Saria Samakie Shares Stories of Revolution
Saria Samakie, a senior at King’s Academy in Jordan and founder of non-profit organization Fikra 3al Mashi, spoke at Friday’s Assembly, reflecting on his turbulent childhood and three kidnappings. His words moved the audience to an immediate standing ovation and more than one hundred Facebook shares of a video recording of his speech later that night.
Born in Canada to Syrian parents, Samakie enjoyed the privileges of living in North America. However, at the age of six, his father decided to move the family back to Aleppo, Syria in the hopes of reintegrating the family into Middle Eastern culture. Beginning to work at an early age, he developed a fierce independence that would motivate his fight to reclaim his voice as a Syrian citizen and his work for youth education and empowerment.
When Samakie was fifteen years old, news broadcasts of political demonstrators and subsequent government seizures of public freedoms in the midst of the Syrian Revolution were frequent. “I watched my country being destroyed by the people were supposed to protect us,” Samakie recalled. He soon embraced his passion for photography as a means of escaping the Syrian regime’s restriction of free expression.
“His philosophy of forgiveness and peace overruling violence is incredibly important to remember during this time of political controversy.”
The bulk of Samakie’s assembly focused on his three abductions while living as a teenager in Aleppo. At first, a government intelligence agency believed that he and his cousin were working with foreign news agencies. Military officials tortured them with water pipes and subjected them to prolonged physical violence, but released them within several hours upon discovering that they both held foreign citizenships.
Not long after, the Free Syrian Army tried to force Samakie’s father to give them his car; when he refused, they took Samakie hostage and held him captive for ten days. During this time, Samakie’s kidnappers demanded two million dollars from his family, threatened to cut off his fingers and used psychological and physical torture in an attempt to pressure him into confessing his involvement with the government (he refused, telling them over and over again that their information was wrong). All the while, his kidnappers warned him that they would behead his family and friends if he did not confess. Samakie showed neither weakness or fear, instead choosing to act with compassion and forgiveness towards the very people who had kidnapped and tortured him. Over the course of the ten days, his actions stunned the kidnappers, leaving many in awe of his mental fortitude and commitment to peace. He was eventually released, and asked by his kidnappers to join them as one of their own.
Students and faculty were left in awe by Samakie’s story, and especially by the integrity of his character under these difficult circumstances. “His philosophy of forgiveness and peace overruling violence is incredibly important to remember during this time of political controversy,” said prep Lily Pinciaro.
Lower Maddy Potter echoed Pinciaro’s sentiment. “This man [Samakie] has so many reasons to hate everyone, [yet] he was so forgiving [that] he inspired his own kidnappers to let him go through being kind.”
After escaping his kidnappers, Samakie worked for a period of time for his family’s yogurt business, before he realized that only through finishing his education would he be able to effect the change he wanted to see. “I stood up in front of the mirror… [and said] I want to participate in the future of building Syria. And without an education, I won’t be able to do so,” he said. “That’s when I decided that I should go to Jordan and continue my education.”
His father would not support his education, so Samakie traveled alone to Jordan. En route, Samakie was kidnapped a third time by extremists who wanted to behead him because of his supposed foreign appearance, but released him after he began speaking in Arabic. “This one didn’t really count,” he joked to a half-crying, half-laughing audience.
In Jordan, Samakie first worked at tech startups in order to raise tuition money before realizing that he could use his photography skills to launch a fundraiser. He made a video telling his story, garnering the attention of many across the internet and eventually receiving enough donations to pay for the his tuition at King’s Academy, a Jordanian independent school.
However, Samakie was conflicted about whether the money from the fundraising campaign would be best spent on “one person.” He further explained, “I looked at my brother and said, ‘Isn’t this money worth more going to other people than supporting one person like myself? Why am I worth this money if it can be spent on other good things in life?’” Samakie realized that it was up to him and other educated young people to provide education for refugee and underprivileged Jordanian children. “I hold the burden of advocating for those who are not heard and to educate the uneducated so they can speak for themselves,” he said. Thus, he decided the money must be spent on his education so that he could later give back to his community.
With that purpose in his mind, Samakie and some of his friends decided to create an NGO to assist in educating refugee children. “Shouldn’t education be given to everyone regardless of how old they are or what they are?” Samakie asked in his Friday assembly. Samakie’s NGO is called Fikra 3al Mashi, which translates to “Ideas on the Go” in Arabic. It supplies students with portable tablets and laptops to promote independence and foster a love of learning. “We introduce the idea of an argument, and how to make an argument, and how to present your perspective. Through that you show them that everything is linked to their own education, and so the students start wanting to learn more, and to ask more questions,” Samakie explained.
Fikra 3al Mashi focuses on providing a relevant education for the Syrian, Iraqi, Palestinian refugees, and Jordanian underprivileged youth. “Instead of putting our curriculum without knowing the situation of the community, we go there and we find what’s most relevant to them and we start building upon that,” said Samakie.
This year, Fikra 3al Mashi will collaborate with senior Abigail Africa’s club, Students for Global Awareness and Engagement (SGAE). Africa met Samakie last summer at the Global Citizens Youth Summit at Harvard University. SGAE now partners with Samakie’s NGO to connect refugee students with Phillips Exeter students via Skype. “We pair a member of our club with one of his students. We call it an engagement project rather than a service project,” Africa explained, “We want to avoid what’s called the savior complex. We help teach them English, and they teach us minimal Arabic.”
SGAE and Fikra 3al Mashi will also collaborate with Project for Better Education (PfBE), an initiative headed by lowers Raj Das, Ogechi Nwankwoala, Yaseen Ahmed, Calvin Henaku, and Andrew Liquigan. The mission of PfBE is to improve education accessibility by connecting various social media messaging platforms to people in developing countries who may not have internet access, but do have access to smartphones. PfBE’s goal to create accessible education for developing countries connected with Fikra 3al Mashi’s mission to empower autonomous learning and SGAE’s objective for building bonds across borders.
“Relationships allow us to see into other people’s lives, how we’re similar, and how our lives our different,” Africa explained. “That will speak the loudest to motivate people to change the things they see wrong in the world.” Samakie agreed, elaborating on Western misconceptions of Middle Eastern peoples. “The people, they are no different from people here. It’s just the idea of a label: American, Syrian, Iraqi; in the end we’re all citizens.”
According to Samakie, the foundation of building global empathy is a commitment to educating youth. Programs that promote development of critical thinking skills empower students to express themselves, and to take charge of their educations and futures. “People will remember you for what you did for others, not for what you did for yourself,” he said. “There is a power to recognizing autonomy and independence of others at the basis of connection but also in oneself. No one can stop you, until you decide to stop yourself.”