An account of dissidence in Hafiz Asads Syria, describing how intellectuals tried to navigate between charges of complicity with the state and treason against it.

From 1970 until his death in 2000, Hafiz Asad ruled Syria with an iron fist. His regime controlled every aspect of daily life. Seeking to preempt popular unrest, Asad sometimes facilitated the expression of anti-government sentiment by appropriating the work of artists and writers, turning works of protest into official agitprop. Syrian dissidents were forced to negotiate between the desire to genuinely criticize the authoritarian regime, the risk to their own safety and security that such criticism would invite, and the fear that their work would be co-opted as government propaganda, as what miriam cooke calls “commissioned criticism.” In this intimate account of dissidence in Asad’s Syria, cooke describes how intellectuals attempted to navigate between charges of complicity with the state and treason against it. A renowned scholar of Arab cultures, cooke spent six months in Syria during the mid-1990s familiarizing herself with the country’s literary scene, particularly its women writers. While she was in Damascus, dissidents told her that to really understand life under Hafiz Asad, she had to speak with playwrights, filmmakers, and, above all, the authors of “prison literature.” She shares what she learned in Dissident Syria. She describes touring a sculptor’s studio, looking at the artist’s subversive work as well as at pieces commissioned by the government. She relates a playwright’s view that theater is unique in its ability to stage protest through innuendo and gesture. Turning to film, she shares filmmakers’ experiences of making movies that are praised abroad but rarely if ever screened at home. Filled with the voices of writers and artists, Dissident Syria reveals a community of conscience within Syria to those beyond its borders.

What would you do to protect your freedom? Would you risk your reputation? Undergo interrogation, detainment, and abuse? Would you continue even when your friends and colleagues started going missing? Continue despite the threats? Would you leave everything behind, leave the only home you've ever known, before silencing yourself? In We Are Syrians, Naila Al-Atrash, Radwan Ziadeh, and Sana Mustafa share their harrowing accounts about working to protect freedom of expression under an authoritarian government. While these are individual stories of courage and defiance, together they tell the larger story of the Syrian conflict and the conditions that brought about the worst humanitarian crisis in recent history.

Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a leftist dissident who spent sixteen years as a political prisoner and now lives in exile. He describes with precision and fervour the events that led to Syria's 2011 uprising, the metamorphosis of the popular revolution into a regional war, and the 'three monsters' Saleh sees 'treading on Syria's corpse': the Assad regime and its allies, ISIS and other jihadists, and Russia and the US. Where conventional wisdom has it that Assad's army is now battling religious fanatics for control of the country, Saleh argues that the emancipatory, democratic mass movement that ignited the revolution still exists, though it is beset on all sides. The Impossible Revolution is a powerful, compelling critique of Syria's catastrophic war, which has profoundly reshaped the lives of millions of Syrians.

The book takes you through the life of an Assad dissenter who despite all the many dangers campaigned and stood up for human rights and what is right in general. In this syrian history book, you will discover: - Palestine's Intelligence Branch, April 1995 - Al Halbuni Intelligence Branch, May 1980 - Beirut, 1975 - Syria, 1965 - The Hiding, 1979 - Kafarsouseh Branch, May 1980 - My Grandfather And so much more! It's certainly not for the faint hearted, but it is a wonderfully uplifting tale of courage and stamina. Scroll up, click the "Buy Now with 1-Click" button and Start Reading Now!

Following the Arab Spring, Syria descended into civil and sectarian conflict. It has since become a fractured warzone which operates as a breeding ground for new terrorist movements including ISIS as well as the root cause of the greatest refugee crisis in modern history. In this important book, former Special Envoy of the Netherlands to Syria, Nikolaos van Dam, explains the recent history of Syria, covering the growing disenchantment with the Asad regime, the chaos of civil war and the fractures which led to an immense amount of destruction in the refined social fabric of what used to be the Syrian nation. Through an in-depth examination, van Dam traces political developments within the Asad regime and the various opposition groups from the Arab Spring to the present day, and provides a deeper insight into the conflict and the possibilities and obstacles for reaching a political solution.

Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a leftist dissident who spent sixteen years as a political prisoner and now lives in exile. He describes with precision and fervour the events that led to Syria's 2011 uprising, the metamorphosis of the popular revolution into a regional war, and the 'three monsters' Saleh sees 'treading on Syria's corpse': the Assad regime and its allies, ISIS and other jihadists, and Russia and the US. Where conventional wisdom has it that Assad's army is now battling religious fanatics for control of the country, Saleh argues that the emancipatory, democratic mass movement that ignited the revolution still exists, though it is beset on all sides.'The Impossible Revolution' is a powerful, compelling critique of Syria's catastrophic war, which has profoundly reshaped the lives of millions of Syrians.

The suffering of Syrian civilians, caught between the government’s barrel bombs and chemical weapons and religious fanatics’ beheadings and mass killings, shocked the world. Yet despite international law and political commitments proclaiming a responsibility to protect civilians from mass atrocities, world actors stood aside as Syria burned. Again and again, neighboring states, global powers, and the United Nations opted for half-measures or made counterproductive choices that caused even more harm. Alex J. Bellamy provides a forensic account of the world’s failure to protect Syrian civilians from mass atrocities. Drawing on interviews with key players, documents from the United Nations and other international organizations, and sources from the Middle East and beyond, he traces the missteps of the international response to Syria’s civil war. Bellamy systematically examines the various peace processes and the reasons they failed, highlighting potential alternative paths. He details how and why key actors prioritized their own national interest, geopolitical standing, regional stability, local rivalries, counterterrorism goals, or domestic politics rather than the welfare of Syrians. Some governments settled on unrealistic strategies founded on misguided assumptions while others pursued naked ambition; the United Nations descended into irrelevance and even complicity. Shedding new light on the decisions that led to a vast calamity, Syria Betrayed also draws out lessons for more effective responses to future civil conflicts.

The challenge of maintaining dictatorial regimes through control, co-option and coercion while upholding a facade of legitimacy is something that has concerned leaders throughout the Middle East and beyond. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Syria ruled by the Asads, both Hafiz and his son Bashar. Drawing on the example of the General Union of Syrian Women (founded in 1967), Esther Meininghaus offers new insights into how the Syrian Ba'thist regimes attempted to move beyond mere satisfaction with the compliance of the citizenry and to consolidate their rule amongst the local population. Meininghaus argues that this was partially achieved through providing welfare services delivered by the Union as one of the state-led mass organisations. In this way, she suggests, these regimes did not only aim to undermine opposition and to create the illusion of consent, but they factually catered to local needs and depended on consent. Based on archival material, interviews and statistics, Creating Consent in Ba'thist Syria will shed new light on mass organisations as a crucial institution of Ba'thist state building and, more broadly, the construction of the Asad regimes.