Category Archives: News

World’s richest 10 per cent produce 50% of CO2

AFP reports: The richest 10 per cent of people produce half of Earth’s climate-harming fossil-fuel emissions, while the poorest half contribute a mere 10 per cent, British charity Oxfam said in a study released Wednesday.

Oxfam published the numbers as negotiators from 195 countries met in Paris to wrangle over a climate rescue pact.

Disputes over how to share responsibility for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions and aiding climate-vulnerable countries are among the thorniest and longest-running issues in the 25-year-old UN climate process.

“Rich, high emitters should be held accountable for their emissions, no matter where they live,” Oxfam climate policy head Tim Gore said in a statement.

“But it’s easy to forget that rapidly developing economies are also home to the majority of the world’s very poorest people and while they have to do their fair share, it is rich countries that should still lead the way.”

The report said that an average person among the richest one percent emits 175 times more carbon than his or her counterpart among the bottom 10 per cent.[Continue reading…]

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How solar and wind got so cheap, so fast

The Atlantic reports: A funny change has happened this year: People have become tepidly optimistic about climate change.

That’s not because the UN climate negotiations currently underway in Paris look like they might succeed, or because the United States is finally getting serious about a clean-energy policy. And it’s not because humanity is any less likely to overshoot the 2-degree Celsius target that spells dangerous levels of global warming.

No, it’s because the two renewable-electricity-generating technologies that advocates hope will one day power much of human society—solar and wind—have both plunged in price in recent years. According to a recent report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, on-shore wind is competitive with fossil-fuel-burning plants in many parts of the world. And if you factor in coal’s devastating public-health costs, it’s already much more expensive than solar or wind. [Continue reading…]

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Evidence that first toolmakers predated the genus Homo

Discover reports: Thanks to a wrong turn, a stroke of luck and keen eyes, husband and wife research partners Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis of Stony Brook University could rewrite our understanding of tool use among hominins. With their team from the West Turkana Archaeological Project, the pair have found evidence that a species predating the genus Homo may have made the first stone tools.

In July 2011, Harmand and Lewis and their colleagues were scouting for sites in the area around northern Kenya’s Lake Turkana. There are no roads in this remote region, so Harmand was forced to drive in dry creek beds while Lewis navigated with a GPS device. It’s all too easy to become disoriented in this kind of terrain; at a certain juncture where the GPS indicated a right turn, she mistakenly went left. They soon found the way blocked by bushes. Unable to drive farther, they climbed a small hill to get their bearings. From the top of the rise, the team gazed down on what Harmand describes as a uniquely beautiful landscape.

“I felt certain it contained hidden areas waiting to be explored,” she says. Everyone fanned out to investigate. “We were only 10 people, working far from each other with walkie-talkies. Around 9 in the morning, we had a call from our local Turkana team member, Sammy Lokorodi. He said, ‘You should come where I am because I think I’ve spotted something very interesting.’ ”

He found stone tools sticking out of an eroding creek bed. The surface above had a dark, weathered patina, but the areas around the rocks were light, suggesting they had been only recently exposed. Harmand knew at once this was an important find because the layers in which the tools were embedded were dated to more than 2.7 million years old.

Paleomagnetic dating — matching magnetic properties in the sediments surrounding a fossil or artifact to ancient reversals in the Earth’s magnetic poles to determine age — later determined the tools had to have been made 3.3 million years ago. Despite the tools’ simple form and huge size, some almost 8 inches across, the angle and patterns on the rocks’ edges showed repetitive strikes that could not have resulted from erosion or other natural processes. Publishing the discovery in Nature in May, Harmand and Lewis dubbed the assemblage the Lomekwi 3, after the area where the tools were found. [Continue reading…]

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A growing jihadist presence in Syria’s opposition

Syria Deeply interviewed Hassan Hassan: How prevalent are jihadist groups in Syria? How naturalized are they becoming within their respective areas of control, and how are they changing the nature of the opposition?

Hassan: Well it’s worrying and I’m convinced that these groups are here to stay. Whether it’s the Islamic State or al-Nusra, they’re not going anywhere. But at the same time, the conflict isn’t going away either. It’s intractable, and I don’t see a resolution to it any time soon. But the longer these groups stick around, the more acceptable their ideologies become.

