Dr. Curt Rhodes

Things are different now than they were then. In 1982, an uprising against the government of the Ba’ath party regime was brought to a brutal end in the city of Hama. No cell phone cameras were there to make things visible. The lesson? No toleration for any opposition. 

 

More lessons. Everyone took extreme care in conversation. Anyone could inform on anyone. There were no buffers between any accusation and any consequence. People disappeared into prisons, tortured, murdered – bodies discarded in piles. The evidence of “erased” people lying dead in mass graves waited to be found. 

 

And the evidence has been found. Fear of violence and unrestrained brutality ensured that grief and anger stayed quiet, for a time.  The living paid a great price, just for being alive.

 

My, but the country was beautiful. How hospitable the people. How ancient the history in every corner of the land. How marvelous the food. 

 

But, there were some other lessons, too. In that time of repression and self-imposed constraint, it was still possible to do good things with civil authorities for peripheral people – like juveniles in trouble with authorities, kids at risk of dropping out of school, mentally challenged adults, small businesses for women – all of them in a humanitarian space where we could grow partnerships with Syrians in Syria. 

 

The Syrian Society for Social Development (SSSD) was officially launched, and we cooperated together to renovate the Khalid bin al Waleed juvenile correctional facility in southern suburbs of Damascus and set up a pro-social mentoring program. I, Muthanna, was one of the Jordanians from Questscope who worked with SSSD staff and those at the correctional facility. 

 

In 2010, I, Curt, sat with the mayor of Aleppo over an evening dinner that began around 12:30am after a stunning concert performance by a virtuoso Syrian violinist who had performed in various music conservatories in Europe. The mayor, a civil engineering graduate from the Sorbonne in Paris, fluent in Arabic, French and English, was exuberant that in 2011, Aleppo would be celebrated as the “Capital of Mediterranean Cuisine.” We collaborated closely with the mayor and the Municipality of Aleppo for mentoring and youth projects in two low-income urban sites.

 

Things are different now. In 2011, another uprising took place in the town of Daraa’ in the south of Syria. This time, cell phones made it visible to all Syrians. This time, the brutality could not be hidden and reactions spread across the country. This time, the Ba’ath party regime could not control all power and all territory. Russia, the long-term ally of the country helped get some control. Iran helped. But bits of the country split off. The US took sides against the regime and against those considered to be extremist. In this power vacuum, lots of battles using proxy forces ramped up. Enclaves of people dotted around the country suffered massively under assault by the regime, by outside powers, and by inside militias. No safe places.

 

In 2011, the first of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees came to Jordan. Five hundred thousand of them also walked through Europe later to get to Germany. More thousands took to small boats to reach the shores of Greece. Half of Syria’s population eventually was displaced outside the country.  In the Zaatari refugee camp (125,000 inhabitants at its peak – in the north of Jordan), we established a refugee-led Youth Center that eventually included a photography school, music studio and music therapy, sports, mentoring and trauma counseling programs, giving real second chances to thousands of youth and families each year.

 

One afternoon in the Spring of 2016, I, Curt, met with a tall Syrian teen over small cups of bitter Arabic coffee. He recounted his experience of being “caught” by the police during an anti-government demonstration in 2012 when he was 14 and throwing rocks at those police. He fully expected to be abused and badly treated when he was sentenced to “detention-incarceration.”  Instead, he told me how well he was treated, helped to continue his education, provided a mentor who really listened to him.

 

When he was released after 6 months, he fled to Jordan where I met him. He had been confined in the Khalid bin al Waleed center – the very place where we had developed the capacities of Syrian staff to mentor youth, support them and give them true second chances.  Imagine, in the worst of times, a place of detention was turned into the best of safe places by Syrians who believed in doing good to their young people. Syria is a place that it is wise to invest in, with good will, even in the “bad times.”

 

It is great wisdom to think of Syria and Syrians as true treasures that need space, resources and friends/champions to get second chances to do amazing things. 

 

The challenges before Syria and Syrians as just as real this week in these new circumstances as they were 2 weeks ago under a ruthless dictatorship – that turned the power of the State to treat its own citizens as enemies.  But this week people are able to think and speak freely. They can search for lost ones whom they had to pretend to not remember and not to miss deeply. They can be truly human in their joy and in their sorrow – with hope that is also a bit scary that those challenges can be overcome. 

 

Syria was a drug-dealing, narco-state, with an elite class that extracted every penny possible for themselves. Syria is still the target of multiple outside forces that have their own plans for Syria. It will be hard to overcome the deep feelings of hurt, vengeance and need for revenge. With 90% of its people in poverty, an entire economy has to be rebuilt. Armed militias will have to commit to a shared political and social vision for all Syrians to feel and be a part of. It will be hard, but it will be hopeful.

 

The hopeful future of Syria will amaze everyone – Some people will return home and plant vegetables outside their front door. And others will remain outside and continue the lives that they risked their lives to save. The future will unfold in thousands of shapes, for each Syrian family to choose to thrive, not just survive.

 

Escape from voiceless, hopeless survival mode into thriving mode – free to turn aspiration into action – is a human thing for all of us. A human thing that Syria holds up to us all to remember and to strive towards.

 

What a privilege for us in Questscope to know something of Syria and Syrians over these past 40 years of Questscope’s history. And to anticipate both the struggles and the achievements that the coming year will bring for rebuilding this beautiful Syria once again.

 

Syria makes us glad today to be human beings, to guard carefully the freedom of being human in a dehumanizing world. This is what we do, all together!

 

Muthanna and Curt

Curt pic1
Founder & Chief Vision Officer

Dr. Curt Rhodes

Curt Rhodes has spent close to 40 years working with, and on behalf of, marginalized communities and young people across the Middle East.

As the recipient of the 2014 Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, Dr. Rhodes was recognized by Tufts University for his demonstrated compassion and tenacity in creating a highly effective and determined organization dedicated to the survival and nurturing of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised.

In recognition of his work with marginalized youth in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and in the region, Dr. Rhodes was awarded 2011 Social Entrepreneur of the Year for the Middle East and North Africa by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Rhodes began his career in the Middle East in the early 1980s, as Assistant Dean in the School of Public Health at the American University of Beirut. During the 1982 invasion of west Beirut, he volunteered in a community-based clinic alongside students and friends, doing around-the-clock triage for wounded and ill civilians. That was when the seed idea for Questscope began to take shape. Living and working with people in great suffering compelled him to find a way that he and others in the Middle East could assist the most vulnerable: participating with the voiceless ones in invisible communities.

In 1988, Questscope was founded with the goal of putting the last, first. From the beginning, Questscope worked closely with local communities, identifying their aspirations and together addressing their greatest needs.