# Yassin al-Haj Saleh ## Posts - [The Unruly History That Weighs on the New Syria](https://yassinhs.com/the-unruly-history-that-weighs-on-the-new-syria/): New Lines Magazine The unforeseen and unforeseeable end of the Assad era, almost a year ago, presented Syria with a momentous new beginning. It’s not hard to imagine how 54 years of family rule — more than half the history of the country as a modern political entity — weighed heavily on Syrians, almost breaking their backs. It appears heavier yet when we consider that the last 14 years of that “abad” (an Assadist notion one might translate as “eternity”) were brutally violent and destructive. It’s useful to examine the challenges facing Syria today against the background of three previous… - [A history of violence](https://yassinhs.com/a-history-of-violence/): Qantara.de December 1996, after 16 years in Hafez al-Assad’s prisons, I was released from custody. I was 36 years old at the time. The only event in my life that has had a similar impact was the fall of the Syrian regime in December 2024. By then I was 64 years old. The destruction of the prisons and secret service headquarters in Damascus, and previously in Aleppo, was a clear sign that our long-oppressed country had been able to free itself from the collective imprisonment imposed by the Assads. Three weeks later, I arrived in Damascus for the first time… - [The Ordeal of the Syrian Nation-State Today](https://yassinhs.com/the-ordeal-of-the-syrian-nation-state-today/): New Lines Magazine Syria is unstable because it is not possible for it to be stable in its current form. This is because it is trying to walk on one leg only — a security-focused, confessional one — in a society that is diverse and plural. In practice, this means standing in place unsteadily, before eventually tumbling and falling. The precedent set by the Assad regime is illuminating in this regard. For decades, it too tried to walk on just one leg — again, a security-centered, identitarian one. The result was a rigid, stagnant Syria, lagging in every way behind… - [Genocide in Syria, Gaza, and Beyond: An interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/genocide-in-syria-gaza-and-beyond-an-interview-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): To read the interview visit https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2025.2516278 - [The art of despair](https://yassinhs.com/the-art-of-despair/): Eurozine Esprit: You became a writer during your time in prison in Syria from 1980 to 1996. And your experience of prison enables you to analyse contemporary Syria and the world. How do you understand the centrality of the prison question in the Middle East? And how did you react to the opening of Sednaya prison last December? Al-Haj Saleh: Until I was arrested, my life was not very different from that of any other Syrian student. But I joined the communist opposition and was arrested. At first, I thought I’d be in jail for a few months, or a… - [The Alawite Massacres and the Future of Syria](https://yassinhs.com/the-alawite-massacres-and-the-future-of-syria/): karamshaar.com Like all honeymoons, the “Syrian revolutionary honeymoon”—in the words of Asef Bayat—was destined to end eventually. For nearly three months, many people were happy and in a celebratory mood after the fall of the Assad family regime, which had ruled the country for 54 suffocating years. But the end of the honeymoon came in a painful way: a hard awakening to five days of massacres in the coastal region between March 6 and 10. Most of the victims were Alawites, who make up close to 12% of Syria’s population and to whom the Assad family belongs. There had already… - [The Syrian Conflict Is Not Yet Over](https://yassinhs.com/the-syrian-conflict-is-not-yet-over/): aljumhuriya Has the Syrian revolution triumphed with the fall of the Assad regime? Is what we have witnessed since last December a successful revolution – albeit after a long, tortuous path? This question carries cognitive significance, since it demands a detailed understanding of the almost 14 years which passed in Syria between the outbreak of the revolution and the collapse of the regime. It also carries political weight, since the answer will shape how public actors engage with Syria’s present reality and its post-Assad future. A detailed understanding is unlikely to emerge any time soon: the history of these fourteen… - [What Was It That Came to an End in Syria?](https://yassinhs.com/what-was-it-that-came-to-an-end-in-syria/): Aljumhuriya In many of the off-the-cuff, incidental comments about Syria after the fall of the Assad regime that I observed, quite a number of people in Europe and the Middle East skeptically focused on what they would like to see and expressed their frustration for not seeing what they wanted; or they would mention anecdotes about counterproductive incidents and events taking place in Syria. Within the Syrian universe right now, things are so fluid and formless that one can find examples of whatever one likes or dislikes. However, such tendencies are not very respectful to the Syrian people, since they… - [Seeing Israel Clearly Through Arab Eyes](https://yassinhs.com/seeing-israel-clearly-through-arab-eyes/): New Lines Magazine While conflict with Israel has been part of the collective consciousness of the Arab world for generations, the character of the Israeli state and its ideological underpinnings have rarely been the subject of serious reflection outside of certain Palestinian circles. In some neighboring countries like Syria and Lebanon, the existence of Israel has been used by rulers as a pretext to justify imposing unjust policies at home. For others farther afield, Israel has been viewed as merely an apolitical force of evil and object of hatred or, conversely, an overwhelming fate that justifies inaction, if not acquiescence.… - [Gaza in Berlin](https://yassinhs.com/gaza-in-berlin/): Aljumhuriya Daniel Marwecki, in a fascinating book titled Germany and Israel: Whitewashing and Statebuilding, argues that in the 1960s, “Germany was ‘denazified’ by Israel in exchange for weapons and money. On the other hand, Arab States were ‘nazified’ in a move that sought to legitimize the Israeli position in the Arab-Israeli Conflict.” Thus, at that time, Nasser was portrayed as Hitler on the Nile – a discursive move that would become a template for attempts by diverse western powers to “nazify” other Arab leaders: Yasser Arafat would be dubbed as Hitler in Beirut, while Saddam Hussein would be labeled Hitler… - [The Monologue Reigns Supreme: A Response to PEN Berlin](https://yassinhs.com/the-monologue-reigns-supreme-a-response-to-pen-berlin/): Aljumhuriya Editor’s Note: The letter reproduced below was written and sent to PEN Berlin at the end of January this year by Yassin al-Haj Saleh, as a member of the writer’s organization. While some changes have been made to the text to ensure the avoidance of misunderstanding, the central meaning and arguments have been left unaltered. The viewpoint I express in this letter is not of a personal nature. I joined PEN Berlin in good faith, and Deniz Yücel was a friend, and was fairly helpful towards me. Rather, it is written out of concern for values and principles, the… - [The Three Pillars of the Enforced Disappearance](https://yassinhs.com/the-three-pillars-of-the-enforced-disappearance/): The Dial More than 110,000 people were forcibly disappeared in Syria over the course of the last 13 years. What started in March 2011 as a peaceful revolution and part of the “Arab spring” turned into a civil war in 2012. The regime used extreme violence from the very beginning, and by 2013 the situation had turned into a chaotic situation, with many states (Israel, Iran, US, Russia and Turkey) as well as many non-state actors from neighboring and non-neighboring countries involved. Unlike what many in the world and even in the Middle East think, the Assad family regime that… - [The Liquid Imperialism That Engulfed Syria](https://yassinhs.com/the-liquid-imperialism-that-engulfed-syria/): New Lines magazine Syria is a country of only 71,498 square miles in area, with a population of less than 24 million, and yet two global superpowers (the United States and the Russian Federation) and three of the largest regional powers (Iran, Turkey and Israel) are present on its territory. Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967, and carries out almost nonstop incursions into Syrian air space today. In centuries past, prior to the heyday of European and Russian imperialism, Iran and Turkey were empires. While it is debatable whether they still qualify as imperial powers, they have… - [Syria's struggle for democracy: A conversation with Yassin al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/syrias-struggle-for-democracy-a-conversation-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): NHK World Assad dynasty’s half century in power For decades, Saleh has given voice to the people of Syria through his work. In Japan, Saleh travelled to Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo, he spoke about his experiences and how the Assad regime has held power in Syria for more than half a century. “Syria is a nation controlled by the Assad dynasty and the secret police,” he says. “The family is more important than the country. That’s why I call it the Assad regime the new sultanic state.” Sixteen years a prisoner Saleh was a 19-year-old medical student when he was… - [Normalization with a mass murderer](https://yassinhs.com/normalization-with-a-mass-murderer/): L’Orient Today There is something incomprehensible about the accelerated pace of normalization between a growing number of Arab regimes and Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. After the visits of the Syrian dictator to Muscat in February and then Abu Dhabi March, Syria’s foreign minister made his first trip last Wednesday to Saudi Arabia since 2011. Moreover, Saudi Arabia will host a meeting of nine regional foreign ministers on Friday to discuss Syria’s return to the Arab League after 12 years of suspension. Whatever rational-minded analysts propose as the factors behind this turn seem unconvincing and perplexing. However, let us venture… - ["Continuous Insanity": Syrian Dissident Yassin al-Haj Saleh on 12 Years of War & Earthquake Relief](https://yassinhs.com/continuous-insanity-syrian-dissident-yassin-al-haj-saleh-on-12-years-of-war-earthquake-relief/) - [Syria's Catastrophe Upon Catastrophe](https://yassinhs.com/syrias-catastrophe-upon-catastrophe/): DAWN In the first few days after the earthquake that devastated southern Turkey and northwestern Syria in early February, only vehicles carrying the dead bodies of Syrian refugees crossed the Turkish border into Syria—not aid and equipment to rescue people from the rubble of collapsed buildings, not vitally needed medical supplies, not temporary shelters to protect the frightened and injured from the extreme cold. These were naturally the most crucial days for search-and-rescue efforts, but it was left to the understaffed and underequipped teams of volunteer first responders in the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, to try… - [Syria Before the Storm: A Dissident Recalls Life in the Pre-Assad Era](https://yassinhs.com/syria-before-the-storm-a-dissident-recalls-life-in-the-pre-assad-era/): New Lines Magazine   My father, Ibrahim al-Haj Saleh, was a man of faith. As a child, he had attended a traditional Islamic elementary school, known as a “kuttab,” where he learned to read and write. I witnessed him pray and fast during the holy month of Ramadan his whole life. My mother, Ajaja al-Husayn, who was uneducated, also fasted every Ramadan and prayed occasionally. She died in 1990, while three of her children were in prison. My father, who later remarried, made the pilgrimage to Mecca some time in the mid-1990s. Yet, to the day he died as an… - [Anatomy of Tadamon Massacre, Damascus, 2013](https://yassinhs.com/anatomy-of-tadamon-massacre-damascus-2013/): What does the Tadamon massacre that come to be known in details in April this year, 9 years after was committed tell us about Syria? This article investigate seven faces of this horrific crime. The full text is only available through the Journal of Genocide Research This essay was first published in Arabic by Aljumhuriya magazine on 27 May 2022. - [Selective Solidarity](https://yassinhs.com/selective-solidarity/): medico international   Up to recently, it had seemed that many people in the west think that the Russian War in Ukraine is qualitatively different from the one it has been leading for six years and a half in Syria. While one witnesses international outrage at the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and European countries are already arming Ukrainians against the invaders, not a single western country condemned Russia’s war in Syria or demanded that Russian forces withdraw from the country. The war on terror, understood implicitly as a war against militant Islamism, has created a common ground among the US,… - [Chomsky Is No Friend of the Syrian Revolution](https://yassinhs.com/chomsky-is-no-friend-of-the-syrian-revolution/): New Lines Magazine Just three weeks following my release after 16 years in prison in Syria, I started translating a book into Arabic. The book was “Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order,” by Noam Chomsky. It had taken me some time to realize that the leading linguist and the harsh critic of American imperialism was the same person. I saw this as a remarkable and much-needed example of the social and political responsibility of scientists and intellectuals. His active participation in the civil rights movement and mobilization against the Vietnam War were impressive, along with… - [Why Ukraine Is a Syrian Cause](https://yassinhs.com/why-ukraine-is-a-syrian-cause/): Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) In the week since Russia’s invasion began, Syrians opposed to President Bashar al-Assad might come second only to Ukrainians themselves in following every horror of the war that Vladimir Putin’s regime is waging in Ukraine. The reason behind this curious situation, of course, should be quite apparent. Russia has been occupying part of Syria since late September 2015, brutally supporting Assad’s regime, whose highest priority is to stay in power forever, even if he has to submit the country to expansionist outside forces like Iran and Russia itself. For six and a half… - [From genocide to permanent security and from identity to politics](https://yassinhs.com/from-genocide-to-permanent-security-and-from-identity-to-politics/): International Politics Reviews (2022) The problems of genocide: Permanent security and the language of transgression is of great importance in the richness of its content, the strength of its main thesis, its extensive documentation, and its critical approach to Holocaust scholarship and memory. One does not often encounter this combination of attributes in Western writings on genocide or genocidal phenomena. The book is also relevant to the Syrian and Arab contexts, where political language must be renewed to accommodate the recent and current experiences of violence. A critical engagement with the genocide literature would help. The basic thesis of Moses’… - [Syrian bios in a photo: who is the witness?](https://yassinhs.com/syrian-bios-in-a-photo-who-is-the-witness/): LCB diplomatique This photograph was taken in our house, my wife Samira Al-Khalil and me (Samira leans her head on my shoulders at the back), in the Qudsayya suburb to the west of Damascus towards the end of 2005. The photograph encompasses a lot of Syria’s history in the last half century, without being a photo of people invested with power, capital or influence. Seated on the left in the photograph is the lawyer, human rights activist, and author Razan Zaytouna who is one of the most prominent figures of the Syrian revolution, a revolution that is now missing an… - [Crisis and Unrepresentability](https://yassinhs.com/crisis-and-unrepresentability/): PEN/Opp publishes “Crisis and unrepresentability” – a new written lecture by the Syrian author, thinker and the Tucholsky Prize winner Yassin Al-Haj Saleh. The lecture was previously presented in Sweden on the 28 of August at the School of Gerlesborg and the 29 of August at the World Culture Museum as part of a conversation arranged by Clandestino in Gotenburg.   