Review: My Country

My Country, A Syrian Memoir
Kassem Eid, Bloomsbury, 2018

Review by Kellie Strom

On the early morning of 21 August 2013, the Damascus suburbs of Zamalka and Ein Tarma in Eastern Ghouta, and Moadamiya in Western Ghouta, were attacked with rockets loaded with Sarin nerve agent. An estimated 1,500 people were killed. Kassem Eid, then 27 years old, was amongst the survivors.

Review: The Burning Shores

Bronwen Griffiths

The 2011 Libyan and Syrian revolutions began within weeks of each other, and the Libya intervention profoundly affected international responses to Syria. Bronwen Griffiths reviews a new book by Frederic Wehrey on the Libyan experience.

The Burning Shores—Inside the Battle for the New Libya,
Frederic Wehrey, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York, 2018

The NATO intervention in Libya in 2011, which the UK took part in, is still contested. A report in 2016 by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee stated that the UK’s strategy was based on ‘erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence’, accusing the government of selectively taking the threats of Quadafi at face value. After the Government argued that its actions ‘undoubtedly’ saved civilian lives in Libya, the Committee accepted that ‘as the Government response suggests, UK policy in Libya was initially driven by a desire to protect civilians. However, we do not accept that it understood the implications of this, which included collapse of the state, failure of stabilisation, and the facilitation of Islamist extremism in Libya.’

The idea of an international ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) and a possible enforcement of human rights is seen as a way of preventing authoritarian governments from hurting their own populations. In a contrast to Libya, the violent protests in Syria, which were met with extreme violence by the Assad regime, demonstrates the limits of this idea. This raises questions about the international context of the intervention in Libya, and possible reasons for differences between the two countries.

Little Gandhi: the story of Ghiyath Matar

Little Gandhi: the story of Ghiyath Matar
Produced and directed by Sam Kadi

Film showing and talk hosted by Amnesty International and Rahma Relief Foundation.

Review by Mark Boothroyd

This documentary tells the story of Ghiyath Matar and the peaceful uprising of the city of Daraya in the suburbs of Damascus in 2011.

Daraya was the centre for peaceful protests in Damascus in 2011. It had a history of civic activism going back a decade; in 2003 civil society activists organised street cleaning exercises and public health and anti-corruption campaigns, and even organised demonstrations against the Iraq War, culminating in a silent demonstration to mark the fall of Baghdad to the American invasion. For these activities many activists were arrested and endured 2-3 years in prison.

The film documents, through interviews with activists inside Syria, and those forced into exile the story of Daraya’s uprising, and Ghiyath Matar’s role in it.

Although at the centre of the film, Ghiyath is never pictured; instead his comrades recount the beginning of the uprising, and how Ghiyath’s ideas of peaceful resistance to the Baathist tyranny were taken up and acted upon in Daraya.

The film is full of poignant moments as the exiled revolutionaries recount the days of the early protests, their first taste of freedom as they began to shout anti-government slogans for the first time and broke the barrier of fear that had been built around their minds.

Footage of the early protests is shown, and the activists explained how they wanted to keep the revolt peaceful as the best means to threaten the regime. This peaceful resistance was what the regime feared most, and Ghiyath was its champion. His friends recounted his fervent belief that the soldiers would not kill them as they were their fellow Syrians, and that their best hope was to appeal to them as Syrian brothers and fellow human beings.

Ghiyath was a key organiser of the tactic of holding roses on demonstrations, and of giving bottles of water to the police and soldier who come to repress the demonstrations. In the middle of summer 2011, many of the soldiers were thirsty and dehydrated and gladly accepted the water, although their commanders did their best to dissuade them from taking it by saying it was poisoned.

Usually the demonstrators would have to leave the bottles of water stood in the street for the soldiers to collect as they moved towards the protests. Activists would write notes and attach a rose to the bottle, sending messages of love and peace to them. On one occasion their protest accidentally marched into the ranks of the soldiers, and they were able to give the water bottles and flowers directly to them, infuriating their officers.

