The prevailing Western discourses about Syria are fundamentally flawed, and should be discarded in favor of “new, emancipatory” alternatives, writes Yassin al-Haj Saleh.

[Editor’s note: This article is one of two published by Al-Jumhuriya English today on the “crisis of Islam;” the second is a rejoinder by Abdul-Wahab Kayyali, titled, “On the crisis of Islam: Muslims and the question of equality.” An Arabic version of this article may be read here, while a French version was published in Le Monde.]   The murder last month of the French…

As Trump threatens to turn the army on peaceful demonstrators, Syrian activist and author Leila Al-Shami writes what Americans might learn from Syria’s nine-plus years of revolutionary struggle.

Lebanon’s Tripoli has been among the most welcoming cities to Syrian refugees, though tensions exist. In this special audiovisual report, Kareem Chehayeb profiles three members of Tripoli’s Syrian community, now caught between a Lebanon in crisis and a homeland still at war.

Syrians in Lebanon have greeted the country’s uprising with a complex blend of joy, envy, melancholy, and fear, write Dara Foi’Elle and Elia J. Ayoub.

44 years ago this month, Lebanon descended into civil war. In the first of a three-part series, Elia J. Ayoub draws on the work of James Baldwin to explore the “Othering” that resulted from that war and its aftermath, which is now a central component of Lebanese identity.

From the xenophobes who demonize them to the well-meaning friends who assume they must be devout conservatives, Syrian refugees in the West face stereotypes from all sides. Worse, some have begun internalizing and turning these prejudices on their compatriots, writes a Syrian in Paris.

[Editor’s note: This article is part of Al-Jumhuriya’s “Gender, Sexuality, and Power” series. It was also published in Arabic on 6 December, 2018.] In the summer of 2017, as (unfounded) rumors began to spread on social media of Syrians “going to protest against our honorable army,” a wave of hyper-masculine ultra-nationalism mixed with the usual xenophobia saw random Syrian men targeted by Lebanese men. Videos…

The problems of solidarity recently outlined by Yassin al-Haj Saleh are indeed part of a wider, historic breakdown in the values and impact of the Western left, writes Jules Etjim, who offers a “sketch” of one possible way forward.

How a once-celebrated author descended into sinister racial politics and pro-Assad propaganda