The history of my country, Syria, has been one of a permanent crisis in my lifetime, represented by a state of exception that has prevailed since 1963. This so-called emergency status has persisted until 2012, when it was replaced… - [Atrocity, Violence, and Distorted Forms](https://yassinhs.com/atrocity-violence-and-distorted-forms/): Henna The Atrocious and Its Representation: Deliberations on Syria’s Distorted Form and Its Tumultuous Formation, by Syrian intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh, was recently published by Dar al-Jadeed. The Lebanese writer, publisher, and intellectual Luqman Salim had been supervising the editing of this book when he was assassinated in Lebanon, February 4th, 2021. Salim was shot five times, having received several threats as a result of his political activities. Hezbollah are thought to be responsible. One of the most prominent Syrian intellectuals writing today, Haj Saleh deals with the horror permeating the recent history of his country. That horror produced this… - [Worldless Syria: Depopulated discourses and denied agency](https://yassinhs.com/worldless-syria-depopulated-discourses-and-denied-agency/): Al-Jumhuriya   Dedicated to Kelly and Steve. In the West today—and, consequently, around the world—there are three dominant discourses about Syria (and the Middle East more generally). The first is geopolitical; the second culturalist or civilizationist; and the third might be called top-down anti-imperialist. In analyzing these three, along with the ways in which Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime and its followers benefit from them, this article aims to uncover a deeper structural-discursive pattern concerning the destruction of Syria. There is no need to assume malevolent intentions or conspiratorial schemes, but it is also not simply a matter of unintended mistakes,… - [The Syrian Genocide and Diaspora, and the Imperative of Cross-Cultural Exchange](https://yassinhs.com/the-syrian-genocide-and-diaspora-and-the-imperative-of-cross-cultural-exchange/): DAWN- dawnmena.org Before the Syrian uprising ten years ago, there was a scarcity of literature by Syrians about the country during the long decades of the Assad family rule. No doubt, this scarcity in cognitive representation derived from the void in political representation, especially during the decades of the 1980’s and 1990’s, a brutal and bloody period in the country’s history. Prison literature stands out as a macabre exception to this scarcity, and a distinct achievement of many Syrians. During that period, as the Assad regime detained thousands for the peaceful expression of their views, prison became a basic political… - [The Syrian Revolution: reflections on a decade of struggle](https://yassinhs.com/the-syrian-revolution-reflections-on-a-decade-of-struggle/): ROAR Magazine The cycle of protests that collectively became known as the “Arab Spring” were triggered by a desperate event outside a government building in the small Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid in late December 2010, when Mohamad Bouazizi set fire to himself in an act of protest. Mass demonstrations followed across Tunisia and quickly ricocheted across the Middle East and North Africa — expressions of young and old, men and women asserting their right to a life of dignity. By early February, huge mobilizations had forced Tunisian and Egyptian dictators Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak to… - [The legacy of the Arab Spring: "The Syrian revolution is resumable today and tomorrow"](https://yassinhs.com/the-legacy-of-the-arab-spring-the-syrian-revolution-is-resumable-today-and-tomorrow/): Qantara.de A tradition is unchanging rules that govern human action, while a revolution is a transformative event that follows no predetermined path. As far as a “revolutionary tradition” is a contradictory term, it also tends to obliterate the revolutionary event and impose its rules upon it. This is remarkably evinced in the communist “hard tradition”, a reflection upon which may shed light on today’s revolutions. The communist tradition assumes three revolutionary preconditions: theoretical (Marxism), practical (class struggle) and organisational (the working-class party). It thus strips the revolution of its subjectivity and treats it as a “science” or ready-made scheme, rather… - [The struggle for life: An interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/the-struggle-for-life-an-interview-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): al-Jumhuriya [Editor’s note: The below interview was originally published in French by Le Monde on 12 March, 2021. It is published here in English, with minor edits, with the permission of its author.] Today, ten years after the outbreak of the Syrian uprising, how many “Syrias” currently exist? There is the territory held by the Bashar al-Assad regime; the Kurdish-run “Rojava” zone; the Idlib pocket; the Turkish satrapy; and the refugees… Yassin al-Haj Saleh: And more than these. First, you have the Russian-Iranian Assadist protectorate; then the American protectorate dominated by the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (they… - [Syria: a speicide story](https://yassinhs.com/syria-a-speicide-story/): Versopolis Review By March 2021, a whole decade will have passed since the popular uprising in Syria started, and a titanic tragedy has been unfolding itself. What is so crushingly peculiar about these ten years is that Syrians have no promises whatsoever that things will be better, or even that the worst is already behind them. Some factual truths are in order here to give an idea about what has taken place in the Middle Eastern country. At least half a million people have been killed, some hundred thousand people have been forcibly disappeared, six and a half million people… - [The greater jail: The politics of prison in Syria](https://yassinhs.com/the-greater-jail-the-politics-of-prison-in-syria/): Al Jumhuriya [Editor’s note: The below has been adapted from a talk given by the author on 10 November, 2020, at an event co-organized by the University of Cologne and the MENA Prison Forum founded by the activists Lokman Slim and Monika Borgmann, who attended the online discussion. Slim was assassinated earlier this month in Lebanon. The author dedicates the text to his memory.] [Author’s note: I suppose I was approached by the organizers of this event to give this talk about prison and political violence because they imagined I was an “authority” on the subjects, and it would be… - [An Arab revolutionary legacy?](https://yassinhs.com/an-arab-revolutionary-legacy/): Al Jumhuriya [Editor’s note: This article is the fifth in a series published in collaboration with Mada Masr to mark the tenth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. It is also available in Arabic.] A tradition is unchanging rules that govern human action, a revolution is a transformative event that follows no predetermined path. As far as a “revolutionary tradition” is a contradictory term, it also tends to obliterate the revolutionary event and impose its rules upon it. The is remarkably evinced in the communist “hard tradition,” a reflection upon which may shed light on today’s revolutions. The communist tradition assumes… - [We, As Syrians, Are Allowed to be ‘Witnesses’](https://yassinhs.com/we-as-syrians-are-allowed-to-be-witnesses/): By Mari Odoy – ArabLit Quarterly Have you noticed an increase in Syrian writers in Berlin in recent years? And have you noticed an increase in community here in recent years? Yassin al-Haj Saleh: Yes, I have. Syria has been in the news for many years, and with that has come a big interest in Syrian writers. But now that Syria is no longer in the news in the same way, I feel there is more of an opportunity for Syrian literature as opposed to just stories of personal experience. I don’t mean to say that the Syrian writers who… - [A letter to the Progressive International](https://yassinhs.com/a-letter-to-the-progressive-international/): Al Jumhuriya [Al-Jumhuriya Editor’s note: In April, the Syrian writer and Al-Jumhuriya co-founder Yassin al-Haj Saleh was invited to join the advisory council of the Progressive International, a new movement seeking to “unite, organize, and mobilize progressive forces” around the world, involving well-known figures such as Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, and Yanis Varoufakis. The below letter was to be al-Haj Saleh’s inaugural contribution to the movement’s media arm, Wire; envisaged as a platform “for the world’s progressive forces, translating and disseminating critical perspectives and stories from the grassroots around the world.” The letter, however, was never published by Wire, which… - [State of starvation](https://yassinhs.com/state-of-starvation/): Al Jumhuriya According to recent UN estimates, some 90% of the Syrian population lives under the poverty line of US$2 a day. 9.3 million Syrians need food assistance, while 1.4 million suffer from basic nutritional shortages. At this juncture, it is no exaggeration to talk about an imminent threat of famine; it may even be imperative to ring the alarm bells. In my view, this imminent famine amounts to public starvation, and an extension by other means of the democide—to