Syria
Syria’s Famished Victory
Food, especially in a country so famous for its cuisine, is not just about nutrition; it is also about culture. What do you do when you can’t afford the food? You stop inviting people, apart from the ones you don’t feel embarrassed in front of when you can only serve coffee.
The Changeling of Deir ez-Zor
He was not a jihadist, although he’d been called one when convenient. When he joined “the Kurds,” he automatically became a “fighter for women’s empowerment and the rights of the dispossessed Kurds.” He was neither. And neither are so many other Syrian Arabs from the eastern part of the country.
Homeschooling Without a Home
The pandemic has taken a toll on refugee life far beyond surviving the actual disease. How do you stay home when you barely have one? Or study online when you don’t have wi-fi or a smart device? The expectations are insurmountable.
Cracks in the Assad Facade
The death of Syria's foreign minister was tragic to many regime sympathizers. They now witness in horror the decline of the old guard and the rise of the warlords as one of the defining features of Bashar al-Assad’s proclaimed victory over a shattered Syria.
Carrying Home Within
My dear Idlib, how I wish for you to go back to being forgotten and ours again. Until then, we’ll always have your accent in our world, your olive oil in our cells, your trees etched in our memories. And most importantly, “wlad al-balad” to count on wherever we go.
Revolutionary Wit
No one escaped Raed Fares’ brutal criticism: U.S. presidents, Russia, Iran, the United Nations – everyone who was witnessing the Syrian war and doing nothing to stop it.
Among Syria’s Revolutionaries
As protests against the brutal regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad grew in the early 2010s, the then-US ambassador to Syria. Robert Ford, met with two opposition leaders seeking American support for their causes.