Originally published at The New Arab

In December, Syrians breathed a collective sigh of relief as the Assad regime was finally deposed. The following weeks were filled with celebration: the green flag of the revolution flew at gatherings across the country, and family chat groups buzzed with news of long-exiled relatives planning their return to Syria. Six months on, cautious optimism remains, but so do immense challenges.

Democracy and Secularism in Syria’s Revolution

This was first published in Al Jumhuriya

On 19 December, photos circulated on social media of a protest in Umayyad Square in Damascus calling for a secular, civil and democratic state. The photos stood out immediately because, unlike other mass gatherings in Syria in recent days, very few revolutionary flags could be seen in the crowd. As the day went on, it transpired that many of those participating in the demonstration had in fact been regime partisans, those who had previously expressed their support for Assad’s militias, barrel bombs and chemical attacks. Revolutionary Syrians were understandably outraged to see such people exercising the rights they had long denied to others.

This was first published in The New Arab

Eight years after Aleppo was subjected to a brutal starvation siege, pounded by the Assad regime, Russian and Iranian bombs and thousands of its residents massacred or forcibly displaced, the Free Syria flag flies over the citadel.

The rebel advance and consequent crumbling of regime forces took everyone by surprise, rapidly changing the map of power across northern Syria which had remained largely frozen since 2020 power-sharing agreements between Russia, Turkey and Iran.

This article was originally published in New Lines Magazine

If I were granted paradise

I would not wish to have it alone

May no clouds rain on me and my land

That do not cover the whole country

When Riad al-Turk, the veteran dissident known affectionately as “the old man of the Syrian opposition,” died on New Year’s Day 2024 in exile in France at the age of 93, his family took the unusual step of starting his death notice not with a religious quote but with the above lines by the 11th-century Syrian poet, philosopher and freethinker Abu al-Alaa al-Maarri. The egalitarian spirit of the verse captures much of the essence of Riad, who lived a life of great personal sacrifice in the struggle for a free and democratic Syria. He suffered immensely but was not broken. He leaves behind a rich legacy.

This essay was written together with Shon Meckfessel (an author and English professor at Highline College in the US) quite some time ago. A longer version of this essay first appeared as a chapter in the book “No Pasaran! Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis,” edited by Shane Burley.

This edited version, which contains a new introduction appeared in New Lines Magazine.

Yesterday, 25 August, the revolution flag flew high in villages, towns and cities across Syria. In Sweida, Dera’a, Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa, Hasakeh and Deir Al Zour, thousands were on the streets reviving the chants of the revolution.

Originally published in the New York Times

At first the image didn’t make much sense: tanks bunched together, red flags flying and a line of soldiers in Yemeni-style red berets. The scene was set in the shadows of bombed-out apartment buildings that, confusingly, didn’t look much like Yemen.

The scene was fake, a photo of the set of “Home Operation,” a film produced by Jackie Chan and inspired by a Chinese mission to evacuate Chinese and foreign nationals from Yemen in 2015. The apartment buildings were real, but not in Yemen. Filming started last month in Hajar al-Aswad, a southern suburb of Damascus, Syria, that used to be home to thousands of people.

Originally published at New Politics

It’s difficult to recollect the euphoria of the early days of the 2011 uprising in Syria against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Reflecting on that time, Syrians speak of the breaking of the “fear barrier”—the suffocating authoritarianism and repression that had silenced them for decades. At the protests calling for freedom that sprung up across the country that spring, there was a carnivalesque atmosphere replete with dance and song. Over time, as land was liberated from state control, Syrians collectively built a creative and vibrant revolutionary culture and planted the seeds for a new democratic society. Syrians both at home and abroad were optimistic for the future. We believed the regime would fall. We thought our just struggle would win.

Originally published at The Funambulist

“We are no less than the Paris commune workers: they resisted for 70 days and we are still going on for a year and a half.” Omar Aziz, 2012

On 18 March 2021 people around the globe will be commemorating the 150^th anniversary of the Paris Commune. On this date, ordinary men and women claimed power for themselves, took control of their city and ran their own affairs independently from the state for over two months before being crushed in a Bloody Week by the French government in Versailles. The Communards’ experiment in autonomous, democratic self-organisation, as a means to both resist state tyranny and to create a radical alternative to it, holds an important place in the collective imaginary and has provided inspiration for generations of revolutionaries. 

Residents of Yarmouk queue to receive aid. January 2014. Photo credit: UNRWA

Originally published at The New Arab

Yarmouk refugee camp, on the southern outskirts of Damascus, was once known as the ‘capital of the Palestinian diaspora’.

Ravaged by Syria’s counter-revolutionary war, more than two years after the cessation of local fighting the camp still lies in ruins.

Residents who were forcibly displaced are yet to return, and a new reconstruction plan threatens to make their displacement permanent. Continue reading →