When the regime attempted to intimidate families from holding public funerals for murdered protestors, funerals which would inevitably themselves become protests, Ghiyath organised his activists to mobilise the local population so that tens of thousands of people marched to the homes of the victims to defy the regime’s intimidation.



Some of the most fascinating parts of the documentary are those filmed in besieged Daraya itself. Director Sam Kadi, speaking after the showing, outlined how they had recruited and trained a cameraman to film the scenes within the besieged area, and then arranged to have the film smuggled out to the US.

They had to smuggle the footage out of Daraya on thumb drives taped to the body of an activist who was escaping the siege. The thumb drives were smuggled to Damascus, then to Turkey then to LA where it was edited.

Motaz Morad and Muhammad Shihadeh, two of the original activists who worked with Ghiyath Daraya, and who remained behind in the siege, were interviewed in talking about how the ideas of Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement influenced their work. As they talked, sniper fire could be heard in the background, interrupting their interview, a reminder of the regime’s constant attempts to wipe them out.

When the film footage reached the US, they found out the audio had been ruined by a strange humming noise. They thought it was broadcast by the regime on purpose to ruin any recording done within Daraya. In the end an editing studio agreed to do the cleaning up work for free when it learned what the content of the film was.

Hossam, a former resident of Daraya who attended the screening spoke about what made Daraya special:

“Daraya, what is special about Daraya? It’s the activists, the youth, they are very special, very humble and very dedicated to making a change in their country.
They were very dedicated to organising and structuring their work, so for instance you never see any abuse of human rights in Daraya. When it turned to militarise, they tried as much as possible to respect the law, so if they capture a soldier they never torture for instance.”

The regime’s response to Ghiyath and his comrades peaceful resistance was brutal. Peaceful activists were arrested and beaten and tortured, often to death. Activists took to living in outlying farms surrounding Daraya to escape the constant raids on the city by the security forces, only returning to organise and participate in protests. Eventually Ghiyath and another leading activists Yahya Shurbaji were lured back into the city and captured in a trap.

Several days later, Ghiyath’s horrifically tortured body was returned to his family. Yahya’s whereabouts are unknown, he has not been released nor had his body returned.

Najlaa Al-Sheikh, one of the women activists interviewed spoke about the anger felt by other peaceful activists when news of Ghiyath’s murder reached them. Although completely opposed to using violent means to overthrow the regime, the torture and murder of Ghiyath made them consider taking up arms against it, and drove many to support those groups already doing so.

When asked about the prospects for the future of Syria, Najlaa replied in a poetic fashion typical of many of the activists; “"We have sowed freedom and it will be reaped by our sons"

None of the activists believed the conflict would end soon, but they all felt that freedom would come to Syria, in time.

A poignant moment was brought to the discussion at the end, when a young Indian activist stood and talked about how the film had affected him. He mentioned how inspired he was by Ghiyath’s example, and that Ghiyath should not be known as ‘little Gandhi’, as that prevented linking his name with his actions, which deserved to be known in their own right. Instead he said, everyone should know Ghiyath Matar’s name so that he would have his own legacy and people would remember Ghiyath, not as a ‘little Gandhi’ but as an inspiring example of the Syrian revolution’s peaceful glory days, when everything seemed possible.

See all posts on Daraya.

Khiyana: Daesh, the Left, and the Unmaking of the Syrian Revolution

Khiyana: Daesh, the Left, and the Unmaking of the Syrian Revolution, ed. Jules Alford and Andy Wilson, published by Unkant, London.

Review by Clara Connolly

This book should be required reading for every leftist, as an antidote to the growing mountain of ignorant comment on the subject of Syria. The title Khiyana (betrayal) is an accusing cry; the book is a trenchant denunciation of the Western Left for its abandonment of the principles of internationalism and solidarity in favour of an alignment with the ‘anti imperialist’ camp, a hangover from the geo-politics of the Cold War.

