Life in Syria has never been simple. The realities, meticulously hidden under a veneer of homogeneity, have always been too complex for even the most discerning of scholars. The peaceful coexistence between the country’s myriad ethnic, religious, and tribal groups is the result of a complex layer of concessions, compromises, tacit agreements, and other pragmatic arrangements perfected over the centuries.
The Jerusalem Report / page 24
Ammar Abdulhamid hopes to spark an intellectual renaissance and encourage political reform at home in Damascus.
Yigal Schleifer / Istanbul
SYRIAN PUBLISHER AND author Ammar Abdulhamid doesn’t like to think small scale. The founder of a year-old nonprofit Damascus publishing house, Abdulhamid is embarking on a translation project through which he plans to introduce the Syrian public to the classic literary and philosophical works of the Western canon. Continue reading “The Young Syrian”
افتتاحية لموقع ثروة / 15 نيسان، 2004
إن نجاح السلطات السورية في مساعيها لاحتواء التمرّد الكوردي في مدينة القامشلي خلال الأسابيع الماضية، لا يمنع من الاعتراف بأن المسألة الكوردية في سورية، والتي تم إهمالها لمدة طويلة، قد عادت إلى البروز على الساحة من جديد مطالبة بإيجاد حلّ ناجع لها. ولكن، هل يمكن للسلطات السورية أن تستجمع ما يكفي من الإرادة والدعم الداخلي لتجلس مع ممثلي الأحزاب الكوردية المختلفة فيها لتصل إلى حل مرضي للطرفين؟ Continue reading “الخروج من الظلام: المسألة الكوردية في سورية تولد من جديد”
Those who think that the difficulties the Americans are having in Iraq are going to make them rethink their commitment to effecting serious change in the Middle East and adopt some kind of a neutral hands-off stance vis-à-vis regional developments are, simply put, deluding themselves. In fact, the invasion of Iraq promises to be merely the beginning of a long period of direct American interventionism in the region. Whatever difficulties the Americans are bound to encounter along the way, whatever changes should take place at the helm, substituting Democrats for Republicans, conservatives for liberals, doves for hawks, or vice versa, could affect the choice of the particular interventionist strategy to be deployed, but it will have no impact on the interventionist policy itself. The United States has no option but to intervene. Continue reading “Taking it seriously”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 