Διαδήλωση στη Busra al-Sham, επαρχία της Daraa, Μάρτιος 2016
Η Συριακή Επανάσταση: Μια Ιστορία από τα κάτω (12 Διαδικτυακά σεμινάρια)
Η Συρία βρέθηκε στο επίκεντρο ενός τεράστιου περιφερειακού και παγκόσμιου ενδιαφέροντος ύστερα από τη μαζική έκρηξη της λαϊκής εξέγερσης στα μέσα Μαρτίου του 2011. Η Συριακή επανάσταση σταδιακά εξελίχθηκε σε πόλεμο με πολλούς τοπικούς, περιφερειακούς και διεθνείς παράγοντες. Το αποτέλεσμα ήταν να αγνοηθούν ή να αποσιωπηθούν ως επί το πλείστον, η επανάσταση και το μαζικό κίνημα των διαδηλώσεων της, καθώς και η αντίσταση από τα κάτω που τις στήριξε. Οι ηγεμονικές αφηγήσεις που επικεντρώνονται σε γεωπολιτικές αντιπαλότητες και σεχταριστικές συγκρούσεις έχουν κυριαρχήσει σε μεγάλο μέρος του διεθνούς και του δυτικού λόγου που διαγράφει οποιασδήποτε κοινωνική, πολιτική ή επαναστατική αυτενέργεια των συριακών λαϊκών τάξεων.
Ενάντια σε αυτές τις αφηγήσεις, οι διοργανωτές/τριες αυτής της σειράς σεμιναρίων προτείνουν μια ριζικά διαφορετική προσέγγιση. Το Online Summer Institute με τίτλο «Η Συριακή Επανάσταση: Μια Ιστορία από τα Κάτω» είναι μια σειρά διαδικτυακών σεμιναρίων για την πολιτική των από κάτω, τους ταξικούς αγώνες και την κρατική βία στη Συρία από τη δεκαετία του 1970 μέχρι σήμερα. Η σειρά των 12 μερών (20 Ιουνίου - 5 Αυγούστου) περιλαμβάνει παρουσιάσεις από ακτιβιστές/στριες, διοργανωτές/τριες, ακαδημαϊκούς και συγγραφείς, οι οποίοι/ες θα συζητήσουν μια σειρά θεμάτων που περιλαμβάνουν τα λαϊκά κινήματα, τον ιμπεριαλισμό και τον αντιιμπεριαλισμό, την πολιτική οικονομία, τη διεθνή αλληλεγγύη, τους φεμινιστικούς αγώνες, το σύστημα φυλακών, την ενίσχυση της υγειονομικής περίθαλψης, την παλαιστινιακή αλληλεγγύη, την κουρδική αυτοδιάθεση, τους πρόσφυγες, την επαναστατική τέχνη και το μέλλον των συριακών και περιφερειακών εξεγέρσεων (το 2011 και σήμερα). Το Online Summer Institute αναδεικνύει τοπικούς αγώνες και βιώματα και τις συγκεκριμένες εμπειρίες Σύριων με διαφορετικό υπόβαθρο (πολιτικοί κρατούμενοι, γιατροί, ακτιβιστές, διανοούμενοι, καλλιτέχνες, φοιτητές, πρόσφυγες, ακαδημαϊκοί κ.λπ.). Οι συμμετέχοντες θα συζητήσουν την ιστορία της βίας στη Συρία, τις παγίδες μιας πολιορκημένης επανάστασης και το μέλλον μιας ερειπωμένης χώρας. Αναφέρουμε με υπερηφάνεια ότι οι περισσότεροι/ες από τους/τις μισούς/ές στα πάνελ μας είναι Σύριοι/ες. (Θα είχαν συμπεριληφθεί περισσότερες συριακές φωνές, αλλά αυτό θα σήμαινε μια μακρύτερη σειρά διαδικτυακών σεμιναρίων και μετάφραση από τα αραβικά – και τα δύο θα είχαν αναβάλει και θα είχαν επεκτείνει τη σειρά ακόμη περισσότερο.)