use R. J. Rummel’s term—that has been ongoing in Syria for almost a decade. Severe poverty is by no means… - [Surviving monstrosities: An interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/surviving-monstrosities-an-interview-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): Al Jumhuriya The below is an interview with the Syrian writer and Al-Jumhuriya co-founder Yassin al-Haj Saleh, conducted by Marina Naprushkina, a Belarusian artist and democracy activist. The interview took place in Berlin in April 2020. - [Coronavirus in a Syrianized World](https://yassinhs.com/coronavirus-in-a-syrianized-world/): Biennale Warszawa – Translated into English by Jerzy P. Listwan At the beginning of April this year I had a chance to visit a Berlin clinic for a general medical checkup. In the waiting room, an assistant wearing a mask covering her mouth and nose handed me a similar mask before guiding me to a masked doctor. It took a second or two before I realized that I had covered my eyes instead of my nose and mouth as if my hands had “remembered” what they did every night during the sixteenth year of my imprisonment. It was in the… - [Letters to Samira (14)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-14/): Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell With your abduction and disappearance for more than six years now, I have experienced the worst that any man can experience. It has also been the most unusual of all the many crimes and brutal acts committed in our world. We were not—you and I, specifically—strangers to unusual harshness in our country, which offered some of the harshest and most unusual forms of life in the world overall. Yet, Sammour, nothing could possibly be worse for me than your absence. When we were arrested in our early youths, we—you and I—were aware of… - [The love of my life disappeared six years ago, but still I cling to hope](https://yassinhs.com/the-love-of-my-life-disappeared-six-years-ago-but-still-i-cling-to-hope/): Middle East Eye As the decade comes to a close, I am faced with the dark truth that we live in a world far worse than we did 10 years ago – worse even than we dare admit to ourselves. You may think that I say this because the love of my life was forcibly disappeared from me six years ago by Jaysh al-Islam, an extremist organisation in Syria. Indeed, my heart breaks every step of every day that I walk without Samira. Pain of this kind should not be experienced by any human being. My country’s story Samira and… - [Letters to Samira (15)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-15/): Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell   “Do you see how beautiful the moon looks?” I ask you while we’re on our way home at night, crossing between the last minibus stop and our house in Qudsaya Suburb. “You’re even more beautiful!” I rush to answer my own question before you do. Other times you don’t let me finish the question, finishing it yourself straight away, biting on your lower lip with a smile, winking. You indulge your partner’s modest powers of flirtation, which more or less end at that. “Bye Habbooooub!” you say when I’m going out; and,… - [Assad’s “eternal rule:” the long prelude to genocide](https://yassinhs.com/assads-eternal-rule-the-long-prelude-to-genocide/): Crisis Mag – Translation from Arabic by Yasser Al Zaiat Sectarianism in Syria and the region is considered a socio-political defect, one that weakens states and societies, and inhibits any rational analysis of social and political conditions. The prevailing thought on this matter, both in our countries and in the West, tends to explain sectarianism in terms of inherited religious groupings, seen as a primordial particularity of Middle Eastern societies. But this conception both fails to fully encapsulate the emergence of sectarianism and to grasp the full extent of its dangers. In the course of the past five decades, Assadist… - [Terror, genocide, and the “genocratic” turn](https://yassinhs.com/terror-genocide-and-the-genocratic-turn/): Al-Jumhuriya – Translated from Arabic by Alex Rowell The twentieth century was one of colonialism, imperialism, and two wars waged by the European powers on the world stage, christened the World Wars. It was the century that witnessed Nazism, fascism, and genocides. It was also the century of socialism, national liberation movements, and decolonization. Above all else, it was a century of extremely intense political and ideological conflict, ending in global victory for capitalism.During this short century, which began with the First “World War” and finished with the end of the Cold War, according to Eric Hobsbawm, definitions of political… - [A Revolution’s Course Through a Revolutionary’s Trajectory](https://yassinhs.com/a-revolutions-course-through-a-revolutionarys-trajectory/): Public Seminar – Translated from Arabic into English by Yazan Ashqar The course of the Syrian Revolution was reflected in personal destinies in many ways, making it difficult to speak of a model fate. But the path and fate of Abdul Baset al-Sarout, who was martyred on June 8 at the age of 27, seems exemplary of the complicated courses of the Syrian struggle and its tragic outcomes, and moreover, one of the most appropriate for viewing the dynamics and transformations of the struggle throughout its eight years. What confirms the attribute of “model” on Baset is that, behind the… - [Assad or Nobody!](https://yassinhs.com/assad-or-nobody/): Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – Translation by Sam Langer and Joel Scott.   For most people in the West well into the 2000s, Syria was either an unknown, a rogue state, or one of many Arab dictatorships. This changed in 2011 with the outbreak of the Arab Spring. Nevertheless, since then only heavily filtered and biased narratives of the Syrian conflict have found their way into German- and English-language media. But the conflict can hardly be understood without a degree of knowledge about Syria’s history under the Ba’ath Party. Lack of information is not the only reason for the numerous misunderstandings… - [The Dark Path of Minority Politics](https://yassinhs.com/the-dark-path-of-minority-politics/): The Century Foundation – (Download PDF from the Century Foundation website)  Since the inception of the Syrian uprisings, the Syrian regime has had an implicit justification for its violence: the protection of minorities. The regime has never been open about this, yet it is there. The justification reveals the dual structure of the Syrian state under the Assads: there is an outer, public discourse of national unity and an inner, publicly unexpressed discourse of minority protection and a minorities’ alliance.1 After eight years of war in Syria that saw savage oppression, genocidal massacres, and the rise of brutal extremist groups,… - [Letters to Samira (13)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-13/): Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell Sammour, I’ve written to you before about unpleasant things; happenings that shouldn’t have happened, and a world whose horizons have become dimmer in the years of your absence. This time, I write to you about what keeps hope alive, even in such a world: friendship; a great deal of solidarity, support, and partnership on behalf of countless men and (especially) women almost everywhere in the world. Since I can’t mention them all, and yet must cite a few examples, I should state to all friends everywhere that I don’t take their generosity and… - [Letters to Samira (12)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-12/): Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell The only day I’ve ever celebrated since your disappearance has been your birthday. I spend it, alone, with you. For weeks leading up to your birthday, Sammour, I have been thinking of how often a love of experience brought us together; a wish to take a risk; to adventure and seize new beginnings. Beginnings are always difficult, and experiences can be tragic. You and I certainly know that. In the 1980s, you became a communist, affiliated with an opposition group, knowing well this could get you arrested and tortured. When that did indeed… - [Letters to Samira (11)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-11/): Al Jumhuriya Five years. Sixty months. 260 weeks. 