Sami Eliya provides history of Syria and context for the factors affecting the current conflict to Rotary Members
Posted by Peter Brannigan
on Sep 12, 2013
Our Wyckoff-Midland Park club was happy to welcome Sami Eliya from Syria who provided a very insightful background to Syria, its history and peoples and the richness of its cultures. His balanced summary of events over the last 40 years both economically, geographically and culturally provided a valuable context to understand the current conflict.
Our Wyckoff-Midland Park club was happy to welcome Sami Eliya from Syria who provided a very insightful background to Syria, its history and peoples and the richness of its cultures.
Sami has a unique insight with his family coming from Syria and certainly opened our eyes to the richness of the history of the country. He also clearly communicated a much deeper understanding than we normally get in the sound bytes of modern media coverage. He painted an extensive backup starting with ancient history, including biblical references such as St Paul being converted 'on the way to Damascus' and the fact that Syria contributed five of the early popes.
He also explained the geographic setting beside the ancient Euphrates river and the borders with Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Jordan. Its geographic closeness to Europe was also illustrated by the fact that Rome is about the same distance from Damascus as we are from Florida.
Sami highlighted the many ruling entities over the past 5,500 years which was certainly eye-opening. Recent history starts over 500 years ago with the Ottoman Empire and evolves through the various world wars to the Republic being formed after the war and the current rulers coming to power in the 70's.
A few interesting factors that triggered the current conflict were the greater dependence on growing Cotton rather than Wheat (which people could also eat in difficult times) coupled with Turkey building a dam and reducing by 75% the amount of water available in the Euphrates for irrigation in downstream Syria.
Several other contributing factors were explained in a very balanced fashion. All of us lucky enough to hear this talk will have a much broader understanding of the complexities involved in the current conflict as we watch it unfold on the news.
Sami has a unique insight with his family coming from Syria and certainly opened our eyes to the richness of the history of the country. He also clearly communicated a much deeper understanding than we normally get in the sound bytes of modern media coverage. He painted an extensive backup starting with ancient history, including biblical references such as St Paul being converted 'on the way to Damascus' and the fact that Syria contributed five of the early popes.
He also explained the geographic setting beside the ancient Euphrates river and the borders with Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Jordan. Its geographic closeness to Europe was also illustrated by the fact that Rome is about the same distance from Damascus as we are from Florida.
Sami highlighted the many ruling entities over the past 5,500 years which was certainly eye-opening. Recent history starts over 500 years ago with the Ottoman Empire and evolves through the various world wars to the Republic being formed after the war and the current rulers coming to power in the 70's.
A few interesting factors that triggered the current conflict were the greater dependence on growing Cotton rather than Wheat (which people could also eat in difficult times) coupled with Turkey building a dam and reducing by 75% the amount of water available in the Euphrates for irrigation in downstream Syria.
Several other contributing factors were explained in a very balanced fashion. All of us lucky enough to hear this talk will have a much broader understanding of the complexities involved in the current conflict as we watch it unfold on the news.
Thanks to Sami and his cousin Eliya (both below) who is our Rotary Club's current Vice President for providing such timely and balanced insight into the current conflict.
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