Αυτό το διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο θα αμφισβητήσει τις κυριότερες, οριενταλιστικές και μανιχαϊστικές προσεγγίσεις που έχουν κυριαρχήσει στις αφηγήσεις γύρω από τα γεγονότα που έχουν συμβεί στη Συρία από το 2011. Σ’ αυτές συμπεριλαμβάνεται και μια γενική προσέγγιση που συχνά αγνοεί την επαναστατική διάσταση της εξέγερσης εστιάζοντας αντίθετα σε αυτό που αντιλαμβάνεται και παρουσιάζει ως «παράλογη βία». Αυτή η οριενταλιστική αφήγηση υποβαθμίζει όλους τους αγώνες στην περιοχή σε υποτιθέμενες χιλιόχρονες συγκρούσεις μεταξύ διαφόρων θρησκευτικών αιρέσεων, θρησκειών, φυλών και εθνών. Αριστεροί οριενταλιστές, απορρίπτοντας κάθε αγώνα που δεν μιλά τη γλώσσα των κοινωνικών κινημάτων στη Δύση ή που αποκλίνει από τη δυτική ιστορία της οργάνωσης της εργασίας, γίνονται κι αυτοί με τη σειρά τους συνεργοί σε αυτήν την αφηγηματική σιωπή. Η μανιχαϊστική ή καμπιστική άποψη με την οποία συγκρουόμαστε υποδηλώνει ότι ο κόσμος αποτελείται από ιμπεριαλιστικές και αντιιμπεριαλιστικές χώρες και επομένως χρειάζεται απλώς να υποστηρίξουμε τις λεγόμενες αντιιμπεριαλιστικές χώρες, αγνοώντας την ταξική σύγκρουση και την κρατική βία μέσα σε αυτές τις ίδιες κοινωνίες. Περιττό να πούμε, ότι όλες αυτές οι αφηγήσεις έχουν σαν αποτέλεσμα να αρνούνται το ρόλο του συριακού λαού ως παράγοντα στον δικό του λαϊκό αγώνα. Τα διαδικτυακά σεμινάρια προτείνουν μια εναλλακτική απάντηση σε αυτές τις ηγεμονικές αφηγήσεις. Μια λαϊκή ιστορία της συριακής επανάστασης. Αυτό το είδος ιστορίας παρέχει ένα σημείο έναρξης στην κατανόηση της συριακής επανάστασης, των λαϊκών διαδηλώσεων και των τοπικών αγώνων. Το διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο του προγράμματος σπουδών επιδιώκει να επικεντρώσει στα συμφέροντα των λαϊκών τάξεων, των υποταγμένων κοινοτήτων και των περιθωριοποιημένων ομάδων, παρέχοντας παράλληλα μια εναλλακτική ανάλυση της επανάστασης, δίνοντας έμφαση στις προοδευτικές και διεθνιστικές προοπτικές.
Το Πρόγραμμα (20 Ιουνίου - 2 Σεπτεμβρίου)
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 1: 20 Ιουνίου
Οι ρίζες και η φύση της Συριακής Επανάστασης
Συμμετέχουν: Anand Gopal; Loubna Mrie, Yasser Munif
Συντονίζει: Shireen Akram Boshar
At its start, the Syrian Revolution in 2011 was a mass popular uprising for democracy and equality against Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship. It included people from all ethnicities and religious groups who liberated sections of the country and tried to build a new democratic society. This panel will discuss the causes, nature and trajectory of this struggle for liberation, and the reasons for its defeat.