Assad An-Nar, like most of the authors, situates himself on the Marxist left, and his prefatory chapter could be considered a direct response to Tariq Ali’s infamous dismissal of the Arab Spring in What is a Revolution? (Guernica, Sept. 2013). He sets his critique in the context of the changing nature of revolution in an age of global neoliberalism, where post colonial states are collapsing because neoliberal policies have slashed the limited social protections they used to offer. In this world, he says, the principles of self emancipation and of collective and democratic struggle are ‘ideas in search of a subject.’ Ideas about democracy, socialism, and anti-imperialism used to run in the same direction, but now they are counterposed.

With the collapse of the progressive moment of secular Arab nationalism, Islamist organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood can rise beyond identity/sectarian politics in resistance to tyranny. Though not necessarily opposed to neoliberalism, they are the voice of those who are excluded from its benefits. Hezbollah’s current role in Syria shows that such movements can swing between revolution and counter revolution without moving in a socialist direction.

The role of socialists is not to counterpose themselves to democratic revolutions, which gave rise (in Egypt) to the first democratic government, and (in Syria) to emancipatory projects such as networks of local councils against the existing state, but to take the democratic side against tyranny. Instead the left has responded by either supporting their favourite dictatorships (the neo Stalinists) or by re-hashing theories of ‘permanent revolution,’ i.e. insisting that revolutions can only end in socialism or defeat (the Trotskyists). Yes, he says, a democratic revolution is possible in these countries, but the outcomes are uncertain; the socialist left, while recognising its marginal role, should not condemn itself to irrelevance by denouncing the struggles for democracy because they are not socialist. Instead he urges the left to make the ‘democratic wager,’ in hope that the outcomes lead to more collective forms of struggle. There is little to lose for socialists, he believes, since neoliberalism has led worldwide to the fatal weakening of working class self-organisation.

The subsequent chapters examine and demolish the standard left myths about the Syrian revolution: the ‘jihadist’ nature of the ‘rebels’; the selective anti imperialism which admires Rojava but has no time for similar experiments in local democracy elsewhere in Syria; the role of regional imperialisms like Iran and Russia in propping up a monstrous regime; and above all the lies and distortions peddled by the institutional left (Stop the War Coalition, and the éminence grise of left journalism like Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, and Seymour Hersh) who place the national interests of states they consider to be in the ‘axis of resistance’ above solidarity with the struggles of the oppressed in those countries.

In a short review I can refer only to two further articles in the core of the book; but I cannot resist a passing mention of the glorious satirical piece by M Idrees Ahmad, The Anti-Imperialist Guide to Inaction in Syria. Anyone familiar with debate on Syria will recognise the strategies he lists: ‘Don’t defend Assad, attack his opponents; sympathise selectively; functional doubt where straight denial is risky; defend peace and sovereignty; champion the minorities; talk about ISIS, not Assad; talk about refugees but not the cause of flight,’ etc. Most of these strategies are shared with the establishment and the extreme Right.



Mark Boothroyd describes the responses of Stop the War Coalition (STWC) to Syria, in a case study that echoes the critique in the preface. It has consistently viewed developments through its relation to the US and the UK. In a multi polar world system with competing imperialisms, it persists in viewing events through the prism of the Cold War. The agency of Syrians is erased altogether.

In 2013, STWC opposed the proposed intervention of the UK and when this proposal was defeated in Parliament, it claimed victory; but Boothroyd claims that if the West had really wanted to intervene in Syria it would have done so—its actual strategy is to let the country bleed. I think he underestimates the power of popular protest in democratic countries, and the degree to which STWC was able to tap into post Iraq war weariness. But he is right in pointing out that STWC has missed a trick in failing to expose the real cruelties of the Western role.

In its weaker response to the 2015 intervention against ISIS, STWC has consistently refused to allow oppositional Syrians on its platforms—who have opposed the Coalition campaign against ISIS as useless and counter-productive, but have also proposed more positive measures for the protection of Syrian civilians. Once again, its failure to listen to Syrians has weakened its moral stance even in its own terms—in opposing its own Government.

It could have been different, he believes: the anti war movement could have risen beyond its current ethnocentric, isolationist positions to meet the challenge of changing times, and been a movement to build solidarity with the revolutions in the Middle East.



