in the present. Where do Alawites fit in Islam? They're part of Islam, they believe in what they believe, they are a large group of people in Syria, and they should have their rights, just like any other ethnicity, in the country. I refuse to say, I am Sunni or Shia, and I think that's what divides people more, because the similarities are far more than any sort of the differences, it's just silly. No. - I want to thank everyone for coming, and especially I want to thank Moe, as well, for his wonderful talk. On behalf of the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council, please give a big thank you to Moe Shakally. Thank you. I also thank our sponsors, the University of Iowa, Honors Program, Inertia International Program, and the Stanley UI Foundation, support organization. For their generous support, and we also thank today's special sponsors, Mace and Kay Braverman and Ed Zastro, and we thank city channel four for making our programs available for viewing audiences. Moe, as a small token of our appreciation. You know what's coming. We present you with the highly coveted Iowa City Foreign Relation Council's mug. Thank you for joining us, we are adjourned today.