Anand Gopal is an award-winning journalist and assistant research professor with the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict and the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University. Loubna Mrie is a Syrian photographer, journalist, and writer. She covered the Syrian war as a photojournalist for Reuters from 2012 to 2014. Her work has been published in The Nation, Time Magazine, Vice, and The New Republic. She is currently writing her first book, about the war in Syria, for Penguin Random House. Yasser Munif is a Sociology Assistant Professor in the Institute for Liberal Arts at Emerson College. He is the author and co-founder of the Global Campaign for Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution
https://www.facebook.com/events/555008085178824/
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 2: 27 Ιουνίου
Ιμπεριαλισμός, Αντιιμπεριαλισμός και Συριακή Επανάσταση
Συμμετέχουν: Lara el-Khateb, Ashley Smith, Yassin Haj Saleh
Συντονίζει: Nader Attassi
The internationalization of the Syrian uprising occurred quite rapidly, with the direct involvement of international and regional actors early on. The main dynamics of international imperialist and regional interventions were initially motivated by geopolitical considerations rather than economic objectives. Syria was at the center of many geopolitical games in the region, and its overthrow could change the balance of forces in significant ways. Assad’s regime benefited from these divisions on the international scene and the assistance given by his allies to remain in power. It was undoubtedly the most important aspect of the resilience of the regime. The regional political environment in the Middle East witnessed major changes on the eve of the uprisings, particularly with the failures of U.S.-led. military invasion in Iraq in 2003 and the willingness of the Obama administration to partially withdraw from the region to concentrate on the challenge represented by China. This situation allowed other international and regional actors to play an increasingly significant role in the MENA region. In this panel, our speakers we discuss the influence of these different regional and imperialist dynamics on Syria, and also discuss the form of “campist” politics that have characterized some sections of the left in Syrian uprising. Participants: Lara el-Khateb, Ashley Smith, Yassin Hajj Saleh Moderator: Nader Attassi
https://www.facebook.com/147353662105485/videos/586960065572773/
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 3: 5 Ιουλίου
Φεμινιστική Πολιτική και Συριακή Επανάσταση
Συμμετέχουν: Razan Ghazzawi, Maria al-Abdeh, Ziva Gorani
Συντονίζει: Frieda Afary
Syria has been at the center of international media in many ways since mid-March 2011, following the start of a popular uprising in the country and its violent repression. The Syrian civil war has increasingly transformed over the years into a war involving several local, regional and international actors. Unfortunately, once again, the central role and women in the popular uprising is often forgotten or undermined. In this panel, our speakers will discuss the role of women activists in the popular protest movement and their involvement in the organization of various forms of popular resistance. At the same time, the various challenges faced by feminists and women activists during the uprising will also be tackled from the repression they faced by different actors and sexist practices they suffered. The “Rojava” experience and role and participation of women in this political project is also included in the discussion. Participants: Razan Ghazzawi; Maria al-Abdeh; Ziva Gorani Moderator: Frieda Afary Sponsor: Alliance of MENA socialists -Razan Ghazzawi is a Syrian Palestinian scholar-activist and a doctoral researcher in Gender Studies at the University of Sussex. Her thesis focuses on checkpoints, queer incarceration, and imagining a military/prison abolitionist future in Syria. Ghazzawi is a formerly incarcerated person by the Syrian state during the uprising. She is the founder of the Syrian Feminist ArQives and a co-founder of Karama Bus. She received the Front Line Defender award in 2012. Pronouns: she/they. - Maria Al Abdeh is Executive Director of Women Now For Development (WND). Maria has a PhD in Microbiology and a Master degree in project analysis and sustainable development. She joined Women Now for Development in November 2013 and since then she accompanied the growth of the organization to become the largest network of women empowerment centers inside Syria and the neighboring countries and participated in many campaigns and conferences to reach out the voices of the most vulnerable women to the media, activists and decision makers, and focuses on Islamic feminism and women rights in the MENA region. In March 2016 Maria received the Award of Feminine Success in France, and together with WND received in May 2016 the Award of ‘Delivering Lasting Change’ for commitment to Justice and Dignity from CARE international. - Ziva Gorani is a Kurdish Syrian queer feminist who started her journey as a humanitarian worker soon after the Syrian revolution in 2011. Her Kurdish queer identity, refugee status, and feminist beliefs opened her eyes to the value of social activism in the Middle East. Ziva has worked with many international media platforms, including Aljazeera, National Radio of France, and CBC to highlight the depth and the resilience of the queer community in the Middle East against multilayers of discrimination. - Frieda Afary is an Iranian American librarian, writer and translator. She is the co-founder, with Joseph Daher, of the Alliance of MENA Socialists and the producer of Iranian Progressives in Translation.
https://www.facebook.com/147353662105485/videos/1507870469397572
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 4: 8 Ιουλίου
Από το BLM στην Παλαιστίνη και τη Συρία: Η πολιτική της Επαναστατικής Αλληλεγγύης
Συμμετέχουν: Khury Peterson-Smith, Jehad Abusalim, Leena Odeh, Banah Ghadbian
"The Syrian Revolution: A History from Below" next webinar is at 2pm EST. It is entitled
"From Black Lives Matter to Palestine and Syria: The Politics of Revolutionary Solidarity."
