Planet Syria’s Call for Solidarity Answered

As the conflict in Syria wears on, activists and supporters continue to seek new and innovative ways to stay involved, stay hopeful, and promote awareness. One such non-violent awareness and solidarity campaign, which garnered global response, happened this past Tuesday, April 7^th hosted by Planet Syria.

From Dubai to Los Angeles to Kenya and Prague, even Mars!*, people voiced their support for Syria and suffering Syrians through pictures and posters and songs and words drawn in the sand. Creativity was not in short supply as people took to the streets and social media pages to extend collective, heart-felt support for the injustice and war in Syria, which has absorbed so much space on newspaper headlines, but comparatively little space on political agendas or international humanitarian relief projects.

In an attempt to put the crisis in numbers, over two thirds of the Syrian population is currently in need of emergency assistance, with an even greater percentage internally displaced without proper food, shelter, or government organization. According to MercyCorps, the number of recorded internally displaced Syrians has reached 7.6 million – a number nearly 1 million greater than the total population of Washington State. And as far as official international support goes, Amnesty International lists the neighboring Gulf countries of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain; as well Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore as being among the many who have refused to offer any resettlement options to Syrian refugees. In addition to this, humanitarian aid for the Syrian crisis – coming mostly from Western countries – has only decreased over time. According to the International Rescue Committee, by 2014 the percentage of the funding deemed necessary to successfully support civilians still living inside Syria being provided by aid organizations had decreased from 71% to 57% in just over 12 months.

Aid agencies place much of the blame for this humanitarian deficiency on the inability of the UN Security Council to implement its resolutions. For instance, Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons has often been condemned by the Security Council – in fact, resolution 2118 was adopted unanimously in 2013 calling for the end of chemical warfare in Syria, but there has not yet been any active or punitive movement to enforce this resolution and prevent Assad’s use of chemical bombs. The same goes for talk of no-fly zones which would monitor and effectively eliminate Assad’s army’s use of bombs of any kind targeting civilians. Adequate protection of Syrian civilians from Assad’s terror, as well as ISIS invasion, remains ideational at best. Countless talks, discussions, and forums on Syria are held internationally, certainly. Unfortunately, debate, internal squabbling, and verbal criticism will not rebuild bombed homes or make up for the four years of education Syrian school children have now missed.

The unofficial international response to the crisis, however, is strikingly more encouraging – thanks in part to efforts put forth by Plant Syria. On April 7^th, in New York, via twitter for instance, young supporters lined up with paper cups playing telephone with Syria to let Syrians know “We Hear You”:

In Beirut, via the Planet Syria twitter page, 20 volunteers stood holding one letter apiece which, viewed as a slideshow, spell out “Planet Syria we hear you”:

Over 120 people in Bordeaux, France, organized through the group Ensemble Pour La Syria, took a moment to pause with signs imploring an end to civilian massacres, acts of terrorism, human rights violations, bombardments, and arbitrary detentions in Syria and around the world:

More examples from this day of global solidarity with Syria include Anthony Colocho, who shared a song he had written entitled “Don’t Drop Your Bombs”; pictures supporting specific groups affected by the Syrian crisis – such as mothers –posted online:

signs held in front of the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, Germany; a short video of support shared from Brazil; Malaysians posing with the Syrian Revolutionary flag; poems posted to Planet Syria’s Facebook page as well as pictures of martyrs and family members lost to the conflict – all in commemoration of and unity for a Syria in crisis. And each of these efforts and powerful actions came at the simple call to action put out by Planet Syria.

Planet Syria is an online campaign which has brought more than 85 nonviolent activist groups together – including the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the Syrian American Council, and the Kurdish Women’s Union – which, combined, represent tens of thousands of Syrians. Planet Syria attempts to address the Syrian conflict from a new perspective – one that focuses on the global ramifications of any crisis and recognizes the intensive, cooperative, international effort needed to bring the crisis in Syria to an end. The Planet Syria campaign aims for two things: first, to stop the bombing of Syrian civilians; and second, to reconnect lines of tolerance and reestablish routines of coexistence within and without Syria to end the violence through peace talks. To accomplish these goals, Planet Syria does not lobby governments or state bodies, believing that global officials have failed Syria out of their own self-interested politicking. Instead, Planet Syria reaches out to individuals – individuals willing to sign Planet Syria’s solidarity statement, share the horrors of the Syrian crisis with others, and ultimately raise awareness and assemble a collective voice that can influence change better and faster than any council, president, or prime minister. Genuine empathy and a collective will to enforce change are the tools Planet Syria has chosen to end the violence in Syria; violence which has become a rapidly expanding proxy conflict.

This mentality that hope for Syria springs from individual hearts and commitment is upheld by people involved with another important and unique organization – members of which set aside time to participate in Planet Syria’s day of solidarity on April 7^th: Project Amal ou Salam. Project Amal ou Salam is an organization working to mitigate the chronic lack of education resources in Syria and Syrian refugee camps. Because there is no future for Syria without strong, educated, healthy children, Project Amal ou Salam works to ensure that displaced children both inside and outside of Syria are not neglected or forgotten in the chaos. Project Amal ou Salam is peace-focused and emphasizes constructive means of education which deliver healing, inclusive, and innovative uses of sports and arts to better prepare Syria’s children to cope with grief and loss, and envision non-extremists societies. Like Planet Syria, those who support Project Amal ou Salam do so because they are driven, determined, and invested in Syria’s future and concern themselves with informing their peers and surrounding communities about the conflict.

Because of the similarity between Planet Syria’s and Project Amal ou Salam’s grass-root campaigns in support of Syria, one last April 7^th post deserves to be shared. In coordination with the hundreds of others around the globe posting photos and thoughts, Founder and Director of Amal ou Salam, Nousha Kabawat, joined with friends while in Prague to Stand With Syria. As a group, they painted the words “Stand with Syria” on the John Lennon Wall – a wall covered in over 30 years of paint once serving as a peaceful outlet against the Czech communist regime. Today, the wall’s symbolism has grown and now holds a greater global signification of peace and love – a pertinent location for a Syria out-of-place, lost in legislative red tape, but supported by hundreds of devoted and involved individuals world-wide whose connections were made visible, however briefly, on April 7^th, 2015.

*A message from “Planet Mars to Planet Syria”: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10205835111532610