AJMAN // A Syrian teacher, driven by the strife in his homeland and inspired by the UAE Year of Reading, has written a book on morality, hoping he can teach young people to break free from the cycle of violence.
Somar Nemer, who teaches Arabic at Taryam American Private School in Sharjah, has just finished Symphony of Age.
It carries the message that wars in part stem from a lack of reading – that poor education can lead to conflict.
The non-fiction book, which will be available online within few months, is targeted at readers 12 and older but it is young people in Syria that Nemer, 25, hopes he can influence most.
“When violence is planted within a person since childhood, how will his life be in future?” he asks.
“The result will be brutal because his soul was hurt. Wrong ideas come from non-reading and non-rehabilitation, which distort a human being’s mind.
“For this reason, I say in the book that reading, education and searching will build up their young people’s minds and push them to look at the good, and know that violence, in all its shapes, should be rejected around the world.”
Nemer, from Idlib but now living in Dubai, says the book looks at the sounds of war and how gunfire and explosions harm people, especially children.
“It contrasts this with the positivity that comes from the sound of music,” he says.
“Linking music with life is realistic, not metaphorical. The sound of war that enters lives forcibly affects us badly, especially the repetition of it as the ear believes what it hears.”
Nemer started writing the book two years ago but stopped for a time owing to the pressures of work.
He ends it by saying that people should read books to feed their minds with positivity that will make them better humans.
“The message that I want to send through the book is ‘stop the war’. Do whatever you want and have your own ideas and opinions, but let children live their lives,” Nemer says.
“The main cause of war is the unavailability of education and reading, and that destroys the whole community – not just destroying buildings, but the real destruction lies in the souls and minds of humans, especially kids.”
His book costs Dh40 and will be available at jamalon.com.
roueiti@thenational.ae