At the beginning of 2016, Al Jumhuriya Collective, in collaboration with Asfari Foundation, launched a program titled ‘Al Jumhuriya Fellowship for Young Writers’. The objective of the program is to work with a group of young Syrian men and women -both inside Syria and in neighbouring countries- who, due to the circumstances imposed by war, were not given a chance to specialize in fields of journalism and social sciences, and who have ambitions to develop their writing skills and to strengthen their knowledge in social journalism and the modern history of Syria, as well as critical thinking.
Towards the end of the first phase of the program, which revolves around read, the group began working on three writing axis: observations, testimonies and stories from the revolution; in-depth investigations and social observations of the Syrian society; and analytical and critical essays about topics previously covered and attempting to deconstruct them.
This piece is the second addition to the series of works produced by our fellows to be published on a weekly basis. The first series of articles will cover the first axis: observations, testimonies and stories from the revolution.
Three former ISIS fighters now undergoing “anti-extremism” courses at a center north of Aleppo tell our reporter the Assad regime’s brutality and slick video propaganda were among the top reasons they joined the world’s most reviled jihadist organization.
A military defector recounts his remarkable journey from the Assad regime’s army to a rebel brigade in Homs—via Palmyra prison—to exile in Idlib and, finally, menial labor in Turkey, where he still searches for the dignified life he hoped the revolution would bring him.
The divide between Syrians inside the country and those outside has never been sharper. For the country’s sake, the two groups must make their relationship mutually advantageous, rather than antagonistic.
A former inmate at Syria’s Adra Women’s Prison recounts the struggles, deprivations, and occasional pleasures of food in the notorious jail.
Khalifa al-Khuder reports on the aspirations, sufferings, and occasional joys of the largely voiceless Syrian worker community in Lebanon.
They were the world’s top story less than a year ago. Today Aleppo’s displaced are already forgotten.
While social media was invaluable in the early days of Syria’s revolution, hopes that it alone could topple the regime proved ill-founded.
Abdulhamid Yousef writes about Syrian consciences which once connected and ignited a revolution in the country, and about one of the current crises that threaten their connectedness.
In contrast to extremism and the rise of Islamist politics to prominence within the anti-regime sphere, various levels of abandonment of religious commitment are in constant increase.
Syrians have been drowning in a sea of authoritarian symbols brought forth by the Assad state. After this symbolic regime began to be undermined, they found themselves in the midst of new set of authoritarian symbols.
Khalifa Khodr sheds some light on the categorization of society from the standpoint of the Islamic State, whereby it strives to incite the “commoners” to challenge and undermine state authorities.
A discussion of the objective and subjective conditions that led many revolutionary young people to avert/ political action and constantly express their hostility toward politics.
