They begged him not to go.

Faculty and friends reminded graduate film student and Fulbright Scholar Bassel Al Shahade that his home country of Syria had been war-torn for more than a year. Citizens were dying. Journalists were arrested. Violence was everywhere.

But Al Shahade knew the risks. He told his colleagues that he had to go back to Syria and document the injustices. He felt it was his duty, said Owen Shapiro, Al Shahade’s faculty adviser and a film professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

“We all knew the danger,” Shapiro said. “But he felt guilty about being here in the United States studying while his people were suffering and living under an extremely difficult situation.”

After just one semester at Syracuse University, Al Shahade did go back. He filmed the riots and widespread oppression. He trained other citizen journalists how to use cameras and edit video so they could help document the events.

In May, Al Shahade was killed filming his documentary.

Almost five months later, a scholarship has been established in Al Shahade’s name for graduate students in VPA’s film program who demonstrate a commitment to peace and social justice. SU Trustee Sam Nappi and his wife, Carol, made a $250,000 commitment to the scholarship before planning the peace summit at SU, said Peter Golia, Nappi’s special assistant.

“Common Ground for Peace” is a two-day forum that will be held Oct. 8-9. The Dalai Lama and musical artists will engage the community in talks about how to shift global consciousness toward peace in the Carrier Dome.

A portion of the ticket sales will go toward the scholarship. Though Nappi never met Al Shahade, he donated because a student dying for a powerful cause affects the entire community.

“It goes to the core of what we are trying to achieve in peace,” Nappi said in an email. “Even more importantly we all are part of the SU family, the world family. A family that carries a heavy heart for so many beautiful innocent young people taken from us in war.  For all our days we shall never forget. These scholarships and other actions will honor and remind us of the need for peace.”

SU will hold a day of remembrance for Al Shahade at Hendricks Chapel on Oct. 10. The day will include a service and a symposium on Al Shahade and Syria with musical interludes. The symposium will feature musician Mohamed Alsiadi; pianist and composer Malek Jandali; journalist Rami Khouri, an alumnus; and James Steinberg, dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The day of remembrance will have a concert featuring Alsiadi and Jandali.

Several of Al Shahade’s short films will be screened at the event, one of which is a film about a young child’s experience with war.

The day of remembrance is presented in association with the 2012 Syracuse International Film Festival, Oct. 11-14. The festival is dedicated to Al Shahade and the themes of peace and social justice. Ticket proceeds and donations will fund an annual award in his name, given to a filmmaker whose work reflects an effort to make a positive change through work involving social justice.

During the memorial service, Shapiro will read email exchanges between himself and Al Shahade that had been written during the student’s last few days alive in Syria.

Laila and Edward Audi are sponsoring the day of remembrance with support from VPA’s film program in the Department of Transmedia and SU’s Graduate Student Association.

Last month, the SU Human Rights Film Festival was dedicated to Al Shahade. The festival’s co-director, Roger Hallas, met Al Shahade at last year’s event.

Al Shahade embodied the ethos of the festival, Hallas said, and his desire to bear witness to urgent crisis and the bloody and brutal oppression of people was amazing.

Hallas and Shapiro, Al Shahade’s adviser, hope the scholarship will carry on a tradition of exemplary dedication to the craft of filmmaking and a commitment to unveiling social injustices throughout the world.

“There isn’t a country in the world that doesn’t have injustices,” Shapiro said. “It doesn’t have to be in those countries that we think of as Third World or war-torn areas of the world. I mean, we can look to every democracy in the world and see that there are social justice issues.”

Published on October 8, 2012 at 5:02 am

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