1,826 days. Sammour, I must have thought a thousand times about what I would do if I found myself face to face with the monsters who abducted you. I’d abduct their souls, in a nutshell; those dead souls that subsist by ruining life and restlessly spreading death all around them. Do you know what al-Mutanabbi said of such people? “Death doesn’t snatch away one of their souls/ Unless with a stick to stay their stench.” It would take a very long stick indeed to keep away the stench of those rotten souls… - [Letters to Samira (10)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-10/): Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Murhaf Fares On this day, twenty-seven years ago, you were released from prison, after four years, one month, and eleven days of a shorter absence. Today, you also complete four years, eleven months, and seventeen days of a longer absence, during which time I have known nothing about you, nor have the many people who love you. You have lived—as I have—a suspended life such as this before, during your years in prison when, like me, you never knew when the suspension would end. But today is crueler and darker. There is almost no comparison… - [An update on the Douma Four](https://yassinhs.com/an-update-on-the-douma-four/): Al-Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell Earlier this year, between the summer and fall, I spent several months in Turkey following up on the case of the “Douma Four” activists—Samira al-Khalil (my wife), Razan Zaitouneh, Wael Hamade, and Nazem Hammadi—who were abducted and disappeared in Douma, east of Damascus, in December 2013. My aim was to interview as many as possible of the people forcibly displaced from Douma and Eastern Ghouta in the spring of this year. I had also intended to enter the territory controlled by Turkish forces in northern Syria, to meet the displaced there, including personal friends, but… - [Syrians need a fresh start, not ugly appeasement](https://yassinhs.com/syrians-need-a-fresh-start-not-ugly-appeasement/): Rime Allaf and Yassin al-Haj Saleh in Al Jumhuriya US President Jimmy Carter has dedicated much time in the last decades to building homes for those in need. He has laid foundations, put up walls brick by brick, and provided solid roofs over many people’s heads, helping them secure the basic human rights of shelter, safety, and, just as importantly, dignity. Yet the very rights he helped support and provide for so many, he would deny to Syrians who have been bearing the brunt of unrivaled savagery for over seven years, at the hands of the Bashar al-Assad regime and… - [Dissidents of the left: In conversation with Yassin al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/dissidents-of-the-left-in-conversation-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): Al-Jumhuriya – Andy Heintz  The below is one of a series of interviews conducted by the journalist Andy Heintz due to be published as a book, Dissidents of the International Left, in May 2019. Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian writer, former political prisoner, and co-founder of Al-Jumhuriya, where he continues to contribute regularly. His latest book is The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy. Andy Heintz: What are your thoughts on Trump’s foreign policy approach to Syria? Yassin al-Haj Saleh: I don’t see any difference in vision between Trump and Obama. Both men prioritize the War on Terror over any political or… - [The world at the fascist moment](https://yassinhs.com/the-world-at-the-fascist-moment/): Al Jumhuriya  – Translated by Suneela Mubayi In his foreword to Theo Horesh’s new book, The Holocausts We All Deny, Yassin al-Haj Saleh decries the present “lack of a global vision or project” capable of resisting the crisis of democracy from China through the Middle East to Trump’s America. Genocide is rare, or that is what we tend to believe. We think we can tally the number since the beginning of the twentieth century: if not four—the ones in Turkey, Germany, Cambodia, and Rwanda—then ten or twenty. The major accomplishment of this book is to show that genocide marks our… - [A critique of solidarity](https://yassinhs.com/a-critique-of-solidarity/): Al Jumhuriya – Translated by Alex Rowell There is no reason why one shouldn’t be able to imagine Syrians, or Palestinians, or Kurds, expressing solidarity with the victims of a political or natural catastrophe in Western countries. Yet the direction of solidarity seems almost always to be the contrary; it is those in affluent, powerful, Western nations who express solidarity with troubled countries elsewhere, and the political misfortunes faced by their peoples, or certain groups of them. Shortly after the nihilistic attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in Paris in January 2015, some Syrians expressed identification with the slain… - [State extermination, not a “dictatorial regime”](https://yassinhs.com/state-extermination-not-a-dictatorial-regime/): 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 a universal problem rather than an exclusively Syrian one. To envisage the ruling regime in Syria as a dictatorship is to place it in a broad category applicable to many regimes in formerly colonized countries today, and in Europe itself less than two generations ago.… - [Defeat and the state: June 1967 and Hafez al-Assad’s Syria](https://yassinhs.com/defeat-and-the-state-june-1967-and-hafez-al-assads-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 to the June defeat, realities that have since been generalized and reproduced as a result of this tie. June 1967 is an issue of telling paradox in the Syrian context, in the sense that the war per se has not been studied at all in… - [Living in the temporary](https://yassinhs.com/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 now passed without any end to the temporary in sight, nor does it seem that one will appear in the foreseeable future. While I personally have had the chance during these years to resume my work as a writer to a large extent, most refugees… - [Letters to Samira (9)](https://yassinhs.com/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 gasping its last breaths, courtesy of the Russian occupation forces that conduct both the war and the ‘peace’ negotiations together, and leave to the regime rabble under their command the looting and victory declarations and humiliation of residents. The question today is not whether the… - [The use and misuse of genocide denial](https://yassinhs.com/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 conflicts. [Editor’s note: The below is a response to Vicken Cheterian’s article, ‘How do you say “genocide” in Arabic?’, published on 2 March, 2018] When Vicken Cheterian alludes in his recent article to Arab denial of the Armenian genocide, it’s not clear if he means… - [Living Under Assad’s Siege](https://yassinhs.com/living-under-assads-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 siege of Eastern Ghouta has turned into one of the longest and most destructive sieges in recent wars — about a year longer than the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo. Ghouta is an area of small towns and fertile countryside east of Damascus. The regime… - [International Viewpoint: Interview with Yassin Al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/international-viewpoint-interview-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): International Viewpoint Born in 1961 in Raqqa, the Syrian writer and dissident Yassin Al-Haj Saleh spent a considerable part of his life in the jails of the Assad regime. Once again pursued by the regime for his revolutionary activity, he went into exile in Turkey shortly before his wife Samira Khalil, a tireless communist and revolutionary militant, was abducted along with their friend Razan Zeitouneh, a human rights defender and co-worker, most likely by the Islamist group Jaish Al-Islam [Army of Islam]. Yassin, however, has continued to write, to take a firm stand, and to carry the voice of Syrian… - [Se réapproprier la politique : rencontre avec une figure de la révolution syrienne, Yassin Al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/se-reapproprier-la-politique-rencontre-avec-une-figure-de-la-revolution-syrienne-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): Contretemps Né en 1961 à Raqqa, l’écrivain et dissident syrien Yassin Al-Haj Saleh a passé une part considérable de son existence dans les geôles du régime Assad. À nouveau poursuivi par le régime pour son activité révolutionnaire, il s’est exilé en Turquie peu avant que son épouse Samira Khalil, elle-même militante communiste et révolutionnaire infatigable, ait été enlevée avec leur amie Razan Zeitouneh, défenseuse des droits humains et co-fondatrice des Comités de coordination locaux de la révolution, très probablement