“Syria Differently” – The third Syrian narrative. 12 February 2015 18:00 at Litteraturhuset With the picture of the Syrian struggle being blurred and the focus being shifted to Islamic extremism only, it is important to bring back to the scene the increasingly neglected aspects of the Syrian ‘conflict’. “Syria Differently” provides an alternative image of…
While Media and western observers have mainly focused on the Sunni Jihadists moving to Syria to fight Assad or to join the “Islamic State” and fight Syrian opposition factions, other Jihadists - Shi’a ones - have been deploying in larger numbers in the country to defend Assad and “protect” his regime. Whether from Iraq, from…
The situation for the refugees has become increasingly present in the Norwegian and European media over the last weeks and months. However, the debate about the refugees is still being repeatedly depoliticized and reduced into a question of numbers only. In this debate we will take as a point of departure the assertion that the…
The picture in Syria today looks increasingly gloomy, especially for those watching from afar. What was widely recognized as an uprising for shared humanitarian values, is no longer seen as such. As the situation became intractably complicated, faulty generalizations and simplifications emerged, and the gloomy picture was, consequently, obscured. Nonetheless, many Syrians still believe in…
One of the most important formative experiences for the Syrian youth in the past four years is the emergence of an active civil society. The concept of civil society in Syria was virtually nonexistent before 2011 under the Assad's dictatorship. But as the Syrian uprising started, the explosion of self-expression mediums turned with time into…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkKGxGDBXwQ Our Terrible Country’ takes us on the perilous journey of Yassin Haj Saleh, a well-known Syrian intellectual and dissident, and the young photographer Ziad Homsi who travel together in an arduous and dangerous route from the liberated area of Douma/Damascus to Raqqa in northern Syria, only to find themselves eventually forced to leave their…
“There is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory. Effective democratization can always be measured by this essential criterion: the participation in and the access to the archive, its constitution, and its interpretation” Jacques Derrida Since March 2011, Syria has witnessed deep cultural mutation; forms of expressions have evolved trying…