Rebirth: Life-Changing Years of Advocacy at GMUN

            On a cold, winter’s evening in 2008, I landed in a country empty and mysterious to me, with nothing but sand dunes as far as the eye could see. I was with my mother, and we were going there to live with my father. Eighteen winters have come and gone since then and, in that time, most of my childhood memories have faded, save for a few captured in grainy, nostalgic videos and photographs. Despite this, I still remember distinctly how my father held me in his arms, having not seen me for many months. I was in a quiet albeit beautiful place called Qatar, unknown to the rest of the world at the time, and I was only three years of age.

            Three more years came and went, and it was now time for me to begin my schooling. At the time, my parents planned to remain in Qatar for a few years and then return home to Syria, so I was enrolled in the country’s only school that taught the Syrian curriculum. Months went by and, for reasons unknown to my innocent mind at the time, my parents chose to extend their contracts and continue their work in Qatar. The year was 2011, and we never returned to Syria.

            Soon after the war began, the environment at my small elementary school began to change drastically. Different children hoisted different flags, discrimination based on ethnicity, birthplace, and identity became commonplace, racial slurs became a regular part of every child’s vocabulary, violent fist-fights broke out on a daily basis and, yes, there were even days when I was bullied, beaten, bloodied, and bruised by the other boys because of where I was born. Teachers never interfered, and many were themselves party to this discrimination. It was not the kind of environment that my parents wanted their child to be raised in, an environment that sent me home with bruises and poor grades, and encouraged one child to hate another.

            A few months later, I was transferred to the American Academy School. Even though I guessed my way through the school’s entrance exam and barely spoke English, I learned over time. For a year, the other boys bullied me there as well, mostly because the language barrier made me an easy target. As a result, I never participated in group activities and ate the lunch my mother packed for me every day all alone, on a tree stump by the side of the cafeteria, or in a dark, empty bathroom stall. In a year, I went from being a lively child with hopes, dreams, aspirations, and the highest grades in his class, to being a mute. I just stayed quiet for days on end, and never spoke.

            In this sea of despair, I found solace in the American values I was taught by my second-grade English teacher, who never gave up on me despite my linguistic weakness. I was mesmerized by stories of this distant, faraway place that they called America, the land of the free and home of the brave. I sat for hours listening to speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King and President Kennedy, believing that someday, America would have a place for me too, as long as I continued to study and work hard. I always thought to myself, “I wish I could write speeches like Dr. King… I wish I could deliver speeches like President Kennedy…”

            For the next ten years, I spent most of my time quiet and alone. My grades steadily improved until I was once again at the top of my class in high school and, day by day, I came closer to realizing my dream of studying medicine and becoming a doctor. After all these years, however, I still hadn’t reconciled with Syria, or with my childhood of pain. I wanted to give speeches about the discrimination and pain that I had to deal with… but I just didn’t have the heart to write speeches like Dr. King, and didn’t have the voice to deliver them like President Kennedy.

            One day, an invitation came in the mail to participate in Georgetown University’s Model United Nations (MUN) conference, where hundreds of high school students from countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and beyond all gathered in one place, at Qatar’s own Education City, to discuss the world’s most pressing issues. I signed up, not knowing what to expect. The topic of discussion for the three-day conference was modern-day slavery, and I was representing Australia.

            I still remember arriving anxiously to Education City on the first day of the conference, hours early for whatever reason. Almost no one was there, but the first person I ran into was coincidentally Mr. Jibin Koshy, one of the lead organizers of the conference, who helped me clear my mind and focus on the task ahead. Of course, I had no idea who he was, nor that I would be interviewing him nearly three years later for an article in the Gulf Times. Anyway, he soon left and I spent the next few hours strolling silently around GUQ, soaking in the serenity, oblivious to the person I would be transformed to in these halls over the next few years.

            I wandered on and on, and eventually found myself facing a pair of tall, heavy wooden doors. With some force, I pushed one open and was greeted by a grand auditorium housing hundreds of empty seats. It felt like the beginning of something important – I just didn’t know what. Later, I was told to head there for my first of many sessions on the Human Rights Council, Georgetown’s largest committee. I took my seat in the front row, and waited. Seat by seat, the once-empty auditorium filled. I turned around and, seeing the crowd gathered behind me, quickly turned back, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

            Time came for opening speeches, and I was frightened. I raised my placard slowly, then swiftly lowered it again in fear, over and over again. I felt my heart beating at a thousand miles an hour, and my body suddenly go cold and begin to shiver. Eventually, the committee rapporteur noticed and called on me to begin my speech, in which I described economic, wage-based slavery as “the same old sins of the past four hundred years, merely dressed in modern clothing”. To my surprise, no one laughed or seemed confused. People were really listening and thinking and connecting one by one to the things I was saying. Once you experience being listened to for the first time, everything begins to change… the way you walk, the way you talk, and even the way you think. You just have to take raise your placard for the first time and take that first step, which is always the most difficult and unsteady.

            Over the past five years, from the day I delivered my first speech til today, I’ve been fortunate enough to be named valedictorian of my high school and excel academically, allowing me to study medicine at some of the world’s highest-ranked universities, train at some of the world’s best medical facilities in Qatar and beyond, pursue ground-breaking medical research projects at the University of Nicosia, study politics and macroeconomics at Arizona State University, write for globally-recognized newspapers like the Gulf Times about education and healthcare, train in journalism at Al Jazeera, one of the best independent media outlets in the world, and receive multiple awards and honours for my work, both during my time as a regular participant at Georgetown University’s annual Model United Nations conferences and beyond. None of this would have been possible had I remained the same, quiet child eating his lunch all alone on a tree stump next to an open field.

            I still remember the day I was named the “Best Delegate of the Conference” out of more than six hundred other delegates who had travelled to Doha from all over the world. I still remember the standing ovation that lasted minutes, and the feeling of the crowd’s applause falling onto my skin like drops of rain carried by the wind, washing away the pain and punishment that my childhood self had endured for so long. I would still be that boy, had it not been for these conferences, and had I not been forced to speak to such large crowds, despite my worries and fears. I would still be that boy, had I not been forced to grow strong after having been weak for so long, and had I not been forced to be loud after having been silent for so long as well.

            On stage, I always wondered… where are the bullies from ten years ago who beat me for my ethnicity? Where are the bullies who mocked me as a child for not knowing how to speak English? Where are the people who stayed at the foot of the mountain, pointing and laughing as I and many others like me stumbled our way up? Where were the doubters when I was named “Best Delegate” four times in a row for representing countries I’ve never been to and working-class people I’ve never met, but who struggled with poverty and pain in the same way that I did? Where were they when I was applauded by the six hundred opponents that I bested to reach where I am today?

            Even as I train to become a doctor, the socioeconomic understanding of the world that Georgetown instilled in me continues to inspire the way I apply and practice medicine today, in a way different to most of my colleagues. I’ve realized that today more than ever before, saving lives takes much more than medicine and, to paraphrase John Green, that medicine only treats people equally when society does. Nevertheless, I cannot change the world alone, but instead only push the world in the general direction of change, and hope that future generations continue to push in that same direction as well. If enough generations, for enough time, with enough strength continue to push our world forward, perhaps then there won’t be any more children left behind to fend for themselves, in the same way that I was left behind all those years ago. Perhaps then, dreams and aspirations will fill the heart of every child in the world, and they’ll all learn to write like Dr. King, and speak like President Kennedy to a world so loving.