Unless we can begin to establish some sort of calm in Syria, nobody is going to turn against al-Nusra and think of them as a ‘terrorist’ group. Al-Nusra is fighting the Assad government, and it has been quietly establishing control of both Idlib and Aleppo, especially since the Russian intervention. They’ve made a lot of progress since March of this year in quietly taking over Idlib, establishing the group as a “kingmaker.” After the Russian intervention, it’s been clear that they’re trying to replicate the Idlib scenario in Aleppo. Slowly, al-Nusra is establishing itself as the dominant force in the area. That’s coming a long way considering local nationalist rebels had always dominated Aleppo. Some of them might have been Islamists, but they were still committed to Syria. Now, you have al-Nusra slowly benefiting from the deepening crisis, especially after the Russian intervention, and it’s beginning to achieve some of its goals. This is a consequence of the global failure to end this crisis. We’ve allowed groups to entrench themselves throughout Syria, whether it’s ISIS in southeastern Syria and elsewhere, or al-Nusra in northern Syria and elsewhere. It’s a direct result of the lack of vision and the disproportionate focus on what is and will happen in Damascus.

But give these ideas time and they will entrench themselves. That’s the simple formula. This is exactly what al-Qaida is trying to do. They always talk about themselves as a trigger for ordinary people to take up arms and to consider jihad as a way of life and the way to free the Muslim world, to put it back on the map. That’s their vision and that’s what they’re trying to do. Winning hearts and minds to convince people that they’re freedom fighters, not terrorists. They’re gaining traction in Syria, but they’re not yet mainstream. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS defections mount as death toll rises, U.S. official says

USA Today reports: Defections of Islamic State fighters — a closely watched measure by officials of U.S.-led coalition — have begun to thin the ranks of the militants in Iraq in the last month, intelligence reports and drone footage show.

Wholesale defections, sparsely manned checkpoints and elite foreign fighters pressed into mundane duty indicate that the U.S.-led bombing campaign and advances by Kurdish forces are eroding the forces of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, said Army Col. Steve Warren, the top spokesman for the counter-ISIL coalition in Baghdad.

Top military officials estimate that the campaign has killed 23,000 Islamic State fighters, raising their death toll by 3,000 since mid-October. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East as chief of Central Command, told troops last week in Iraq that the campaign is inflicting maximum pain on the enemy, according to a military official who attended the meeting but who was not authorized to speak publicly about it. [Continue reading…]

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MSF hospital in Syria hit by ‘double-tap’ barrel bombing

The Guardian reports: A hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières in Homs has been partially destroyed in a “double-tap” barrel bombing, a signature tactic of the Syrian air force.

The strikes on the hospital in Zafarana, a besieged town in northern Homs, killed seven people including a young girl, MSF said in a statement, and prompted the movement to nearby field hospitals of many wounded, some of whom died on the way.

Saturday’s strikes were the latest in an apparent pattern of escalating attacks on medical facilities and doctors in the Syrian civil war, according to human rights organisations.

MSF, which operates and supports a number of health centres and field hospitals in Syria, said the attack bore the hallmark of a double-tap strike, whereby the first bombing is followed by a second one after paramedics have arrived to help the victims. “This double-tap tactic shows a level of calculated destruction that can scarcely be imagined,” said MSF’s director of operations, Brice de le Vingne. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. official says use of chemical weapons is ‘routine’ in Syria

Reuters reports: Recent attacks with chlorine and mustard gas on the battlefield in Syria show that the use chemical weapons in the civil war is becoming routine, a U.S. official said on Monday.

A confidential report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Oct. 29 provided the first official confirmation of use of sulphur mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, in Syria since it agreed to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, two years ago.

While the OPCW did not specifically say which of the many sides in the war used the chemical, diplomatic sources said it had been used in clashes between Islamic State and rebel fighters in the town of Marea in August, as well as in rebel-held areas under attack by Syrian government forces.

That raised the possibility, diplomatic sources said, that Islamic State had gained the ability to make it themselves, or that it may have come from an undeclared stockpile.

“The sad reality is that chemical weapons use is becoming routine in the Syrian civil war,” Rafael Foley, representing the United States, told a special session of the OPCW’s Executive Council, in remarks sent to Reuters. [Continue reading…]

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After Paris attacks, air campaign escalates against ISIS oil assets

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Obama administration accused the Syrian government last week of purchasing oil from Islamic State and froze the U.S. assets of a Syrian businessman for allegedly facilitating these transactions.