Participants: Khury Peterson-Smith, Banah Ghadbian, Mariam Barghouti, Robert Cuffy, Moderator: Shireen Akram-Boshar
This panel is part of the webinar series titled "The Syrian Revolution: A History from Below". It will discuss the connections between Palestinian, Syrian and Black liberation. It examines state violence and strategies of grassroots resistance in three regions.
What can the Palestinian and Syrian struggles learn from the tradition of Black liberation and the current struggle to confront structural and historical racism?
How can grassroots struggles in Palestine and Syria inform Black liberation in the United States?
How can we deepen ties and connections between each of these struggles, and produce stronger bonds of solidarity?
How do we approach this current moment that offers a real window for transformative change and re-examining history?
How can SWANA activists extend this solidarity by addressing anti-blackness in their communities and centering Black Arabs in social movements?
Khury Petersen-Smith is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at IPS. He researches U.S. empire, borders, and migration. Khury graduated from the Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Massachusetts, after completing a dissertation that focused on militarization and sovereignty. He is one of the co-authors and organizers of the 2015 Black Solidarity with Palestine statement, which was signed by over 1,100 Black activists, artists, and scholars.
Banah Ghadbian is a Syrian woman poet, jewelry maker, and activist. She has a B.A. in comparative women’s studies and sociology from Spelman College and an M.A. from University of California-San Diego, where she is a doctoral student in ethnic studies. Her research focuses on how Syrian women use creative resistance including poetry and theatre to survive multiple layers of violence. Her work is published in The Feminist Wire (finalist in their 2015 poetry competition), As/Us: a journal for queer women in the world, Aunt Chloe, Sukoon, the Journal of Middle Eastern Women’s Studies, and the print anthology Passage & Place.Robert Cuffy is a member of the Organizing Committee in the DSA NYC Afrosocialist Caucus and a member of the Nyc Labor Branch. He is also a 11 year rank and file member of Social Services Employees Union Local 371, a DC 37 Union. Within Afrosoc and the Labor Branch his emphasis has been on political education and united front work.Mariam Barghouti is a Palestinian-American journalist and translator hailing from the West Bank. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, Al-Jazeera, Middle East Monitor and she owns her own blog: https://ramallahbantustan.wordpress.com/ You can follow her on twitter
Mariam Barghouti Shireen Akram-Boshar is a socialist activist and alum of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). She has organized around the question of the Syrian uprising and the relationship between Syrian and Palestinian struggles for liberation, as well as on anti-imperialism and solidarity with the revolts of the Middle East/North Africa region. Her writing has covered the repression of Palestine solidarity activists in the US, revolution and counterrevolution in the Middle East, Trump’s war on immigrants, and the fight against the far right.To learn more about the upcoming webinars
https://www.facebook.com/events/551333035534856/
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 5: 11 Ιουλίου
Πώς διαμορφώνει ο πόλεμος την ιατροφαρμακευτική περίθαλψη στη Συρία και αλλού
Συμμετέχουν: Omar Dewashi, Ossama Tanous, Aula Abbara, Khuloud Saba
Συντονίζει/μιλάει: Yazan al Saadi
Continuing on the webinar series, “The Syrian Revolution: A History from Below” we turn now to this panel, which will discuss how war has shaped healthcare in Palestine, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. How has settler-colonialism utilized and militarized healthcare? How have centralized states like Iraq and Syria exploited healthcare for their own nation-building? Why are healthcare spaces and workers routine targets in war? What happens to the medical community during sanctions? Where did the medical brain-drain from our region go? How far can healthcare go as a revolutionary force? And with all the challenges against us, how can healthcare in the West Asian and North African region survive? All this and more on this special panel on “How War Shapes Healthcare in Syria and the Region” Participants: Omar Dewachi, Ossama Tanous, Khuloud Saba, Aula Abbara Moderator/discussant: Anthony Rizk Khuloud Saba is a PhD candidate in Social Policy, within the International Public