Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell To refer to the Assad regime in Syria as “dictatorial” is a great mistake—indeed, it is the mother of intellectual, political, ethical, and human rights-related errors perpetrated against Syrians at the international level. The Assadist state is based on extermination, not mere “repression,” and as such it is…
Defeat and the state: June 1967 and Hafez al-Assad’s Syria
Al-Jumhuriya - Translator: Omar El Adl Half a century has passed since the June defeat, a period during which Syria has fallen under the rule of a dynasty built by the defense minister of the June 1967 war, Hafez al-Assad. This fact is enough to show that we are living political realities that are organically tied…
Living in the temporary
Al Jumhuriya - Translator: Suneela Mubayi The day I left Syria in the fall of 2013, I published a short essay titled, ‘On Bidding Syria Farwell… Temporarily.’ I could not leave my country for the first time without saying something, and without pledging that this was a temporary departure. Four years and five months have…
Letters to Samira (9)
Al Jumhuriya - Translated by Alex Rowell Are you aware of what’s happening around you, Sammour? No doubt you can hear the sound of bombardment, and perhaps you can guess from the noise, and the behavior of your captors, that something is different this time. Very different, Sammour. It appears the Jaysh al-Islam emirate is…
The use and misuse of genocide denial
Al Jumhuriya - Translated by Alex Rowell In response to Vicken Cheterian, Yassin al-Haj Saleh argues the link between the Armenian genocide and today’s mass murder of Syrians is tenuous at best—and that both the killing in Syria and genocide in general are better understood in terms of state power than as ethnic or religious…
Living Under Assad’s Siege
The New York Times On Tuesday, 78 people were killed in the Syrian rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta after heavy aerial bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces. The United Nations has called for a cease-fire for a month across Syria to be able to deliver humanitarian aid and evacuate the critically ill and wounded. The…
Islamists and the Douma Four
Al Jumhuriya - Translated by Alex Rowell On the 18th and 19th of July this year, I attended a workshop in Istanbul on dialogue between Islamists and secularists, organized by the Islamist-leaning Jusoor (“Bridges”) center, along with more than twenty other mostly male participants. This was the second of three workshops organized by the center;…
Letters to Samira (8): Four years, four words
A Wary Return to Raqqa
Project Syndicate In mid-October, the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed, predominantly Kurdish militia with ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, “liberated” my hometown, Raqqa, from Islamic State (ISIS) fighters. Arabs, a majority of the region’s population, had little to do with ISIS’s ouster. In a city where locals have long been relegated…
The re-enchantment of the world
Al Jumhuriya, 25 October 2017. Translated by Yaaser Azzayyaat The securitization of politics In August 2012, a Syrian intelligence scheme was uncovered in Beirut. The chief conspirator was the former Lebanese minister Michel Samaha, and the plot sought to carry out terror attacks on Lebanese civilians and public figures which would later be attributed to…