par le groupe islamiste Jeish Al-Islam [armée de l’islam]. Yassin n’a cependant jamais cessé d’écrire, de prendre des positions fermes et… - [Muftah: An Interview with Yassin al Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/an-interview-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/): Muftah – Andy Heintz Yassin al Haj Saleh is one of the most prominent Syrian dissident intellectuals. He was arrested at the age of nineteen for his membership in the Syrian Communist Party and remained in prison for more than sixteen years. When the Syrian revolution began in 2011, Yassin, then working in Damascus, went into hiding. In 2013, he and his wife, revolutionary freedom fighter Samira Khalil, moved to Douma to work for the revolution. Yassin later traveled to his family home in Raqqa, where two of his brothers had been abducted by the Islamic State. Samira was abducted… - [Islamists and the Douma Four](https://yassinhs.com/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; I had also attended the first, in May, but was unable to attend the third, in September, for travel reasons. The topic here is not what went on in the workshops, about which I’ll say only that they were the first time I had ever… - [Letters to Samira (8): Four years, four words](https://yassinhs.com/to-samira-four-years-four-words/): Amnesty.org I listen to your favorite song: Oh dawn when you rise, in the voice of Nahawand, and I think of you. Wake all people / my beloved before all! I cannot stop myself from wondering as those who believe in fate do: Why did all this happen to us? Could it not have happened? It could, Sammour. I cannot convince myself that “it was meant to be” for you to disappear for years; four years now, close to the four that you had already spent in the Syrian regime’s prison. Why did you have to disappear? I wish we… - [A Wary Return to Raqqa](https://yassinhs.com/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 to second-class status, the triumph of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) – the Syrian branch of the PKK – has kindled fears that history is repeating. Activists from Raqqa have long referred to our dilapidated city as an “internal colony,” owing to its long history… - [Revolution, counterrevolution, and imperialism in Syria](https://yassinhs.com/revolution-counterrevolution-and-imperialism-in-syria/): The International Socialist Review – Interviewed by Ashley Smith Yassin al-Haj Saleh is one of the pivotal figures in the Syrian Revolution. He has a long history of activism in the country. Arrested by the Syrian regime in 1980 for the crime of political activism and membership of the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau) while in medical school at the age of 20, he spent the next 16 years in jail, including a final year in the infamous prison Tadmor, which the poet Faraj Bayradqdar called “the kingdom of death and madness.” Released from prison in 1996, Saleh finished his… - [The re-enchantment of the world](https://yassinhs.com/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 Syrian Islamists. Had the operation succeeded, it would ultimately have been blamed on some Salafist organization, known or unknown. Analyses would have been written in the newspapers highlighting the jihadist threat in Lebanon. “Experts,” no doubt including Samaha himself, would have appeared on pro-Assad TV… - [Interview with Yassin al Haj Saleh (CIDOB Barcelona)](https://yassinhs.com/interview-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh-cidob-barcelona/) - [Lettres à Samira (7)](https://yassinhs.com/lettres-a-samira-7/): Un œil sur la Syrie Blog – Traduit de l’arabe par Souad Labbize Sammour, tu te souviens que j’étais sur le point d’emménager dans mon premier logement à Istanbul. J’y ai emménagé quatre jours après ton enlèvement. J’y suis resté environ 21 mois. Depuis près de 2 ans, j’habite dans un autre logement. Les deux appartements sont relativement spacieux – un peu comme notre logement dans la banlieue de Qudsaya – et peuvent accueillir un couple voire une troisième personne. Les deux sont meublés. Je les ai trouvés grâce à des amis (et non par agence). De ce côté-là, je… - [Lettres à Samira (6)](https://yassinhs.com/lettres-a-samira-6/): Un œil sur la Syrie Blog – Traduit de l’arabe par Souad Labbize Sammour qu’est-ce que j’ai fait durant ton absence ? Comme pour tout le reste, je ne peux tout te raconter mais le ferai à ton retour. En dehors du travail d’écriture, comme tu le sais et t’en doutes, j’ai pu voyager vers quelques pays européens. Je n’ai toujours pas de passeport, pour chaque nouveau voyage il faut au préalable des correspondances entre la partie qui m’invite, le consulat du pays en question et les services de l’immigration turcs… C’est épuisant. Voyager devient une question politique, ou plutôt de… - [Meeting Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Syria's leading intellectual dissident](https://yassinhs.com/meeting-yassin-al-haj-saleh-syrias-leading-intellectual-dissident/): Emran Feroz – The New Arab Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a leading Syrian writer, activist and political dissident. A fervent Marxist voice in a represseive regime, al-Haj Saleh has spent many years in prison; jailed by Bashar al-Assad’s father, he languished in cells from 1980 to 1996. After the Syrian uprising broke out, Al-Haj Saleh found himself hunted both by the regime and Islamist militants. He escaped and now lives in Istanbul. He spoke to Emraz Feroz about his latest work. Feroz: The name of your most recent book is “The Impossible Revolution“. Can you briefly describe why the revolution… - [Letters to Samira (7)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-7/): Al-Jumhuriya – Translated by Murhaf Fares Sammour, you remember when I was about to move to my first apartment in Istanbul; I moved to that apartment four days after your abduction, and lived in it for about twenty-one months. I’ve been living in another apartment for around two years now. Both are relatively spacious, more or less like our apartment in Qudsaya Suburb, so there is space to host a couple of people, or three if necessary. Both are furnished, and I found them through friends, not real-estate agencies. In this regard, I have not faced the difficulties most Syrians… - [Lettres à Samira (5)](https://yassinhs.com/lettres-a-samira-5/): Un œil sur la Syrie Blog Sammour, dans ma précédente lettre, j’ai essayé de te donner une idée de la situation humanitaire en Syrie. Certains affirment que c’est la pire crise humanitaire depuis le Rwanda en 1994 et des réfugiés depuis la seconde Guerre Mondiale. Le plus terrifiant, à mes yeux, c’est que d’une part notre tragédie, de fait, s’est déroulée sous supervision internationale, en présence des Américains, des Russes, de la France et de la Grande-Bretagne et ce n’était pas faute d’informations crédibles, ceci durant près de six ans et demi (et non pas trois mois, comme au Rwanda)… - [Letters to Samira (6)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-6/): Aljumhuriya – Translated by: Murhaf Fares What have I done during your absence, Sammour? As with everything else, I cannot tell you all the details; I leave them until you come back. The new thing, besides writing as you know and expect, is that I have been able to travel to several European countries. I still have no passport, Sammour, and for every trip there have been many rounds of correspondence between those who invite me, the consulate of their country and the Turkish Department of Immigration; it is exhausting. Travel between countries has become a political issue, or even… - [Letters to Samira (5)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-5/): Aljumhuriya – Translated by: Murhaf Fares Sammour, I tried in the last letter to give you an idea of the humanitarian situation in Syria, which is sometimes described as the worst humanitarian crisis since Rwanda in 1994, and the worst refugee crisis since World War II. However, there are two things that make the situation more hideous in my view. First, in effect our tragedy happened under international supervision, with the presence of the US, France, Russia, the UK, and China; the five self-appointed protectors of international security. Moreover, there was no lack of credible information for almost six and… - [Lettres à Samira (4)](https://yassinhs.com/lettres-a-samira-4/): Un œil sur la Syrie Blog – Traduit de l’arabe par Souad Labbize Sammour, pas un jour depuis ta disparition – près de 3 ans et 7 mois – le sang n’a cessé de couler. Aujourd’hui, l’aspect dominant