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TCU 360

TCU 360

All TCU. All the time.

TCU 360

Students discuss religious topics in a small group. (Photo courtesy of tcuwesley.org)
Wednesday nights at TCU’s Methodist campus ministry provide religious exploration and fellowship
By Boots Giblin, Staff Writer
Published Mar 27, 2024
Students at the Wesley said they found community on Wednesday nights.

Violence and protests in Syria continue

Liberty, democracy, equality and peace are essential parts of the free world, the building blocks of a good society and a successful personal life. Yet these goals get lost in the torrents of election-year debates, media frenzies and a glut of information.

Reassuringly, we can be reminded of the importance of values and of the world’s changing forces by briefly stopping in Syria, the conflict-ridden Middle Eastern country between Iraq and Turkey.

The American Revolution ended 229 years ago, and the apex of the Civil Rights Movement passed over four decades ago. What, then, do Americans have in memory that will allow them to understand citizens rising up to claim and assert their freedoms?

Favoring the tiny Alawite minority, prohibiting freedom of expression and harboring terrorism, the oppressive one-party system has stifled and angered Syrian civilians for decades. In response, under the regime of Bashar al-Assad, 3,000 civilians have been killed and 30,000 have been detained in the seven-month span from March to October 2011.

The Syrian example shows the cost and causes of a struggle for liberty, of which all United States citizens must be reminded as they participate in and support their institutions of government and strong democracy. America and all countries avoid chaos only because each citizen gives their daily share to the defense of freedom.

Valuing the American system and watching the Syrian conflict is important because democracy has increasing company. Almost 62 percent of the world’s population in 2006 lived under some form of representative government, and the number has only increased with the overthrow of regimes across the Middle East and North Africa. The increase in functioning, free and open countries in the world will improve the awareness, knowledge and access of all.

Syria has had the benefit of the Arab League, a group of governments in the region, sending monitors to observe and critique the behavior of the government during the course of the uprising. While Syrians still suffer and civil war rages on, the willingness of one of the world’s most conflicted regions to promote truth and authority in one of its countries is remarkable. More and more people, governments and organizations put their faith in democracy with each passing year.
Young Americans must pay attention to Syria because they are intimately connected with what occurs there. No action in the world today can escape its effects on the lives and courses of people even if they are countries and continents away.

The Obama administration has participated in sanctions against the Assad regime and has once again adopted the “leading from behind” strategy used in Libya to encourage political change, while international journalists sneak across borders, braving death to report on the uprisings.

If and when the Syrian government falls, as have so many other governments in the past year, the cascading dominoes will affect the lives of every person in their preservation, respect and defense of liberty. Knowledge is the key to being prepared to serve as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in a world filling with democratic movements and connections, which will inevitably bind us all together. Take Syria seriously.

Pearce Edwards is a junior political science and history double major from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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