An air raid by French warplanes on Oct. 23 in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ezzour severely damaged the Omar field, which supplied most of the extremist group’s oil and was once partly operated by Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Before the raid, up to 2,000 trucks were lined up at any one time at the installation, but that number has fallen to 200, a Western counterterrorism official said.

After the Nov. 13 terror attacks in the French capital, airstrikes against Islamic State’s oil assets intensified as part of Operation Tidal Wave II, named after the World War II military campaign against Nazi oil assets.

The coalition said five days later it had destroyed 116 tanker trucks near Albu Kamal. On Nov. 23, it said it carried out airstrikes near the cities of Deir Ezzour and Hasakah, smashing 283 tanker trucks that were used by Islamic State to transport oil out of eastern Syria.

“We know that two-thirds of their oil comes from the oil fields we struck” in Deir Ezzour province, Col. Steve Warren, the coalition spokesman, said from Baghdad. “We need to take this away from them so that their operations are more difficult to conduct.”

A raid in Syria in May that killed Islamic State’s finance chief Abu Sayyaf yielded what U.S. officials have described as a trove of material about its operations.

A Western counterterrorism official said the confiscated archive included computer files showing the group’s oil production peaking at 55,000 barrels a day in the months after a wave of airstrikes in October 2014, with sales of up to $46 million a month.

The focus on cutting that stream has emerged as a rare point of agreement between the U.S. and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose support for Mr. Assad has drawn criticism from the West.

Russian bombers destroyed some 500 oil trucks doing business with Islamic State on Nov. 21 and 22, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Col. Warren expressed skepticism about the figure, saying the U.S. had seen no evidence the Russians had enough aircraft in theater to bomb such a large number of trucks during that period. [Continue reading…]

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Iraqi forces prepare next U.S.-backed attack on ISIS, with Mosul on horizon

The New York Times reports: In Sinjar, Iraq, fighters from the Islamic State carved a network of tunnels. To defend Hawija, Iraq, they erected a 10-foot sand wall. And virtually everywhere they have surrounded their positions with dense minefields of I.E.D.s, backed by machine guns, mortars and suicide bombers.

While a huge act of terrorism in Paris drew the world’s attention to the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attacks, the group’s primary focus in Iraq and Syria has been a far more traditional military goal: the capture and defense of cities and towns. And in doing so the Islamic State has developed a hybrid style of warfare that combines insurgent and conventional military tactics — vehicles full of explosives used as rolling bombs, and trenches that would be familiar to students of World War I.

Those tactics are being put to the test in Ramadi, Iraq, where an estimated 300 to 400 fighters for the Islamic State, and several hundred additional supporters, have squared off against about 10,000 Iraqi troops. The militant group’s ability to construct elaborate defenses in Ramadi — and to cover them with sniper, machine-gun and mortar fire — has slowed the American-supported campaign. [Continue reading…]

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Passenger rants about ISIS before shooting Muslim taxi driver in back

The Washington Post reports: It began as an ordinary cab ride.

But by the time it was over, the Pittsburgh taxi driver — a 38-year-old Muslim man from Morocco — had a bullet wound in his upper back and was lucky to be alive, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Pittsburgh police are investigating the Thanksgiving Day shooting, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is asking for more help: CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has called on the Justice Department to investigate the incident as a hate crime — which, it said, was “similar to a growing number of attacks targeting the nation’s Muslim community following the recent terror attacks in Paris.”

The passenger, according to CAIR, “reportedly began asking the driver about his background, including asking whether he was a ‘Pakistani guy.’” CAIR says the passenger also asked the driver “about the terror group ISIS” and mocked the prophet Muhammad.

The driver, who moved to Pittsburgh from Morocco five years ago, told the Post-Gazette that he is three months away from becoming a U.S. citizen. His plan is to bring his wife to the United States and start a family in the country he considers home.

“This [incident] is due to the person, not the city,” he told the paper. “Pittsburgh is my style, it is like my home town [of Safi] in Morocco. My dream is to be an American.” [Continue reading…]

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A powerful antidote to ISIS

Gordon Brown writes: In Beirut — the troubled capital of a country with one of the worst histories of sectarian violence in the world — a unique experiment is underway.

Born out of a National Charter for Education on Living Together in Lebanon — which leaders of all major religions have signed — a common school curriculum on shared values is being taught in primary and secondary schools to Shiite, Sunni and Christian pupils.

