Thursday, February 2, 2012

Syria

Syria is a very nice nation, with a unique past and very respectable culture. It's lifestyle isn't much different than what you may find in other Middle Eastern nations, however the city's architecture expresses some noticeable differences. For example, the unique combining of mosques and churches is notoriously found in Syria, even though you can find that in any other Middle Eastern city (especially Beirut).

The capital of Syria is Damascus, however the largest city if Aleppo. Plenty of other cities in Syria are among the oldest and still inhabited cities in the world. It's located in the Sham district, otherwise known as the Levant along with Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. These three nations all share some style of Arabic that's somewhat different than the Egyptian Arabic used in Egypt. Don't get me wrong, an Egyptian will understand a Syrian or a Lebanese or Palestinian/Jordanian when they speak, however it might be a little unclear at first.

The population of Syria is almost 23 million people and the vast majority of it (87%) is Muslim, with around 74% being Sunni and the remaining bit is comprised of Shia and all of its branches. The remaining group of the population is mostly christian and other religions. Syria has many mosques near or relatively close to churches.  So you could say that Syria is sort of lenient about its laws regarding religion and such topics. I wouldn't call it a liberal country, however there are some characteristics in it that seem to be much more flexible than other features.

Syria has a strong educational system that they inherited from France. To be honest though, it is actually pretty similar to that of Egypt's and Jordan's. The grade system is divided up in the same way and then the university system is also pretty similar throughout all of these nations. Damascus University is the largest and oldest university in Syria with around 180,000 students. Syria also has plenty of other private universities that also offer a nice form of education.

Syria's culture is dominated by a number of features such as sports, cuisine, movies, and music. Sports in Syria seem to be diverse, seeing that soccer, basketball, swimming, and tennis all are popular throughout the nation. Music is also quite popular as well as the movie industry.

Like I said, Syria is a respectable nation. I just hope that their revolution ends fast, seeing that it is getting out of control by the day. It's a good friend of many other Arab nations, despite the fact that they are suspended from the Arab League, however that particular move was intentionally done to attack the president and the corrupt regime that empowers the country. I just hope that Syria will be among the other nations apart of the Arab Spring that were successful in their revolution.


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