I am proud to be Syrian. That pride is not about borders or slogans. It is quieter and deeper, an inheritance of resilience, creativity, and dignity carried through generations. To be Syrian is to know how to keep going when the path disappears, to make a home out of ruins, and to turn survival into a kind of art.
But my story did not stop at one border. My life has been shaped by many lands, each leaving a mark that stretched my sense of belonging and reshaped how I understand identity, home, history, the present, the future, and leadership.
I have walked the still streets of Copenhagen in Denmark, where winter light teaches patience and silence feels like a form of grace. I have breathed the dust and broken bread of Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan, where resilience is the air itself, present in every handshake, every market stall, and every family that refuses to surrender. In the remote corners of South Sudan, I have sat by fires at night, learning that community can hold itself together with almost nothing but presence.
In Iraq, I saw ruins speak in two voices: one of loss and another of determination. In Gaziantep in Turkey, the hum of the market reminded me that generosity can outlast scarcity. In Amman in Jordan, mornings began with gestures so small they could be missed, a neighbor carrying bread or a shopkeeper pouring fresh coffee, and yet those gestures carried the same weight as strategy papers or donor pledges.
In Abuja, Yola, and Maiduguri in Nigeria, I heard stories told with laughter so defiant it felt like a shield against despair. In Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, I walked among people who carried displacement not as erasure but as proof of survival. In Beirut in Lebanon, I sat in cafés where sorrow and hope shared the same table, as if the city itself insisted that both must coexist. And in Dubai and across the United Arab Emirates, I watched ambition rise skyward, showing that even the desert can hold a vision of tomorrow.
These cities and countries are not only names on a map, they are living classrooms carried by people who welcomed me, challenged me, and taught me. Each place gave me more than memories. They offered lessons in endurance, in kindness, in ambition, and in hope. What I carry with me is not only the dust of roads or the view of skylines, but the spirit of people who turned survival into resilience, hospitality into culture, and daily gestures into timeless truths.
These places wove themselves into me. They taught me that identity is not a single passport and not one soil or one memory, but a tapestry of encounters: roots and branches, depth and reach, pain and possibility.
Syria gave me my roots. The world gave me my branches. Together they remind me that identity is not about choosing between them but holding both fully and without apology.
The roots keep me steady. The branches stretch me forward.
The roots carry memory: they hold the weight of history, the lessons of struggle, and the quiet strength of belonging.
The branches carry possibility: they reach toward light, toward new encounters, toward futures not yet imagined.
The roots remind me where I come from, anchoring me in resilience and culture.
The branches remind me where I am going, urging me to expand, to connect, to keep growing into something larger than myself.
The roots teach endurance. The branches teach vision. Together they form a living balance: depth and reach, past and future, survival and imagination.
And perhaps this is the kind of citizenship the future requires: rooted in heritage yet open to the world, proud of where we come from yet committed to building systems that allow everyone, no matter their origin, to belong. That is not only an identity to live by, it is a philosophy of acceptance, a way of holding both my roots and my branches, and the path by which I aim to design institutions, lead communities, and shape the future.
Ali Al Mokdad