The curriculum focuses on “the promotion of coexistence” by embracing “inclusive citizenship” and “religious diversity” and aims to ensure what the instigators call “liberation from the risks of . . . sectarianism.” But the new curriculum is more than an optimistic plea to love thy neighbor and an assertion of a golden rule common to all religions. It teaches pupils that they can celebrate differences without threatening coexistence.

The curriculum is designed for children starting at age 9 and includes four modules. The first tells the story of the global human family, asserting that all are equal in dignity. The second focuses on the rights and duties of citizenship, irrespective of religious or ethnic background. The third covers religious diversity, including the “refusal of any radicalism and religious or sectarian seclusion.” In the fourth, the emphasis shifts from the local to the need for global cultural diversity.

Of course, there is a long way to go before this experiment bears fruit, but the fact that it is happening today in Lebanon is of global significance because of the country’s decision to offer schooling to all Syrian refugee children.

Operating under a double-shift system — Lebanese children are taught in the morning, Syrian refugees in the afternoon — the public schools now house more refugee pupils — nearly 200,000 Syrian boys and girls — than local ones. [Continue reading…]

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With U.S. help, Saudi Arabia is obliterating Yemen

Sharif Abdel Kouddous writes: Ayman al-Sanabani beamed as he entered his family’s home on his wedding day. He was greeting his new bride, Gamila, who was in a bedroom surrounded by friends. Ayman sat beside her for several minutes, receiving warm words of congratulations.

It would be the young couple’s first and only encounter as husband and wife.

The terrifying power of a bomb is how it can alter life so dramatically, so completely, so instantaneously. How it can crush concrete, rip apart flesh, and snuff out life. The moments before the pilot pulls the trigger and sends the missile screeching down choreograph the final dance with fate: another step forward into a room, a turn around a corner, a walk outside to get some air — trivial actions that determine everything afterward.

This power is a fact of life in Yemen now. It is brought forth by a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia and supported by the United States. The airstrikes have been relentless since March, a period now of eight months. They are supposed to be targeting a local rebel group, but appear largely indiscriminate, regularly hitting civilian targets. Thousands of people have been killed. Human rights groups say some of these strikes amount to war crimes.

The al-Sanabani home sits on the crest of a small hill overlooking this village some 90 miles south of the capital, where low-slung houses are clustered near plots of yellowed farmland that are dotted by small trees. In the near horizon, reddish-brown mountains loom over the landscape. On any given day, it’s a beautiful place.

It was Oct. 7. Ayman and two of his brothers were all getting married in a joint ceremony. Hundreds of relatives and neighbors had come to take part. Their three-story house was brightly decorated. Colored lights draped down from the roof toward two large tents, which were erected to accommodate the vast numbers of guests. Children scampered outside, shooting fireworks into the night sky.

Fighter jets roared overhead but the guests paid little attention to the menacing sounds. Sanaban had never been targeted before. It was considered a safe place.

Shortly before 9:30 p.m., the three grooms — 22-year-old Abdel Rahman, 24-year-old Ayman, and 25-year-old Moayad — greeted their brides, who had just arrived in a large convoy from a nearby village.

Ayman left the bedroom where his new wife was sitting with her friends. He was climbing up to the second floor landing with his older brother when the missile struck. [Continue reading…]

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Where is the outrage on David Cameron’s scandal in the Gulf?

Nicholas McGeehan writes: Whether it’s ‘cash for questions’ or ‘homes for votes’, there is often a tawdry quid pro quo at the heart of a good British political scandal. So it’s worth asking why there has not been more public outrage about explosive revelations that David Cameron was offered lucrative arms and oil deals for British businesses if he helped reign in the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in the UK.

Leaked emails obtained by The Guardian revealed that in June 2012 the United Arab Emirates tried to influence the UK to take steps against the Muslim Brotherhood in return for keeping or getting lucrative contracts. The emails suggest that the UAE government is supremely confident of its ability to influence British policy, which in turn begs the wider question as to what the UK’s priorities are in the UAE, and the rest of the Gulf.

In 2013, during a Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into the UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, MP Rory Stewart quite reasonably asked whether there is any proof that the UK can exert a positive influence over its foreign allies, where governance and the rule of law are concerned. Increasingly, the behaviour of the UK suggests that a more pertinent question is whether the UK’s Gulf policy is actually strengthening repression and emboldening authoritarian rulers in the region. [Continue reading…]

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UAE accused of threatening to destabilise Tunisia for not acting in Abu Dhabi’s interests

Middle East Eye reports: The United Arab Emirates has threatened to destabilise Tunisia over concerns the country’s leadership is not serving the interests of Abu Dhabi, a senior Tunisian source told Middle East Eye.