In The Rise of Daesh in Syria, Sam Charles Hamad attacks the myth of Saudi funding and support for Daesh; instead, in a detailed study, he convincingly shows their deadly rivalry despite their similar ideologies. He demonstrates the origins of Daesh in post invasion Iraq, and its nurture by the sectarian regimes in Iraq and Syria. He shows, by tracing its sources of income, how it is self sustaining. Finally he argues that the current tactics of the west, in fighting Daesh from the air but hampering the oppositions in their fight against the sectarian regimes of Assad and Maliki, are counter-productive. And the left’s narrative is complicit in this.

The book, and particularly its opening chapter, is weakened by a failure to examine more closely such terms as ‘democracy’ and ‘emancipation,’ given their ambivalent history among Marxists; and to analyse the demands of the revolution—Freedom Justice and Dignity—in more detail. This is particularly the case since there is little discussion of class, and no accounts of the role of women in the Syrian revolution, nor of the role of Western women’s peace groups or feminists in relation to Syria. My own recent experience of organising solidarity events with Syrian women suggests that the hostility to, and silencing of, Syrian voices is much less prevalent among feminist organisations than in the left as a whole. The ‘democratic wager’ which is urged upon us might be weighted more favourably with the inclusion of women activists, within Syria and in the West.



Videos via Al-Hamra’s Syrian Democratic Revolution blog.

Review: Syria’s Rebellious Women

By Clara Connolly

Zaina Erhaim is an award-winning journalist from Damascus, who currently works as project coordinator for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. This, her first film, is currently on a world tour, and for the showings she is accompanied by some of the women whose stories are narrated in the film. One had to drop her section of the film because of fears for her family’s security, and two others were refused entry visas to Britain. At the (fully booked) showing on Thursday 12 November in London, the Director was joined by Zein, one of the film’s stars. It was followed by a lively discussion between both of them and Lindsey Hilsum, international editor for Channel 4 News.

FILM

We saw four short films documenting the extraordinary lives over 18 months of some of Erhaim’s women friends, working in free Aleppo and caught between the regime’s (and now Russia’s) constant aerial bombardment, and the jihadists. As Ahed says, ruefully, “I only wanted the Free Syria Army and I got FSA, Nusra Front and ISIS. We said Syria is for all. Now we got them all here.”

The first story is that of Waed, a lively young woman who joined the early demonstrations of her fellow students in Aleppo, and who persuades her father to let her leave the family (in a government controlled area) to return as a paramedic to Aleppo, volunteering in field hospitals and on the front lines. She becomes a video journalist. We see her working in Aleppo, and on leave in Turkey where she joins her young friends for life on the town. The contrast is stark: she dresses casually in Turkey with hair uncovered, but on the job in Aleppo she is carefully dressed so as not to offend the strict dress code for women that is now enforced there. She chafes at that, but accepts its necessity, and states that “freedom from Assad is only the first step in the revolution.”



Then we meet Ghalia, an older woman who was a housewife and mother in a small town in Idlib before the revolution, and is now a community activist. We see how her life has changed; she has trained her teenage son to cook and her family to become self reliant.

Despite the fact that the first women’s centre she opened was subject to repeated attack, she has gone on to found a series of these centres, teaching women (many of them war widows or with husbands at the front) the skills to help them to earn money to feed their families.

We meet Ahed, a cheerful tomboy who says she knows no fear: “the barrel bombs fly away from me!” She has always been known as “the troublemaker” among her friends; she organised women’s contingents in the Aleppo demonstrations which started off with just a few brave friends, but grew to significant size before being driven off the streets by aerial bombardment. She now does humanitarian relief work.

Last is Zein, a schoolteacher who now works in ‘field schools,’ underground because of the constant targeting of schools by the regime. We see her teaching in a rudimentary basement schoolroom, with few facilities, but the girls she teaches seem cheerful, like any other schoolchildren.