du conflit est sa fragmentation en zones d’influence et la propagation de guerres parallèles. Sammour, nous avions réclamé le pluralisme politique et avons obtenu une pluralité de guerres et de pays en Syrie. La Russie est sur le littoral, elle occupe des bases militaires dans plusieurs régions et livre une guerre contre les forces de l’opposition. L’Iran est à Damas, par l’entremise… - [Letters to Samira (4)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-4/): Aljumhuriya – Translated by: Murhaf Fares Sammour, the bloodshed hasn’t stopped for a single day during the three years and eight months of your absence. The conflict today, however, is defined by fragmentation, zones of influence and multiple parallel wars. Sammour, we demanded political pluralism, and we got warfare pluralism. Instead of pluralism in our unified country, today we have pluralism of the country. Russia is on the coast, and has military bases in more than one part of the country; its war is directed against the opposition at large. Iran is in Damascus, and Aleppo, Qalamun, Daraa and other… - [Lettre à Samira (3)](https://yassinhs.com/lettre-a-samira-3/): Un œil sur la Syrie Blog – Traduit de l’arabe par Souad Labbize Sammour, même s’il t’était donné d’imaginer l’ampleur de notre désastre, tu dois sûrement te demander comment tout cela est possible : tu as disparu depuis 3 ans 7 mois et 20 jours et tu sais que nous avions des amis et des connaissances parmi les chefs de l’opposition officielle – ou leurs proches – censées avoir des relations haut placées. Bien que je n’aime pas évoquer ce sujet, il va falloir l’aborder. En fait, ceux que tu connais des différents groupes de l’opposition ont publiquement dénoncé votre enlèvement,… - [Lettre à Samira (2)](https://yassinhs.com/lettre-a-samira-2/): Un œil sur la Syrie Blog – Traduit de l’arabe par Souad Labbize Sammour, t’arrive-t- il de penser, comme moi, aux coïncidences du destin qui s’acharne contre nous ? Toi, tu es recherchée par le régime quelques jours après que j’ai quitté Damas (et à aucun autre moment durant les deux années où nous nous cachions) ; Ahmad est enlevé le jour où j’ai quitté Douma, le 10 juillet 2013, Firas le 20 juillet, alors que j’étais en route vers Raqqa ; et la Ghouta orientale est assiégée au moment où je quitte Raqqa vers la Turquie, la veille de… - [Lettre à Samira (1)](https://yassinhs.com/lettre-a-samira-1/): Un œil sur la Syrie Blog – Traduit de l’arabe par Souad Labbize Voici la première d’une série de lettres écrites par Yassin al-Haj Saleh à et pour son épouse Samira al-Khalil, enlevée à Douma en Syrie, au soir du 9/12/2013, où il essaie de lui expliquer ce qui est arrivé en son absence. Ces lettres sont traduites de l’arabe par Souad Labbize. Dans ta longue et hermétique incarcération, peut-être que tu te demandes Sammour, pourquoi je n’ai pas pu t’aider depuis tout ce temps. Tu as dû croire que j’allais pouvoir aider et voilà que trois ans et sept mois… - [The Triumph of Politicide](https://yassinhs.com/the-triumph-of-politicide/): Diwan Carnegie Endowment for Carnegie Middle East Center – Interviewed by Michael Young  In an interview, Yassin al-Haj Saleh describes how Syrians have been denied any meaning for their suffering. Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian intellectual who has just published The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy, an English translation of an earlier book written in Arabic. In 1980, at the age of 19, he was arrested while a medical student at Aleppo University due to his membership in the Communist Party-Political Bureau, founded by the Syrian dissident Riad al-Turk. Saleh spent 16 years incarcerated, include one year in… - [Letters to Samira (3)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-3/): Aljumhuriya – Translated by: Murhaf Fares In his third letter to his kidnapped wife Samira, Yassin al-Haj Saleh expresses deep dissatisfaction with unfaithful allegedly revolutionary figures who showed little or no interest in the cause of Douma4 Even it were possible for you to imagine our deteriorating situation, you may still be wondering, Sammour, how come you are still disappeared for more than three years, seven months and twenty days, and you know that we have friends and contacts close to official opposition, if not part of it, who are influential and well-connected. I don’t like to talk about this… - [Letters to Samira (2)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-2/): Aljumhuriya – Translated by: Murhaf Fares The second letter in a series of letters written by Yassin al-Haj Saleh to his kidnapped wife, reflecting on what has happened since her absence. Sammour, do you happen to think –like I do– about the fatal consequences that befell us? You became wanted by the regime a few days after I left Damascus (not any time earlier during two years of hiding). Ahmad was kidnapped just when I left Douma on September 10th, 2013. Firas was kidnapped on September 20th, 2013, just when I was on my way to Raqqa. The siege on… - [Letters to Samira (1)](https://yassinhs.com/letters-to-samira-1/): Aljumhuriya – Translated by: Murhaf Fares Note from the translator: In this letter, Yassin says that he is writing to and for Samira, but he adds that other disappeared friends might want to read it to understand what happened in their absence. I think everyone should read Yassin’s letters to Samira, not only because they are a truely poignant portrayal of love and resilience, but also because Samira and her story represent our shattered country, Syria, and our betrayed revolution, as Yassin himself once wrote in an article titled “Samira and Syria.” In your long and impenetrable prison, dearest Sammour,… - [The Palestinization of Syrians](https://yassinhs.com/the-palestinization-of-syrians/): Aljumhuriya – Translated by: Buthaina Shaheen It might seem heretical to claim that the destiny of Syrians is worse than that of the Palestinians, or even to compare the Assadist state to the Israeli state. Traditional Arab nationalist doctrine does not accept this comparison – it even considers it blasphemous and profane. For Arab nationalists, the struggle against Israel is an existential one, while if there were to be a struggle against the Assadist state, it would be at the most a political struggle. Some even think that this Assadist state embodies the true Arab nationalist principles (Arab unity, Palestine… - [Syria and the Global Crisis of Liberal Democracy](https://yassinhs.com/syria-and-the-global-crisis-of-liberal-democracy/): Muftah.org – Translated and edited by Riad Alarian. This article first appeared in the pan-Arab newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, on May 13, 2017. The recent victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential election, although significant, cannot cloak the fact that there is a crisis afflicting the core of democracy today. While liberal democracy may have been the hope of an entire global generation, and an ideal so alluring that Francis Fukuyama “ended history” at its doorstep, it now faces exceptional challenges. This is perhaps most obvious through the ascension of Donald Trump in the United States. As much as Trump… - [Syria and the Three Impossibilities](https://yassinhs.com/syria-and-the-three-impossibilities/): Translated and edited by Riad Alarian – Muftah   It seemed virtually impossible for Syria to experience a popular revolution—but it happened. By the same token, the revolution’s demise, and the disintegration of Syria, seemed to be inconceivable. But these events also happened, and are still unfolding before our eyes today. Now, paradoxically, a just solution to the Syrian crisis can only be attained beyond the bounds of possibility—in the realm of the impossible. This article broadly examines these three impossibilities. The Birth of Permanence Forty years before the revolution, and as a direct consequence of the military coup which… - [The Syrian Cause and Anti-Imperialism](https://yassinhs.com/the-syrian-cause-and-anti-imperialism/): Translated By: Yaaser ElZayyar – Al Jumhuriya In memory of Michel Seurat, our martyr. I was in Istanbul for about ten days when I met a Turkish communist who explained to me that what was going on in Syria was nothing but an imperialist conspiracy against a progressive, anti-imperialist regime. The Turkish comrade’s talk contained no novel information or analytical spark that could suggest something useful about my country, and everything I tried to say seemed utterly useless. I was the Syrian who left his country for the first time at the age of fifty-two, only to be lectured about what… - [Syria, The Left, and The World](https://yassinhs.com/syria-the-left-and-the-world/):  Emran Feroz – Al Jumhuriya, 06 April 2017 In a conversation with Enrab Feroz, Syrian intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh talks about his criticism of political observers and experts in the West who claim that there is no alternative to Assad and that shoring up the regime would be the lesser of two evils You have been jailed by the Assad regime for 16 years. The reason was your membership in Syria’s Communist party. Can you briefly describe what happened to you then? Let me begin with making clear some points related to the historical background of the Syrian communism. The… - [Freedom: Home, Prison, Exile…and the World](https://yassinhs.com/yassin-al-haj-saleh-on-freedom-home-prison-exileand-the-world/): Muftah – 3 April 2017 – Translated by Rana Issa To Samira, My absent Imam, always present.