Algerian officials warned their Tunisian counterparts in early November about an Emirati plan to interfere in their country, the source, who is a senior political figure in Tunisia, said on the condition of anonymity.

“The Algerian state has given an unambiguous warning that the UAE seeks to interfere with Tunisian security,” the source said. “They [the Algerians] were very unambiguous and said that they [the UAE] may try to destabilise Tunisia as it is at the moment.”

The Tunisian source said the message was communicated to them by a “source close to the palace” in Algeria. [Continue reading…]

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Syria’s many moderate rebels

Kyle Orton writes: In early November, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee released a report challenging the British government’s proposal to extend airstrikes from Iraq into Syria against ISIS. Among other things, the report asked for a proposed political path to ending the Syrian civil war, a necessary prerequisite to defeating ISIS. On Thursday, Prime Minister David Cameron released a response, part of which said:

Military action against ISIL will also relieve the pressure on the moderate opposition, whose survival is crucial for a successful transition to a more inclusive Syrian government. Syria has not been, and should not be, reduced to a choice between Assad or ISIL. Although the situation on the ground is complex, our assessment is that there are about 70,000 Syrian opposition fighters on the ground who do not belong to extremist groups.

This number has blown up into a major political row, with many Members of Parliament and pundits taking their personal unfamiliarity with Syria’s military landscape as evidence that it cannot be so. The Labour Opposition has made the number of non-extremist rebels a focal point of their challenge to the Prime Minister’s proposal for moving forward in Syria, and one of Cameron’s own Conservative MPs referred to the number as “magical”. The challenge to the number is part of a longer-term trend, where a narrative has become prevalent that there are no moderate opposition forces left in Syria. The corollary of this view is usually the argument that the West should side with the “secular” Assad regime as the “lesser evil” to put down a radical Islamist insurrection.

Sidestepping the ignorance that goes into believing a blatantly sectarian regime propped up by an international brigade of Shiite jihadists is secular: What of this claim that there are no moderate rebels left? [Continue reading…]

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Russia’s toxic role in the fight against ISIS

Hassan Hassan writes: Nearly two months into the Russian military intervention in Syria, it should be already clear this involvement has been toxic on multiple levels. So far, the move has caused at least two high points of polarisation not only inside Syria but also in the region at large, with little to show in terms of reversing the rebels’ gains on the ground.

Moscow’s decision to intervene on the side of Syrian president Bashar Al Assad had a unifying and galvanising effect for the ­anti-government forces. In a rare show of support for the Free Syrian Army, for example, individuals affiliated to extremist forces praised western-backed groups for destroying around 20 regime tanks during the first ground offensive assisted by Russian air cover. Armed factions seem to have increasingly adjusted to the merciless Russian bombardments and managed to make a number of significant gains against the regime, primarily in southern and northern Aleppo.

Meanwhile, the only major achievement for the regime forces has been to break the siege of the Kweiris airbase between Aleppo and Raqqa, although the base was not completely secured and ISIL returned to carry out suicide attacks outside it.

In the background of this meagre performance, the Turkish military downed a Russian jet last Tuesday. Some of the responses coming out of Russia about the incident are adding ­fuel to the fire raging in the region. For example, Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was “Islamising” Turkey – suggesting that Moscow is either unaware of the landscape in the region or arrogantly ignoring it. For its part, the Russian embassy in the UK released poster art from 1915 mocking Ottoman soldiers.

These responses only help Mr Erdogan, who has long sought to present himself as a voice for Sunni Islam in the neighbourhood and beyond. While these statements may resonate positively within Russia, they are driving more people in the region to view the Russian intervention in Syria as part of a greater effort, not just an attempt to save a desperate ally. [Continue reading…]

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Raqqa exiles don’t support UK bombing ISIS: ‘The Assad regime is the main problem for us’

The Guardian reports: The cafe and everyone inside were exiles from Raqqa – the same chefs serving up Friday roast chicken and sweet tea, the same shishas and hubbub of politics – but all carried a gloss of tragedy and exhaustion.

