By Greg Nikkel
One of the Syrian refugee families who have settled in Weyburn, Salim and Regina Kabbabe, spoke about the life they used to know in Syria compared to what it’s like for Syrians today, in a presentation to the board of trustees of the Holy Family Catholic School Division at their monthly meeting on Wednesday evening.
Salim showed a power-point and video presentation about the cities and culture of Syria as they once were, and answered some questions from the trustees.
Asked if he had concerns for family members left in Syria, Salim noted that in the coastal areas the technology still works well, and they are able to use Skype and email to keep in touch with family.
At one time, Syria had around 24 million residents, but with the civil war and terror attacks causing a major outflow of refugees out of Syria, he estimates the population has now dropped to about 11 million, and of those, nine million live in the coastal cities such as Latakia.
“The 13 million who left, we don’t forget. They (family left behind) are getting support, but their life is not easy. It’s not easy in Syria, and it’s not easy outside of Syria. We were labeled as the opposition, and our life was made very difficult,” said Salim.
He explained that because he is Syrian, he encountered such difficulties as having his accounts frozen even when he was living in Dubai, and Syrians were not allowed to send money or receive money.
Asked about the terror groups that are fighting in Syria, including ISIS, Salim explained how he saw the situation as a Syrian.
He said what happened is that the culture of the desert invaded the country with many groups and factions, each with different interests.
“Syria used to have 1.2 million Christians, and now there is hardly 20,000. Their intention was to spread their religion, while other groups were after the resources. They discovered a huge reservoir of gas in the Mediterranean, and in order to have control of it, they needed Syria and Iraq. They have control of our industry .… There is no agriculture now, no industry. We used to have 24 million, and now 13 million are gone. The 11 million who are left need to eat and live, and they have nothing.”
He added that each group “has different interests in destabilizing the country. We used to be a self-sustained country. We never had any debt. Maybe we weren’t living in a luxurious way, but we weren’t bad.”
Asked why his English is so good, Salim noted that when he lived in Dubai, his business required him to travel widely, and he needed English in order to conduct his business in the Middle East and in many other countries.
Syria used to have a very active and productive agricultural industry, producing a wide variety of commodities such as wheat, barley, olives, lentils, chickpeas, sugar beets, mutton and beef, as well factories that assembled cars and made clothing.
“We used to live a very simple life. We had everything. We used to be the safest country in the world with very low crime, because everything is controlled through traditions and family. We don’t have social security, we have a different way where we take care of our children, so our children can take care of us. We take care of each other. It’s a very close community,” said Salim.
In his presentation, he showed photos and some video of the major cities of Syria, including the capital of Damascus, known as the City of Jasmine, his home city of Aleppo that used to be called the City of Scholars, and smaller centres like Bosra, Homs, Ar-Raqqah, Hama, Palmyra, Latakia and the Golan Heights on the Israeli border.
There were Roman ruins in some of these centres, notably Palmyra and Aleppo, and in the latter, there are churches and mosques that are side-by-side.
“You’ll have a mosque next to a church. It’s not like you see in the news where you have sectarian conflict. Our life used to be very normal,” said Salim, adding sadly that now many of the historic buildings like old churches as well as many residential areas and businesses have been destroyed in that city.
