'Pray for Syria!’ Californian man stages social experiment on Mideast crisis
As the deadly conflict engulfs the Middle East, a Californian man has set out to find out how much people really care about the crisis there. He stood for hours, blindfolded, with raised arms… See for yourself what happened.
The banner at the man’s feet said, “I raise my arms in prayer for Syria, Iraq and Lebanon and the rest of the world.”
People hugged him and cried, some helped him hold his hands, others gave him water.
“No! No! No! Keep them up!” one woman shouted at one point, when the man seemed too tired to hold his hands up anymore.
“Good job, bro! Keep it up,” another passer-by told him.
The author and performer Sergio Mejia told RT that he definitely achieved what he was aiming for during the experiment.
“I wanted not just raise awareness, but also send out a message of unity. A lot of people most definitely accepted the message. The beautiful thing about it was that those people were of all races, all religions,” Mejia said.
However, there was more to it than just a viral video.
“My goal was not just for people to see it and go, ‘Oh, it’s a good video,’ but I wished to inspire other people to do the same for other countries,” Mejia said. “It could start a worldwide movement that will continue doing these videos to open more blind eyes.”
