What’s one to do with the dead weight of history and demographics? No, I am not about to embark here on some elitist complaint against the “ignorant masses,” or the “mob,” I am merely referring to the all-too real problem related, in part, to the confusion surrounding issues of identity and belonging, and, in other part, to the sheer pressure that population explosion exerts on the basic social services that a state should provide in order to survive in this world (its survival being of major importance to the wellbeing of at least the majority of its inhabitants, if not all).
Author: Ammar
A Syrian dreamer & dissident, not necessarily in that order.
Are we all racists now?
Or, to be more precise, have we always been so blatantly racist? If the events in Qamishly and Darfur prove anything about the Arab peoples, regimes and intellectuals included, is that they are far from being immune to racist stands. More so, we seem to be mired in them, immersed to the neck, in fact, but we are too numb, too absorbed with our feeling of victimhood, to pay attention, to notice. Apartheid, genocide, and slavery, especially slavery (how could we so conveniently forget about our history with slavery?) are not foreign crimes, as we have always contended. We are as equally guilty in this regard as everyone else. Continue reading “Are we all racists now?”
Cradle of Contradictions
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 Young Syrian
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”