The place had been moved wholesale, staff and menu, across the Turkish border to the city of Gaziantep after Islamic State cast its long shadow over their home town and their lives.

Most of the customers were graduates of the extremists’ brutal jails and the rest had fled Isis in fear or disgust. The arrival of a stranger triggered unease; a few weeks earlier two of their number had been murdered at home by a spy posing as another refugee.

“If we were not wanted by Isis, why would we be here?” said one fortysomething businessman, who asked to go by the name Abu Ahmad as both his sons are on the other side of a border; for him, that might as well be an ocean away. “We are here, but our hearts are there.”

With homes and families still in Isis’s de facto capital, few have more at stake in the fight against the extremist group. Yet most are wary about the prospect of Britain joining the air campaign against their bitter enemy after a year in which Isis fighters have been unsettled but not dislodged by hundreds of bombing raids.

“Can someone really be happy if his city is bombed by everyone? No,” Abu Ahmad said, with the bleak humour that many exiles share. “Everybody bombed Raqqa. Anyone who was just annoyed by their wife decided to come and bomb Raqqa. Jordan, UAE, US, Russia, France.”

They fear that more bombs will cost more innocent lives in a city where the civilian population is now held prisoner by Isis to serve as a human shield. Many are baffled and frustrated that the city’s fate is being decided in distant capitals and conference rooms where the people of Raqqa have no presence, in debates where they have no voice. [Continue reading…]

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An interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh on the role of culture in Syria’s struggle

The New Inquiry: Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian writer, intellectual and former political prisoner. In 1980, while studying medicine at Aleppo University, the 19-year-old Yassin was arrested by Hafez al-Assad’s government for his membership in the Syrian Communist Party-Political Bureau. He remained in prison for 16 years and 14 days. Since 2000, Yassin al-Haj Saleh has been writing on political, social and cultural subjects relating to Syria and the Arab world for several Arab newspapers and journals outside Syria. In addition, he has authored and edited four books about Syria, including one about his experience in prison. His fifth book is a critique of contemporary Islam and a critique of the critique.

When the Syrian revolution began Yassin al-Haj Saleh, then working in Damascus, went into hiding for two years in the capital. In 2013, he and his wife, the revolutionary activist Samira Khalil, moved to Douma to work for the revolution. Later that year he travelled to his family home in Raqqa where Da’esh was gaining control, and where two of his brothers had been abducted by Da’esh. His brother, Feras al-Haj Saleh is still in their hands. After living in hiding in Raqqa for two and a half months, Yassin was forced to flee to Turkey where he now lives. His journey is the subject of the documentary Our Terrible Country. Samira Khalil was abducted in Douma in December 2013, along with three other well known activists, Razan Zeitouneh, Wael Hamda, and Nazem Hammadi, and their whereabouts are still unknown.

In 2012, Yassin al-Haj Saleh was awarded the Prince Claus Award, as a “tribute to the Syrian people and the Syrian revolution.” He was unable to collect the award, as he was living in hiding. For the last two years he has been living in exile in Istanbul. He is one of the founders of the Syrian online platform Al-Jumhuriya (The Republic), established in 2012. He has also founded, with colleagues from Syria and Turkey, Hamisch, the Syrian Cultural House in Istanbul, a space for cultural debate with participants from Syria, Turkey and the world.

You said in an interview with the Boston Review that “Culture can be a strategic field for our struggle for freedom, both the Assad-ist and the Islamic version.” How do you envision this, and is it a strategy among Syrians, or between Syrians and the outside world?

Maybe it will be a burden on culture at large to affect the Syrian situation, now. The time now is for arms and armed people. It is a country where people have been being killed on a daily basis in terrible horrific ways, with the world watching. We have a lot of experience with arrests, torture, chemical attacks, barrel bombs, attacks by fighter jets, and of course exile — 4 million are living abroad, and more than 7 million displaced within the country. These are our experiences. Our culture could – our culture should be rebuilt on these experiences, and through culture we can rebuild our identity, our roles, and in a way our imagination, and our society. We don’t want to be fighters. I understand why people carry arms against the regime. But I don’t want to be a fighter myself. My tools, my arms, are words. And words can be a very powerful tool in our struggle, not only in Syria, but at the global level, because I think that the Syrian struggle is not something confined to Syria, it is a global issue. And because the world did not help Syria change for better, I think that Syria is changing the whole world for worse. [Continue reading…]

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