What Happened to Syria?

Protests have broken out across the country and the death toll from state violence against protestors has already broken the triple digits. Syria is in shock after the events of March 25, when more than a hundred people were murdered by soldiers and Shabiha in a single day.    Things are going to go from bad to worse when Bashar al-Assad gives a speech that changes everything.  Sources cited: We C...

Hasan al-Kassab (@HasanAlKassab2 on Twitter) was a medical student from Raqqa in 2011, when the protests began. Today, he's a Syrian revolutionary activist living in Romania.   Hasan joins us in this episode to talk about what the revolution was like in Raqqa and other parts of East Syria, located far away from Daraa, Damascus, and Homs.   There's so much more to Raqqa than ISIS and everything els...

They fell in love while risking their lives to protest against a regime that routinely arrests, tortures, and executes dissidents.   Noura Ghazi decided she wanted to be a lawyer at 13, when her father was a political prisoner. She met Bassel Khartabil in April of 2011, when activists in Damascus were trying to organize what they hoped would be a revolution similar to what had just taken place in...

This is our first "biographical" episode. This week, we're going to look at individuals who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives to engage in non-violent resistance to tyranny.   Sources cited: The Impossible Revolution by Yassin al-Haj Saleh Assad or We Burn the Country by Sam Dagher Razan Zeitouneh's appearances on Democracy Now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_btXxZyMt7w https://www.youtube...

What is one to do after being exiled from your homeland?   That's exactly the situation Mamoun found himself in eight years ago. Coming of age and finding a path for oneself is difficult enough without a war at home and being able to visit one's family.   Mamoun will encounter the difficulties of being an exiled Syrian in Lebanon, Europe, and later the US at the start of Donald Trump's presidency...

Damascus to DC tells the story of Mamoun, a Syrian-Lebanese attorney whose life journey took him across the world from his hometown Damascus to Washington D.C. after he was forced leave Syria.   Part 2 focuses on Mamoun's involvement in the 2011 protests, how he helped combat disinformation by contacting media outlets, and why he hasn't been able to return to Syria since 2012.

How did the Syrian Revolution lead to the Syrian Civil War? Why didn't the regime make any real concessions? How quickly did the regime resort to massacring protestors? (Answer: very quickly).   This episode looks at what happened in Syria between March 15 to March 25, 2011.   Sources cited: The Impossible Revolution by Yassin al-Haj Saleh My Country by Kassem Eid The Syrian Revolution by Yasser M...

Today, we're reaching into the vault and pulling out a pilot episode from mid-2020, before we knew what exactly this podcast would look like.   Damascus to DC tells the story of Mamoun, a Syrian-Lebanese attorney whose life journey took him across the world from his hometown Damascus to Washington D.C. after he was forced leave Syria. Part 1 focuses on Mamoun's upbringing, what it was like to live...

What did protestors in Syria want? How does it feel to voice your opinion and show solidarity with your fellow citizens for the first time in a totalitarian state? How did protests in one part of the country differ from another? How quickly did the Assad regime resort to brutalizing and massacring protestors? (answer: very quickly) Suhail al-Ghazi is Non-Resident Fellow at the Tahrir Institute and...

This week, we look at a topic that has dominated the discourse surrounding Syria: media coverage and disinformation.   Dr. Idrees Ahmad is lecturer in journalism at the University of Stirling with a doctorate in sociology and a focus on international conflicts. He is also the author of The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War. Idrees has spent years tracking online propaganda and its...

This is a prototype bonus episode. Future bonus episodes will feature interviews with Syrians or experts in the topics we discuss. Our first set of Bonus episodes will be released for free. In the future, they will be available only to our Patrons on Patreon.    Music licensing Fragments by Nomyn https://soundcloud.com/nomyn Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / S...

Here it begins! Our ten-year retrospective look at Syria. This first episode works its way to the 15 of March, 2011, the day most-commonly cited as the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. This is the start of Season 1, which will focus on 2011. Season 2 will focus on 2012, so on and so forth.    Sources cited: Syria by Samer N. Abboud No Turning Back by Rania Abouzeid Butterfly by Yusra Mardini We...