| Mazen Salhi | Engineer | Canada |
Re: ‘If you had the choice what would you change in Syria?’
I have been thinking and engaging in discussions with friends about this question for over three weeks now. The question seems simple enough, yet if one probes the immediate suggestions that come to mind, one quickly finds that they raise many more questions that need further discussion. But come to think of it, that is probably exactly what Alex had in mind forwarding the subject. So, in a thousand words or less, here??s my bid to this month??s excellent question.
Ask most Syrian high school students: ??what career path are you planning to take?? and the answer is almost universally a technical branch: Medicine, Engineering, Computer Science, Trade and Commerce, etc. Management, Law, Humanities, Political Science, and Sociology do not mean as much as they should in our part of the world, unfortunately. These fields will not land you a good paying job neither in Syria nor the Gulf states, and let??s face it; we all need the financial security, and most feel they must leave Syria to ensure it. Dominant for decades in Syria (and even more so in other Arab
states,) this trend has left our pool of human resources severely lacking in skills essential to running a modern functional state and society. I am not undermining the qualifications of the many outstanding individuals within Syria. I am simply pointing to the well known fact that Syria is losing its most precious resource on two fronts: migration and orientation. Syria loses many tens of thousands of its best minds every year to other countries, as well as to a severely imbalanced socio-economic orientation.
In my opinion, ??the most essential change? needed is to stop losing this most precious of all resources, to stop the bleeding of the priceless Syrian minds and hearts. But how do you go about doing that? How do you convince Syrians that this is their country and it is much more than a goods and services dispenser? How do you get them to think more on what they can do for their country and less on what their country can do for them? Well, first of all, we need to ask the question why.
We can site hundreds of reasons, as I??m sure we all know, so I??m not going to ponder on them, but will state what I think is the fundamental reason. I think that most Syrians may have stopped believing in the system a long time ago. You see, when you lose this innermost faith, no remedy seems to work after that. After all, why should the miserable clerk not pocket a small ikramiyeh when he knows that his boss is doing it and getting away with it?
Why should he stop throwing garbage in the streets when he knows that some people have thrown poisonous waste in the land and not only got away with it, but made a kill of money as well. Why should he operate a fair business when he knows that certain individuals can muster exemption laws that only last for a few days, just long enough to get certain cargo into customs and make a huge profit from it. The examples are countless.
Humans will always defy the simplistic, flat logic of determinism; any approach to social issues must take that into account. Raise the salaries by a 25% and you will not necessarily get a 25% raise in approval. Open more private universities and the brain drain may even accelerate in stead of slowing down. If the people do not believe in the system, nothing will ever work.
For the people to believe in a system, it need be neither perfect nor flawless nor omnipotent. Such a system is indeed achievable, but it does need a number of elements, however, to get it started. It needs leadership, communication, and management. It needs consistency and equality in implementation. And it needs honest-to-God honesty. Does that seem too trivial or naive? I do not think so. In social and political issues, people have neither the time nor the means to form a complete understanding of what is going on. As a survival strategy, they have to build a model of the things they do not fully understand. This model is called upon in every single decision making situation that they face. Honesty and transparency will filter through the many barriers of communication and will influence this model that everyone has to have whether they??re aware of it or not.
My recommendations would have to be very general, but they can probably be summed in the following:
? Reach out to the people in every way possible. For instance, I think we need to see the president and other top officials address the people more often. We need to hear them talk about the concerns of the Syrian people and about the road ahead with genuine care. We need to see them admit the issues at hand and tell us what they are doing to correct them, and we need to see them follow up on them.
? Assemble teams of highly qualified specialists to conduct research and study projects for every ministry. Draw upon the excellent Syrian resources available world wide and build these think tanks. Their studies should make recommendations that are then taken up and implemented by the relevant ministries.
? Fix the judicial system and stop corruption. Corruption destroys the consistency in the system, which will make the people lose faith. One of the two has to go, and I think that the cost of ending corruption is less than the cost for losing the people??s faith in the system.
(7 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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