'No one I know was proud of being Syrian until last week'

Jihad Shoshara was looking forward to an overseas adventure in the Peace Corps after he graduated from the University of Chicago. But his father, an immigrant from the Middle East, and his mother, a second-generation Mexican American, were apprehensive.

Shoshara had never traveled outside the United States before, and his parents were less than thrilled that he didn't have a say in where he'd be assigned. As a compromise, the couple suggested their first-born scrap his Peace Corps plan and fly more than 6,000 miles away to a country where they were confident he'd be safe: Syria.

"I couldn't turn them down because I had never met my (paternal) family who lived there," my friend Shoshara, now 55, told me of the pivotal decision he made in the summer of 1991.

Days after landing in Damascus, Shoshara wondered what he had gotten himself into as his eyes glazed over the stark, minimalist "Soviet bloc"-style architecture and innumerable Hafez al-Assad posters that reminded Syria's citizens who was in charge.

The class hierarchy and insularity that permeated Syrian society were just as suffocating. Most painful was the self-censorship Shoshara was forced to adopt, stalling the meaningful and honest conversations he yearned for. Blurt the wrong thing about the Assad regime and "someone could get hurt," he was informed.

Yet the deflating challenges and sullen buildings weren't enough to deter Shoshara from falling in love with the Syrian people, who showered him with kindness and compassion right up to the last moments of his yearlong visit.

When a panicked Shoshara realized he had misplaced the money that he had set aside to cover an exorbitant exit visa fee, an uncle searched the airport crowd and approached a man he vaguely knew. The acquaintance smiled, opened his wallet and lent the cash.

"This is how the Arabs are," the uncle said, turning to Shoshara.

That generosity and the deep connection Shoshara formed with his Syrian relatives lured him back. He popped in after graduating from medical school and made another trip to Syria before marrying Sofia Shakir, my childhood friend and classmate. The couple went again a few more times with their three children in tow, beaming with excitement whenever they drove past Umayyad Square, the historic roundabout built by a company that Shoshara's grandfather co-owned.

Assad’s ouster: ‘I wouldn’t allow myself to believe it’

The civil war that raged in Syria for nearly 14 years put an end to those excursions. Shoshara didn't dare try to enter the country, as he faced arrest, or worse, for his so-called illicit activities. His crimes? Treating Syrian refugees on international medical missions with the Syrian American Medical Society since 2015. Anyone suspected of caring for a patient who the Assad government considered an enemy was labeled a "supporter of terrorism," Shoshara, a pediatrician, explained.

With the recent ouster of Bashar al-Assad, Shoshara, who lives in La Grange, is no longer deemed a threat for helping Syria's desperate former residents.

"I wouldn't allow myself to believe it," Shoshara said of the collapse of the Assad family's brutal rule, which included systematic torture and extrajudicial killings. "No one I know was proud of being Syrian up until last week. This was the will of the Syrian people. They did this. There was no third party involved. They were the ones who made it happen."

Shoshara hopes to return to his father's homeland at some point, fully accepting that the sea of outstretched arms that embraced him in the past has nearly dried up on Syrian soil. He likens the paternal side of his family to an ornate crystal chandelier that brightly dangled over Damascus until it was sent crashing down in 2011, sending its shattered pieces to Germany, Austria, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco.

The experiences of his relatives and the refugees he's met make it difficult for Shoshara to stomach the rhetoric of xenophobic Europeans, fellow Americans and others who disparage newcomers as opportunistic leeches.

"Nobody wants to be a refugee. No one wants to leave their homes," Shoshara said. "There were many middle-class professionals I met in the camps. These people could be us."

Shoshara said it's important that the U.S. government doesn't "look at Syria as a security issue, but as a people, human rights issue."

"We have to ensure that the Syrians enjoy the freedoms we promulgate and espouse, because we have not done a good job at supporting other people who want the same things we do," he said.

While Shoshara appreciates the encouraging, celebratory calls he's been receiving, he's less enthused when the good will peters out into trepidation over the possibility of religious militants taking control.

Too soon, said Shoshara, who, for now is cautiously optimistic about Syria's future. Let the Syrian people's jubilation soak in for a few days before dampening their already weary spirit, he suggested.

The old chandeliers may have burned out, but there's already a strong glow returning through the thousands of faces pulsating with joy.

Rummana Hussain is a columnist and member of the Sun-Times Editorial Board.

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