Health Unit, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Edinburgh. Her research focuses on social and political determinants of health, health inequalities, and public policies. She is holding a PhD Chrystal Macmillan studentship at University of Edinburgh, and was awarded Sir William Darling Memorial Prize of the University of Edinburgh in 2015 for advancing the University of Edinburgh reputation. Khuloud worked with the Syrian Centre for Policy Research on assessing the impact of the conflict in Syria on population health, and she has 10 years of research experience in development and humanitarian sectors in Syria and Iraq, she also worked as a field humanitarian coordinator and interlocker with MSF, UNICEF, UNDP, Red Crescent Communities in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, and ICRC in Syria during the conflict. Omar Dewachi is Associate Professor of medical anthropology at Rutgers University. Before joining Rutgers in 2018, Dewachi taught social medicine, global health, and anthropology in Lebanon, where he co-founded the Conflict Medicine Program at the American University of Beirut. Trained in Medicine and anthropology as a physician and anthropologist, Dewachi’s research and writings have covered a wide range of themes and topics in the history and anthropology of medicine. He is the author of Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq, which recently won the New Millennium Book Prize from the Society for Medical Anthropology. Ungovernable Life is the first study documenting the untold history of the rise and fall of state medicine in Iraq and its unravelling under decades of conflicts and Western interventions in the country. Dewachi’s upcoming book manuscript, When Wounds Travel, chronicles close to a decade of ethnographic research and public health practice work in the Middle East. The account traces trajectories and registers of war wounds in the context of protracted conflicts, populations displacement, and the reconfigurations of war and health ecologies across the region. Osama Tanous is a specialized pediatrician based in Haifa. He is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Health, a researcher for the Galilee Society: The Arab National Society for Health, Research and Services and a policy analyst for Al-Shabaka. Osama is a 2020 candidate for the Fulbright Hubert Humphrey fellowship in public health and health policies. His research interests include structural violence and health disparities. Aula Abbara is a consultant in Infectious Diseases/ General Internal Medicine at Imperial College NHS Healthcare Trust, London and an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College. She teaches and supervises students on the Global Health BSc course at Imperial College and the TMIH at LSHTM. She co-chairs the Syria Public Health Network a group which brings together academics, NGOs, policy makers and international organisations to highlight and influence policies relevant to the public health of Syrians. She chairs Health Professionals for Global Health and has been a collaborator on the Lancet Commission on Syria. Anthony Rizk is a doctoral research assistant at the Global Health Centre and a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute. He works with Dr. Suerie Moon on the global governance of pathogen and benefit sharing. His doctoral research explores the anthropology and political economy of healthcare in Lebanon and the broader Middle East, with a focus on antimicrobial resistance, war, conflict and militarization. He received a MSc in Medical Anthropology from Durham University (UK) and a BSc in Medical Laboratory Sciences from the American University of Beirut (Lebanon). Check the webinar series here: https://www.facebook.com/events/55133... and here: SyrianRevolt.org This event is co-sponsored with Scapewars and the Alliance for MENA Socialists.
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 6: 15 Ιουλίου
Ο καπιταλισμός και η ταξική πάλη στη Συρία
Συμμετέχουν: Yassin al Haj Saleh, Myriam Ababsa, Jihad Yazigi
Συντονίζει: Sara Dehkordi
Since the Ba’ath Party’s seizure of power in Syria in the early 1960s, significant changes have occurred in the class composition of Syrian society. These transformations can be understood as an important factor in the unfolding of the 2011 revolution. In the words of the late Syrian intellectual Sadiq Jalal al-Azm, “the workers, peasants, craftsmen, students and small-earners of Syria” form the popular constituencies of “a revolution against a party which, once upon a time, used to present itself as the party of the workers and peasants.”
