The Case for Arts: Focus on Professor Honey Al Sayed

By: Martin De Leon

Cross-posted from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service blog article from May 5, 2016.

As a second semester CULP senior with the freedom to take as many electives as I would like, my course load was solely picked on how “cool” the class titles sounded. One of those classes was Media, Arts, and Culture: Fueling War or Creating Peace? As it turns out, not only was the class incredibly cool, but also, I can definitely say that it has been the best class I have taken at Georgetown.

Media, Arts, and Culture was created and taught by adjunct professor Honey Al-Sayed, a bilingual communications professional (Arabic and English), award-winning journalist, and co-founder of SouriaLi, an independent online radio network. One of Al-Sayed’s most notable accomplishments is her radio show, “Good Morning, Syria,” which garnered 7 million daily listeners when it was on-air between 2005-2011. Through “Good Morning, Syria,” Al-Sayed pushed for positive cultural and social reform by engaging Syrians from all religious, political, and ideological backgrounds in conversations that were typically taboo in an effort to foster peace through dialogue.

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