* No special excuse is needed to engage the concept of freedom. Yet, it is not an evident concept or an ahistorical human faculty, or a universal political demand without contradictions. Freedom is an act of coming out, of cleavage and conflict; and it may be tragic. This text is a free reflection on freedom, closer to a tale written with abstract concepts, a story of adventure and a confrontation with all kinds of dangers. It is a story that one writes to be… - [A Day of Silence](https://yassinhs.com/a-day-of-silence/): Al Jumhuriya, 15 February 2017. Translated by Zuhour Mahmoud To the martyrs of Saidnaya We, the Syrians, cannot stop speaking, and yet we cannot speak. The grotesque has challenged our words, time and time again, and destroyed them. And every single time, we felt that only an eternal silence would protect our dignity, and honor the violated ones among us. Yet again, we end up using the broken words that have been damaged many times. We cannot stop. We want our voices to be heard, but they never are. They have turned into a monotonous noise, unnoticeable by anyone, as if we… - [How ISIS Benefits From Trump’s Ban on Syrians](https://yassinhs.com/how-isis-benefits-from-trumps-ban-on-syrians/): The New York Times, 2 February 2017 Some American friends wanted me to visit in the summer to speak about a book of my essays on Syria and the Syrian revolution that is about to be published. The prospect of traveling to the United States made me uneasy. I had heard stories of Syrians being singled out for interrogation at American airports. And I wasn’t certain I would be able to get travel documents and an American visa anyway: Because of my political activities, I am a man without a passport. But then, after President Trump signed an executive order… - [The World of Syria, Syria of the World](https://yassinhs.com/the-world-of-syria-syria-of-the-world/): Bhashabandhan Literary Review, 21 January 2017 As Syrians we have found ourselves thinking globally, not only because we are very bitter and angry at the world that left us to be killed for more than 2000 days, not because we know the world more than others, not because almost the whole world is literally in Syria, but because we have become the world. Essay by Yassin al-Haj Saleh In March of this year, when six years would have passed since the Syrian Revolution started, its crushing would have perhaps been completed, shattering the lives of a countless number of people and… - [Interview with Yassin al-Hal Saleh in De Standaard](https://yassinhs.com/interview-with-yassin-al-hal-saleh-in-de-standaard/): Al Jumhuriya, 13 January 2017 Interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh, translated from Flemish into English by: Jorn Decock. Sixteen years and fourteen days. That is how long Yassin al-Haj Saleh was imprisoned in the cells of Assad senior. The Syrian author is not however a broken man, even though his wife and brother disappeared three years ago, kidnapped by radical Islamists. Even when Aleppo is in ruins. ‘In prison I became immune to despair.’ Our interview is already over when Yassin al-Haj Saleh, 55, has to go on stage. The Syrian writer has been invited to Brussels by the European… - [The Impossible Revolution: A Syrian Dissident on How a Fight Against a Dictator Became a Proxy War](https://yassinhs.com/the-impossible-revolution-a-syrian-dissident-on-how-a-fight-against-a-dictator-became-a-proxy-war/): Democracy Now, 22 December 2016 In Syria, the evacuation of rebels and civilians from eastern Aleppo has resumed, after thousands were left stranded on Wednesday amid heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures. Syrian government forces said they expected the last of the evacuees to board buses within the coming hours, leaving the Syrian Army to take total control of the city, which has been devastated by months of heavy bombing and siege warfare. We speak to Syrian dissident and former political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh, who lives in exile in Turkey. His wife, Samira Khalil, disappeared three years ago along with… - [The Genealogy of ISIS](https://yassinhs.com/the-genealogy-of-isis/): Aljumhuriya, 17 November 2016 –  Translated by: Moayad Hokan Even though the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, or Da’esh) emerged in Syria in 2013, its structure can be traced back to three historical layers across three geographies and influences, the earliest one being rooted in Afghanistan, followed by Iraq, and most recently, Syria. These layers should be interpreted in accordance with George Balandier’s Political Anthropology, whereby the more recent events, practices and conditions do not substitute prior ones, but rather create new, additional layers. In his History of Religious Ideas, Mircea Eliade states that among the elements which… - [Syria’s “Voice of Conscience” Has a Message for the West](https://yassinhs.com/syrias-voice-of-conscience-has-a-message-for-the-west/): The Intercept, 26 October 2016 Yassin al-Haj Saleh has lived a life of struggle for his country. Under the Syrian regime of Hafez al-Assad, he was a student activist organizing against the government. In 1980, Saleh and hundreds of others were arrested and accused of membership in a left-wing political group. He was just 19 years old when a closed court found him guilty of crimes against the state. Saleh spent the next 16 years of his life behind bars. “I have a degree in medicine, but I am a graduate of prison, and I am indebted to this experience,” Saleh said, sitting with… ## Pages - [Yassin al-Haj Saleh](https://yassinhs.com/) - [Archives](https://yassinhs.com/archives/): [archives type=monthly limit=120] - [Recent entries](https://yassinhs.com/recent-entries/) - [Books](https://yassinhs.com/books/): English The Impossible Revolution Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy French La Question Syrienne Récits d’une Syrie oubliée. Sortir la mémoire des prisons Arabic السلطانُ الحديث: في الطائفيّةِ وخَصْخَصةِ الدولةِ وفي أزمةِ الوطنيّةِ والمواطنةِ في سوريّة الإمبرياليّون المقهورون: في المسألة الإسلامية وظهور طوائف الإسلاميّين Conquered Imperialists: On the Islamic Question and the Emergence of Islamist Sects الثقافة كسياسة: المثقفون ومسؤولياتهم الاجتماعية في زمن الغيلان Culture as Politics: The Intellectuals and their Social Responsibility in the time of Monsters. بالخلاص يا شباب! Salvation O Boys: 16 Years in Syrian prisons آساطير الآخرين – نقد الإسلام المعاصر ونقد نقده Myths of the… - [Bio](https://yassinhs.com/bio/): Yassin al-Haj Saleh (born 1961) is a Syrian writer, intellectual and former political prisoner. In 1980 and while studying medicine in Aleppo University, the 19-year-old Yassin was arrested by Hafez al-Assad regime because of his membership in the Syrian Communist Party-Political Bureau. He remained in prison for 16 years and 14 days (7/12/1980–21/12/1996). In 1994, the State Security Court, without witnesses or defence, sentenced him to 15-year imprisonment. When his time was up, the security forces asked for his cooperation as a condition of release. He refused and was sent for an additional year to the notorious Tadmur prison. He returned to medical… - [About 'yassinhs.com'](https://yassinhs.com/about/): ‘yassinhs.com’ is an unofficial website created to collect the work of Yassin al-Haj Saleh in English. For interviews, questions and general correspondence with Yassin al-Haj Saleh, please find him on Facebook and Twitter. The full archive of Yassin al-Haj Saleh’s articles in Arabic is available on the following link: http://www.ahewar.org/m.asp?i=3 [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)