This panel will deal with land reforms passed in the early Ba’athist period, the regime’s shift toward conciliation with the local bourgeoisie under Hafez al-Assad, the aggressive turn toward neoliberal policies after Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000, geographies of economic deprivation and rural-to-urban migration, and the class dynamics of the 2011 revolution.
Jihad Yazigi is a Syrian journalist who specializes in covering Syrian economic affairs. He is the founder and editor of the Syria Report, an economics news bulletin, and cofounder of the Syrian Observer, which translates articles from Syrian publications into English. Jihad is also a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, where he has published reports on Syria’s war economy and decentralization. He is on Twitter @jihadyazigi.
Myriam Ababsa is a French Algerian social geographer based in Jordan. Associate researcher at the French institute for the Near East (Ifpo), she holds a phD from Tours University on Raqqa territories and ideologies (2004). She has received the Syrian Studies Association Best Doctoral Dissertation Prize Special Mention in 2006. Author of Raqqa : territoires et pratiques sociales d’une ville syrienne, IFPO, Beyrouth, 2009, 300 p. http://ifpo.revues.org/1021Editor of the Atlas of Jordan (Ifpo 2013) http://books.openedition.org/ifpo/4560
Participants: Yassin al Haj Saleh, Myriam Ababsa, Jihad Yazigi, Samer Abboud
Moderator: Sara Dehkordi
Yassin Haj Saleh is a writer, former political prisoner 1980-1996, author of seven books on Syria, prison, contemporary Islam and culture, founding member of aljumhuriya.net, and Hamisch, the Syrian cultural house in Istanbul. He is the husband of the former political prisoner Samira Al Khalil who was " disappeared" in Douma in late 2013.
Samer Abboud is Associate Professor of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University and co-coordinator (with Omar Dahi) of the Critical Security Studies in the Arab World Working Group of the ACSS. He is the author of Syria (Polity, 2018) and (with Benjamin Muller) of Rethinking Hizballah: Authority, Legitimacy, Violence (Ashgate, 2012). In addition to publishing book chapters, Samer has published in journals such as Security Dialogue, Middle East Policy, Arab Studies Quarterly, and The International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies.
Sara Dehkordi is an Iranian political activist living in exile and lecturer at the Otto-Suhr-Institute of Political and Social Sciences of the Freie University Berlin. She teaches in the areas of critical peace and conflict studies, decolonial theories and critique, and critical urban studies. She especially focuses on colonial genocide, the Negritude and Black Consciousness Movement, neoliberal urbanism and repressed archives and collective memory building. Her book, Segregation, Inequality and Urban Development – Forced Evictions and Criminalisation Practices in Present-Day South Africa, will be released in July this year.
This is the 6th webinar in "The Syrian Revolution: A History from Below."
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 7: 18 Ιουλίου
Από τη Συρία στο Μεξικό: Ο αγώνας για έναν κόσμο χωρίς σύνορα
Συμμετέχουν: Omar Dahi, Senay Ozden, Sana Mustafa
Συντονίζει: Danny Postel
Refugees and migrants are often discussed in a humanitarian framework that strips them of their agency and the political forces that have shaped their circumstances. This panel will aim to re-politicize the question of migrants and refugees, rooting it in struggles from below that challenge class, racial, and imperialist violence and oppression. The speakers will address the causes of mass migration--in uprisings like the Syrian Revolution, in changing forces of capitalism, and imperialist violence--and explore moments in recent history in which movements led by migrants and refugees have challenged the global regime of borders. From the Day without an Immigrant in 2006 to the Migrant Caravans traveling to the US from Central America, from Gaza's Great Return March to the movement of refugees from Iraq and Syria and other countries in the region through Europe in the summer of 2016, migrants and refugees have not only challenged borders but have shown the potential for a different future, one shaped by migrants and working-class people themselves. What can the various movements today, whether for solidarity with Syrian refugees or for migrants in the US, learn from these high points of struggle, and from each other's histories of fightback? Omar S. Dahi, associate professor of economics, received his B.A. in economics from California State University at Long Beach, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.His research and teaching interests are in the areas of economic development and international trade, with a special focus on South-South economic cooperation, and on the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Senay Ozden is a researcher in cultural anthropology from Turkey. Her research areas include refugees in the Middle East, Turkish state’s refugee policies, and politics of humanitarian aid. She has numerous articles and reports published on Syrian refugees in Turkey, and hosts a weekly radio program in Turkey about Syrian refugees. She taught at various universities in Damascus and Istanbul. Sana Mustafa Syrian activist based in the US. She is the Associate Director of Partnership and Engagement at Asylum Access, a founding member of The Global Refugee-Led Network, and a member of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement. Mustafa finished her second undergraduate degree in Political Science as a full scholarship recipient from Bard College in NY. Justin Akers Chacón on is an activist, writer, and educator who lives in the San Diego-Tijuana border region. He is co-author of No One is Illegal (with Mike Davis) and Professor of Chicano/a History at San Diego City College. Sarah Hunaidi is a Syrian writer and member of the Syrian Women’s Political Movement. She writes and publishes in both English and Arabic. After her exile from Syria in 2014 due to her opposition to the Syrian regime, she has been writing a book about the missing activist Samira al-Khalil.
