Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution

Leila is joined by US-based academic Dr. Noor Ghazal Aswad to talk about her recent book ‘Searching for Solidarity: Revolutionary Dreams and Radical Social Movements’.  This episode explores the erasure of Syrians from their own story during the revolution, and the implications and lessons for building transnational solidarity with radical movements in the future. STIR is part of the From The Peri...

Leila and Justin are joined by Razan Rashidi, Executive Director of The Syria Campaign , to talk about Transitional Justice.  Tens of thousands of Syrians were forcibly disappeared at the hands of the Assad regime, as well as other actors. Only a small number were released from prison, mass graves were discovered and many families still have no news about the fate of their loved ones. In this epis...

Khuzama and Cedric from the Interstices-Fajawat grassroots initiative return to STIR to talk to Leila about the July unrest in Sweida province, which included massacres against members of the Druze community. Our guests were in Sweida during the unrest, so share their moving first-hand testimony as well as provide analysis on implications for the future of Syria as a whole. STIR is part of the Fro...

Leila is joined by Armenian writer, scholar and member of From The Periphery media collective, Dr Karena Avedissian.  Karena recently returned from a trip to conduct research and build ties with the Armenian community in Northeast Syria. We spoke about an article she wrote - Armenians in Rojava: A quiet revolution - looking at the experiences of Islamized Armenians, descendants of survivors of the...

Leila is joined by Swiss-Syrian academic, researcher and author Joseph Daher to talk about the removal of sanctions and future economic prospects for Syria. Daher is the author of Syria After the Uprising: The Political Economy of State Resilience (Pluto, 2019) and Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God (Pluto, 2016), and founder of the blog Syria Freedom Forever. STIR is a pod...

It's been 20 years since the Assad regime assassinated Samir Kassir, the Lebanese-Syrian-Palestinian historian, journalist and writer in Beirut on June 2nd 2005. Joining us today is Lebanese-French political researcher and academic Ziad Majed, a friend and comrade of Kassir, to talk about his legacy in the two decades that have passed given how much has changed since for Lebanon, Palestine and...

Leila is joined by two Sweida-based activists, Khuzama and Ian from the Interstices-Fajawat grassroots initiative , to talk about the recent unrest in Syria in which members of the Druze community were targeted. In the first part, they got into what happened, the fault lines, the role of Israel as well as the agreement that was reached.  The second part, starting at roughly 23 minutes in, is a div...

Welcome to Syria: The Inconvenient Revolution (STIR)! In this episode, ⁠Leila Al-Shami⁠ ( ⁠Burning Country⁠ ) and Elia Ayoub ( ⁠The Fire These Times⁠ , ⁠Hauntologies⁠ ) introduce themselves and the podcast. What is STIR about? From the Assad regime to the Arab Spring and beyond, we will dive into questions of reconstruction, prisoners, the forcibly disappeared, transitional justice, minority right...