Unlike the other women, who seem remarkably carefree despite the extraordinary risks they face on a daily basis, she is sombre, and clearly marked by her experience of 13 months detention in Assad’s dungeons. She says she has given up all thought of marrying and having children, because the men who propose “do so out of pity, and I will not be pitied by anyone.” She is separated from her family, and lives in a house with other women, including Ahed. Because rape is so prevalent in detention, the assumption is that women who are released have been ‘dishonoured’ by their time there—whether this has happened or not.

It’s a bitter way for Zein to have won her autonomy, but she gives the impression that she is making the most of it.

What is moving about all the women is their dignity and rueful reticence—they clearly do not say everything on their minds. These are not ‘true confessions’ in the TV-tabloid sense. Neither are they boastful about their extraordinary courage and resilience. Although they are unusually free of family and community restraint, they are also ‘ordinary’, like anyone’s daughter, sister or mother. It is Ephraim’s achievement, and a testimony to the close relationship between her and her subjects, that the women are so natural and down to earth in front of the camera.



DISCUSSION

Lindsey Hilsum is well informed on the Middle East; but she started the discussion on a personal note, asking gentle but probing questions of Zein, who was seeing the film played back for the first time. Zein said it was difficult to watch, because she had to “remember all the details I shared with you,” but she recognised herself: “it was me.” She said that it was impossible to keep in contact with her family “because they live in an ISIS controlled area.”

She spoke of her work as a teacher: among the difficulties she mentioned are frequent absences because of the barrel bombs; and trying to answer questions from the children like: “why is this happening to us?” She is successful in persuading parents to send their children to school—including 3 children who lost their hands. She is dealing with the children’s physical and psychological problems constantly. When asked about her vision for the future, she said: “working to topple the regime, or be killed. We hoped that the international community would protect us, but the they let us down so we are on our own. The FSA protect us, I hope they can just hold on, and we can keep providing the basic services.” When asked what she wanted people to understand from the film she said: “We rose for our human rights, we are not monsters or extremists, we want to live with dignity.”

Zaina Ephraim started by saying she made the film to document women activists’ lives in a predominantly masculine society so that there would be a record of role models for the future. There are many women like this in Syria—some are reluctant to speak to camera, others are afraid because their families live in regime held areas. But many more women are simply no longer in the ‘liberated’ areas—they and their children have been sent to safety in Turkey and elsewhere while the men stay to fight the regime. She said that although ISIS is a huge threat to women, the main threat to civilians, including women, is Assad. She is disappointed that the world does not seem to understand that.

When asked if the international community helps, she said: “we could not survive without international aid, but we are concerned that most of the money is being spent on overheads and not getting into the besieged areas.” As an example, she said that the White Helmets (the Civil Defence) are paid 100 dollars a month, and their international monitors between 2 and 3,000 dollars.

The difference made to Northern Syria by the Russian intervention? The civilians now get no break from the bombing, because Russian unlike Syrian planes “can fly in all weathers.”

She believed that there are 100,000 more displaced people as a direct result. These people have nowhere to run except to the countryside inside Syria.

When asked about whether women’s lives would be better or worse in a future Syria, she said: “the women in this film work in Aleppo and surrounding areas, and although not religiously conservative themselves, try to conform outwardly to a society which was conservative before the revolution. The longer the war goes on the less likely that the future will be good for women. She admires the women fighters of Rojava but they have little effect on other areas in Syria; since the war the territory of Syria is fragmented and there is little contact between towns or even neighbourhoods. If the war were over soon Syria could be reunited and the women activists across the country could learn from and support each other. But she fears that there will be little left of Syria: there is a huge population drain, especially of the richer and more liberal-minded middle class.

Asked what sustained her and her women friends, she said, “there is a huge burden placed on us by those we have lost. We have to keep going for their sakes. I still believe in Syria; even the small gestures inspire me, like the Civil Defence, and the cleaners who mop up after the bombing raids. Like the work that the women in my film are doing, they keep life going.”



Read more about Zaina Erhaim’s films in Tracy McVeigh’s article for today’s Observer, The Syrian women fighting to save their city.

UK rejects visas for Syrians seeking to highlight women’s war activism, by Mary Atkinson, Middle East Eye,

UK denial of visas for Syrian female activists is counterproductive, Caabu press release.