ABOUNADDARA: The Right to the Image
What is a revolution? If you ask Charif Kiwan, the exiled Syrian and one of three named members of Abounaddara, he would answer that, in the case of Syria, it is a demand for dignity. Abounadarra is an anonymous […]
The Confederalists: a Kurdish movement bolsters women and bashes the West
“While the world is discussing what to do with ISIS, Kurdish women are doing it.” Dilar Dirik cried in a September 2014 speech about theories of statelessness at a European conference. Dirik, a PhD candidate at Cambridge, used the speech to give […]
ISIS and the Neoliberal State
The Universal State and the Universal Threat The rise of the Islamic State has united the various actors in the Middle East and North Africa that are otherwise fighting tooth and nail against each other throughout the scorched battlefields of […]
Politicized Approaches to the ISIS International Security Crisis
The world is currently facing a new critical security issue represented in the rise of the terrorist organization “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS). In this article I investigate the politicized approach of defining “terrorism,” and I argue that […]
Foundational Problems and Solutions for Middle Eastern Post-Colonial States
Looking at any crisis in a specific part of the world, one has to examine the roots of the conflict and the historic facts that led to the current crisis. We have various examples in this world where the crises […]
Columbia Journalism Panel Focuses on New Realities of Covering Conflicts
“As journalists. we are living through the most dangerous moment ever” said Committee to Protect Journalists Executive Director Joel Simon addressing a packed room last night at Columbia School of Journalism. A panel discussion entitled “After James Foley – Covering Conflict When Journalists […]
To Defeat ISIS, Resolve Syria
Advances by the group variously know as the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or simply Islamic State (IS), has generated renewed attention in Western media along with calls for direct […]
Lebanon’s Syrian refugees: ‘An entire generation is growing up with PTSD’
BERUIT — Refugees are everywhere on the streets of downtown Beirut. Women and children in filthy clothes beg for money on nearly every street corner. Countless young boys tote shoeshine kits, persistently following foreigners and wealthy Lebanese who pass by. […]
With Increasing Numbers of Children in Need, Where’s the Syria Coverage?
About a month ago, both Syrian government and opposition forces agreed to help enforce a UN resolution to allow humanitarian aid to reach the Syrian population, previously unreachable because of escalating violence between the government and opposing forces. Some sources […]
Salam Neighbor – Bridging the Gap Between Two Worlds?
From January 19 through February 15, American filmmakers Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci will be living alongside recently displaced families in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan. Realizing the severity of their own lack of understanding and misconception of the Syrian […]