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 8: 22 Ιουλίου
Οι αγώνες για την απελευθέρωση των Κούρδων στη Συρία και την περιοχή
Συμμετέχουν: Ozlem Goner, Dlshad Othman, Kamran Matin
Συντονίζει/μιλάει: Thomas Schmidinger
This panel is part of a 12-part webinar series titled, "The Syrian Revolution: A History from Below." It will consider the struggle for Kurdish self-determination in Syria and its complex relation to movements for liberation across the country. Speakers will discuss grassroots Kurdish participation in the 2011 Syrian revolution and the emergence of a divide between Kurdish and Arab opposition currents. They will outline the council-based system of governance in Rojava and its relationship to the leading political party, the PYD, and its military factions. They will also consider the political orientation of the PYD and its relations with other Kurdish political tendencies, forces representing the regime and the Arab opposition, and international powers. Participants will discuss grassroots politics and feminist struggles in Rojava. Ozlem Goner is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York (CUNY). She earned degrees in Political Science and Sociology from Bogazici University, Turkey and her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her research interests focus on political sociology, memory, race and ethnicity, social movements, sociology of place and environment, qualitative methods, and classical, post-structural, postcolonial and feminist theory. Thomas Schmidinger is a political scientist and social and cultural anthropologist and teaches at the University of Vienna and the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. He is co-editor of the Vienna Yearbook for Kurdish Studies. Research focuses on religious minorities, the relationship between state and religion, the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and the Yazidis in Sinjar. Latest English publication: “The Battle for the Mountain of the Kurds. Self-Determination and Ethnic Cleansing the Afrin Region of Rojava” (Oakland, 2019) and the anthology Beyond ISIS: History and Future of religious minorities in Iraq (London, 2019). Dlshad Othman is a Kurdish Syrian activist and information technology specialist in information security who provides Syrians with digital security resources and assistance so that they can utilize online communications and advocacy freely and securely in spite of increased online government repression in the form of censorship, sophisticated cyber attacks, and intense surveillance. Kamran Matin is senior lecturer in International Relations at Sussex University, UK, where he teaches international history, international theory, and Middle East politics. He is the author of Recasting Iranian Modernity: International Relations and Social Change (Routledge, 2013) and co-editor of Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016), and several articles and op-eds on Kurdish politics. Check the 12 part program and other information here: SyrianRevolt.org Sponsors - Emergency Committee For Rojava - The Global Campaign for Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution - Solidarity: a socialist, feminist, anti-racist organization
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 9: 25 Ιουλίου
Η Συρία και το δεύτερο κύμα επαναστάσεων στη Μέση Ανατολή και τη Βόρεια Αφρική.
