{"id":42477,"date":"2019-06-24T08:03:32","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T12:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=42477"},"modified":"2020-08-25T13:51:18","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T17:51:18","slug":"at-emu-exiled-good-morning-syria-radio-host-honey-al-sayed-speaks-on-the-arts-and-media-in-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2019\/at-emu-exiled-good-morning-syria-radio-host-honey-al-sayed-speaks-on-the-arts-and-media-in-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Exiled \u2018Good Morning Syria\u2019 radio host Honey Al Sayed speaks on the arts and media in conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen art moves and media amplifies, it brings the heart and the mind together,\u201d former \u201cGood Morning Syria\u201d radio host and Syrian expat Honey Al Sayed said during a visit to the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) at Eastern Mennonite University. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t be just rational, and we can\u2019t be just emotional,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to be able to be both. That\u2019s what helps shift narratives and perceptions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Al Sayed, who reached millions of listeners in over six years of hosting that ended in 2012 when she was forced into exile by the Syrian civil war, was the featured presenter at the third of four<\/span> Horizons of Change lunches, an annual hallmark of SPI. During the first lunch, <\/span>Tecla Namachanja Wanjala MA \u201904 was honored as the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding\u2019s Peacebuilder of the Year<\/span><\/a>. The second lunch featured <\/span>conflict resolution specialist and author Donna Hicks<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Al Sayed, an\u00a0associate fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy and\u00a0the founder and CEO of Media and Arts for Peace, spoke during EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An associate fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP), Al Sayed holds a master\u2019s degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She has appeared at the United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations Foundation, GCSP, the United States National Press Club, the Foreign Service Institute and the United States Institute of Peace. <\/span><\/p>\n

She is also the founder and CEO of <\/span>Media and Arts for Peace<\/span><\/a> (MAP), begun in 2018 following two years of collaborative research with GCSP. A creative consulting and talent agency serving artists from conflict zones and diaspora communities, MAP<\/span> \u201cnot only introduces more efficient and effective ways of tackling global challenges, such as violence, but we also begin to shift the broader public narrative around these issues<\/span>,\u201d according to its website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prior to founding MAP, Al Sayed also co-founded Radio SouriaLi, an online radio station with more than 500,000 listeners in Syria and the diaspora. It began with four collaborators who were in exile in different countries, and now includes 27 people in 17 countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Like oxygen to fire\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n

Media and the arts are a \u201cdouble-edged sword,\u201d Al <\/span>Sayed said in her SPI presentation. W<\/span>hile they can be used destructively, they also play a constructive role that \u201cpaves the way to tolerance and empathy and inclusion.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

When media \u2013 which \u201cto civil society is like oxygen to fire\u201d \u2013 amplifies a<\/span>rt, it creates \u201cemotional, human connection,\u201d she said. That happened with <\/span>Warsan Shire\u2019s visceral poem \u201cHome,\u201d<\/span><\/a> which in 2015 gained wide exposure during the refugee crisis in Europe; it begins <\/span>no one leaves home \/ unless home is the mouth of a shark<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Media and the arts are a \u201cdouble-edged sword,\u201d Al <\/span>Sayed said in her presentation at EMU. W<\/span>hile they can be used destructively, they also play a constructive role that \u201cpaves the way to tolerance and empathy and inclusion.\u201d<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cChanging people\u2019s attitudes and shaping their behavior is at the core of peacebuilding, and it\u2019s also at the core of media and the arts,\u201d she said. \u201cPeacebuilding scholars are increasingly recognizing that for sustainable peace to occur, it requires something beyond the rational, cognitive engagement that takes place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In her master\u2019s research, Al Sayed studied conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Syria. She found that \u201cmedia and the arts throughout history have actually flourished in conflict. That\u2019s because it empowers people with information, it preserves culture, and it documents the first casualty of war \u2013 the truth \u2013 and with it humanitarian violations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As a \u201csafe space\u201d for self expression, Al Sayed said, media and the arts help people to \u201creimagine a better future\u201d and help foster healing and communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

The arts and media can also expose the irrationality of violence. Al Sayed displayed a photo of a Syrian street filled with fleeing people surrounded by bombed buildings, and said, \u201cThe source of violence in conflict does not spring solely from our rational, human thinking, our material physical world, our politics, our economy … because if you look at this, I don\u2019t see anything rational about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A fifth home<\/b><\/h3>\n

Al Sayed was born to Syrian parents who raised her in Kuwait. After being displaced by the Iraqi invasion of that country, she attended Cairo American College in Egypt. She earned an undergraduate degree from the Lebanese American University, and then moved to Syria. <\/span><\/p>\n

There, hosting the three-hour live radio show \u201cGood Morning Syria\u201d was \u201cthe best job I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d Al Sayed said. It was also a platform that, she realized, came with a responsibility to push for social and cultural reform, \u201cto work inside the system and try to create change bottom-top.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, she was forced to leave.\u00a0<\/span>As she had previously traveled here to speak about her work and therefore had a visa, Al Sayed flew to the United States; she calls herself \u201ca privileged refugee.\u201d She became a political asylee, making the United States her \u201cfifth home.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She shares about her experiences in courses at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and GCSP and the U.S. Institute of Peace.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen art moves and media amplifies, it brings the heart and the mind together,\u201d former \u201cGood Morning Syria\u201d radio host and Syrian expat Honey Al Sayed said during a visit ... read more about Exiled \u2018Good Morning Syria\u2019 radio host Honey Al Sayed speaks on the arts and media in conflict<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":42480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14184,12503,17436,17562,12499],"tags":[6795],"feature":[17427,17424,17241],"class_list":["post-42477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-guests","category-cjp","category-center-for-justice-and-peacebuilding","category-digest","category-spi","tag-diversity","feature-emu-home-page-feature","feature-featured-graduate","feature-news-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nExiled \u2018Good Morning Syria\u2019 radio host Honey Al Sayed speaks on the arts and media in conflict - 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