Match Day

Celebrating the two-year anniversary of the start of the Syrian revolution yesterday, a few hundred peopled gathered in protest in front of the Syrian embassy in Amman. Across the street, the embassy is passive, surrounded by the Jordanian army. In front blares Quranic chants to drown out the chants of the protesters. It doesn't work.

"Takbir!" he yelled.

The crowd bellowed back "Allahu akbar!"

Again he yelled "Takbiiiiir!"

Louder this time, "Allahu akbar!"

Coming from the US, such freedom of expression shouldn't surprise me. I've been to protests and marched on Washington. But when I was in Syria, the ubiquitous photo of Bashar Assad and his father was what passed for political expression. Talking about anything else was dangerous - for Syrians not for me. So no one in Syria expressed dissent or displeasure except once, an elderly taxi driver who had woken up at 3am to drive a friend and me to the airport for $10 spoke about how bad things were under Assad. And I'm sure he only spoke because he knew we were leaving the country.

But yesterday's protest surprised me. Syrians, protesting. I'd never felt that before. Sure, I'd seen the protests on YouTube, of oceans of people in squares I had visited, chanting and singing. I knew, cognitively, there had been protests with hundreds of thousands of people. But yesterday for the first time I felt the pulse.

I saw how eagerly women yelled various popular chants:

Yalla irhal ya Bashar! (Hurry up and leave, Bashar!)

Wahad, wahad, wahad, asshaab assoori wahad! (One, one, one, Syrians are all one)

I saw how elderly men who couldn't stand inched their chairs closer and closer. I saw young men, including some of the injured from apartments I've visited, dancing and singing. And the protesters were diverse. There were rich and poor Syrians, men and women of all ages. Christians and Muslims. I thought of the guys in the SCI house, how they would have wanted to be there.

Protests aren't democracy. There's no way to distinguish a vocal minority from the majority. But coming from a Syria where protests are violently suppressed, it takes courage to stand in front of their estranged embassy. Courage, because they know they're being filmed. Courage, because they're already refugees, because they do not know when they'll be able to return to a safe, stable Syria. If they returned now they'll risk being arrested, not to mention the situation is still so unsafe in the big cities that returning would be unwise.

An hour later I get an email saying I matched at Cambridge Health Alliance in Internal Medicine. I'll return to home to Boston in April, knowing where I'll be for the next three years.