Συμμετέχουν: Gilbert Achcar; Sara Abbas, Joseph Daher
The Syrian regime has consolidated its power in the past few years with the assistance of its allies, Russia and Iran. However, the conditions that led to the uprisings are all still present, especially dictatorship and social justice. These conditions have actually only gotten worse. The recent anti-regime demonstrations provoked by the socio-economic crisis in the Sweida and Daraa provinces under regime control indicate how intolerable the situation has become.The Assad regime and other regimes in the region believe that they can maintain their despotic rules by the continuous use of massive violence against their populations. This is doomed to fail, and new explosions of popular protest will inevitably happen, just like those of 2019 in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon, which have been described as a “Second Arab Spring”. The panel participants will analyze the current situation in Syria and Sudan, and the overall context of the uprisings as well as the regional prospects.
Sara Abbas is a Sudanese Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the Freie Unversität Berlin. Her doctoral research focuses on the discourses and practices of women members of the Islamist Movement and al- Bashir's formerly ruling party in Sudan. Most recently, she has been researching Sudan's resistance committees which emerged out of the 2018 revolution. She is a member of SudanUprising Germany and the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists. Gilbert Achcar is a Lebanese academic, writer, and socialist. He is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. He has written extensively on politics and development economics, as well as social change and social theory. His publications include The Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder (2002), published in 15 languages; Perilous Power: The Middle East and US Foreign Policy (2008), with Noam Chomsky; the critically acclaimed The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli-War of Narratives (2010); The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2013); and Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprisings (2016).
Joseph Daher is a Swiss-Syrian socialist activist, academic, and founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever. He is part of the Wartime and Post-Conflict in Syria project, at the European University Institute, Florence (Italy) and works at the University of Lausanne. He is the author of "Hezbollah: Political Economy of the Party of God" (2016, Pluto Press) and "Syria after the Uprisings, the Political Economy of State Resilience" (Pluto Press and Haymarket 2019). He is also a member of the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists.
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 10: 29 Ιουλίου
Φυλακισμένοι Επαναστάτες: Αντίσταση στο Κράτος Φυλακή του Άσαντ
Ομιλητές: Rateb Sha’bo, Jomana Hassan, and Wafa Mustafa
Συντονίζει: Razan Ghazzawi
Detention and the prison system in Syria are central pillars of state violence. The Syrian regime created these ‘death worlds’ half a century ago to terrorize the population and maintain the Assad family in power. Since 2011, this underworld was expanded and adapted to crush the rebellion and disappear critical voices. In this webinar, the speakers will talk about the different forms of incarceration in Syria. They will examine gendered violence in prisons and strategies of resistance inside and outside prisons. The panelists will address questions such as: Is it possible to resist inside Syrian prisons? How do survivors begin the process of healing after their released? And how can we support prisoners and their families today?
Jailed Revolutionaries: Resistance to Assad’s Carceral State Speakers: Rateb Sha’bo and Wafa Mustafa Rateb Shabo is a Syrian writer, translator, and physician. In addition to publishing opinion pieces in various newspapers and websites, he is the author of several books, including What is Beyond These Walls?, The World of Early Islam, and The Story of the Syrian Communist Labour Party. A former member of this party, he spent sixteen years as a political prisoner in Syria. Wafa Mustafa is one of the youngest members of Families for Freedom, a survivor from detention, and an activist and journalist from Masyaf, a city in the Hama Governorate, western Syria. Mustafa left the country on 9 July 2013, exactly a week after her father was arrested by the authorities in Damascus. Mustafa moved to Turkey and began reporting on Syria for various media outlets. In 2016, she moved to Germany and continued her interrupted studies in Berlin where she studies Arts and Aesthetics at Bard College. In her advocacy, Mustafa covers the impact of detention on young girls and women and families.
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 11: 1 Αυγούστου
Το Επαναστατικό Καρναβάλι: Οι Λαϊκές Τέχνες και η Συριακή Εξέγερση
Συμμετέχουν: Sana Yazigi, Others will be announced soon
Συντονίζει: Malek Rasamny
Διαδικτυακό σεμινάριο 12: 2 Σεπτεμβρίου
Ποια είναι η συνέχεια του αγώνα στη Συρία
Συμμετέχουν: Ziad Majed, Karam Nachar, Marcell Shehwaro
Συντονίζει/μιλάει: Wendy Pearlman
