Al-Jumhuriya, 22 August 2013 There is nothing surprising in the latest massacre by the Syrian regime in Ghouta, Damascus. The massacre has precedents in Dera’a, Karm al-Zaitoon, Houla, Traimseh, Daraya, Jdedat Artouz, Jdedat al-Fadel, and elsewhere. These attacks come on top of constant shelling by the air-force of multiple sites in the country causing dozens…
The Hajji
Al-Jumhuriya, 16 August 2013 Like most of the fighters here, the 44-year-old Hajji has a short beard, though unlike the others’, his has been recently trimmed. Hajji – as he was called by his acquaintances even prior to the revolution – now leads the “Sa’d bin Ubadah al-Khazaraji Brigade”. He is married to two women…
Help Syria now. Tomorrow it may be too late
The Guardian, 10 July 2013 An open letter to friends and leaders of public opinion in the west: current policy is short-sighted and inhumane Dear friends, Three months ago, I left the city of Damascus, where life had become too oppressive, to go to the "liberated" area of East Ghouta. An area that had 2…
Abu Qusay: portrait of a fighter
Al-Jumhuriya, 2 June 2013 Abu Qusay used to work as a tailor and a carpenter in his hometown of al-Ghizlaniya before the start of the revolution. When the tailoring business was slow, the heavy-set, burly 33-year-old would occupy himself with carpentry, and vice versa. Abu Qusay earned between 15,000 and 20,000 Syrian pounds on average…
Towards an Appropriate Politics of Engagement With Nusra Front
Al-Jumhuriya, 22 January 2013 The reservations expressed in late 2012 by both Moaz al-Khatib, president of the Syrian National Coalition, and George Sabra, president of the Syrian National Council, regarding the US’s designation of Nusra Front as a terrorist organization, provoked vocal resentment among circles sympathetic with and supportive of the Syrian Revolution. Voices critical of Khatib…
Aleppo: A Tale of Three Cities
Al-Jadid Magazine (Originally published in As Safir newspaper), 8 October 2012 (Yassin al-Hajj Saleh is considered one of the most important observers of Syrian politics. He spent 16 years in Syrian prison, an experience about which he recently wrote a book. One Syrian scholar rejected the description of Yassin al-Haj Saleh as a political observer…
Syria dispatches: Robert Fisk’s independence
openDemocracy, 14 September 2012 The reports from Syria of the journalist Robert Fisk raise serious questions over his credibility, say Yassin Al Haj Saleh & Rime Allaf. The international media has not always been kind to Syria’s revolutionary people. For months on end, many of the latter turned themselves into instant citizen-journalists to document their…
What is the Matter with Robert Fisk? What does he want
Free Syrian Translators (Originally published in Alhayat newspaper), 8 September 2012 Robert Fisk ventured in the company of Syrian regime forces into Daraya [a town just outside Damascus], to cover the death of 245 of the locals– according to him; more like 500 in reality. Who killed them? The “rebels”, says Mr. Fisk. They are…
On militarism, Violence, and Revolution
Free Syrian Translators (originally published in Alhayat newspaper), 29 January 2012 Without putting it in the context of 320 days of unrestrained violence that is practiced against it by the regime, there is no point in discussing the growing military dimension of the Syrian revolution nor the ongoing intellectual, political, and psychological transformations occurring in…
Components of the Syrian Revolution and its Politics
Free Syrian Translators (Originally published in Alhayat newspaper), 8 January 2012 The most prominent aspect of the Syrian revolution is the demonstration: groups between tens and hundreds of thousands of people go out to public spaces, trying to occupy certain areas for a while, while chanting slogans and holding banners condemning the Regime and calling…