Delta-N Summary Edition - Vol 1 - No 01 by Delta-N

Delta-N A Journal Published by the Centre for Thought and Public Affairs, Damascus - London.

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Civil War, Greed and Grievance Sarmada: Book Review

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The Summary Edition: Vol 1, No 1, August/September 2014

Syria: War and Right to Childhood Cohabitation: a Challenge

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ISIS' Out-Bidding Overstep Street Art and Politics in Iran

Contents

Our Team Contents

Cover Photo: A Wall by: Ammar Khaddour

“We are pleased to present you with the Summary Edition of issue one of the journal ‘Delta-N’ by the Centre for Thought and Public Affairs (Damascus – London). The Summary Edition contains more than 25 abstracts, penned by young writers from Syria, and the Middle East, exploring, from differing angles, the relationship between ‘Thought’ and ‘Public Affairs’ in the region. The material presented include abstracts of articles, studies, book reviews, journalistic reports, and a section dedicated to visual with a number of photographic images and caricatures.” Editorials ----------------------------------------------------------Articles ------------------------------------------------------------Studies -------------------------------------------------------------Book Reviews ----------------------------------------------------Reports ------------------------------------------------------------Full Texts ----------------------------------------------------------Editor-in-Chief:

Proofreading:

Editor (English):

Journalistic Team:

Talal Al-Mayhani

Maher Al-Mounnes Editorial Board:

Multimedia:

Editor (Arabic and Editorial Pages):

Mazen Ali

Editor (Arabic):

Farzand Omar Editor (Journalism):

Riham Kousa (Delta-N Short-Cuts) Translation:

Yomn Al-Kaisi Rima Sawah Public Relations:

Mataz Suheil Majd Jammoul Centre for Thought and Public Affairs

Abdulsalam Halloum (Arabic) Dima Nicholas Noor Shalghen Tarek Alabed Kusay Amamah Alaa Ihsan Somar Ali Nisreen Alaa Aldin

Azzam Al-Kassir

London Office: 436A Hamilton House Mabledon Place, Bloomsbury London, WC1H 9BB Tel: +44 2075548530 Email: info@c-tpa.org Website: www.c-tpa.org Delta-N Journal

Email: editors@c-tpa.org Website: delta-n.c-tpa.org Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

3 10 14 16 18 22

Khaled Harbash Kinda Youssef Mustapha Dabbas Internet:

Tarek Sawah Design:

Omran Attar gaea.goddess@gmail.com Disclaimer: the thoughts and opinions presented in this issue are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editorial Board of Delta-N Journal or Centre for Thought and Public Affairs. Copyright @2014 Delta-N Journal and Centre for Thought and Public Affairs.

Editorial

Signs of collapse

in the East Mediterranean This is a difficult phase, in which political factions in Iraq and Syria gnaw at each other, with the crumbling of formal social consensuses that were, at least initially, held the components of the region’s population. After years of continuous, violent, and absurd conflict emerges the ‘ISIS episode’; culminating towards a darker scene by protruding ignorantly into the region, creating further confusion and contributing to the complexity of the picture. This phase coincides with a major human tragedy that has forced great numbers of people into migration, displacement, or simply into accepting the situation as a fait accompli, combined with the alarming paralysis of economic, social, and educational development. During this difficult phase, what was once buried under the surface has exploded; to freely revel in all that was hidden, and utter all that was silent; all masks are removed, with the region standing naked before its ugliness and barbarity, without any make-up or powders, leaving its historical legacy and cultural wealth in the nostalgic past. Thus, the East Mediterranean, the Levant, is transformed into a region that encompasses a growing number of those who kill and are killed, to become a fighting ring that witnesses heated competition in bloodshed, to become an environment that fosters hatred, abhorrence, and pessimism, relapsing into primitive instinct. Yet how has what has occurred, occurred to begin with? How has the situation reached this level of degeneration? How will we forget this nightmare? Where have dreams of renaissance and modernity evaporated

to? Where have ambitions of change and progression disappeared? In this crisis of violence questions as such are numerous; for example, Europe understood this during and after the World Wars producing numerous critical movements that were deeply influenced by the process of knowledge and intellectual engagement. Indeed, these days this is what we witness in the region generally; if we fuse these questions with those shocked by the bitter situation, we hear queries of an unknown future and we read writings by ‘intellectuals’ on their various attitudes. However, rarely do we read about the catastrophic event itself, and rarely do they result in conspiracy-free attempts of explanation. Instead, we are overwhelmed by viscous circles of ‘blaming the other’ after creating this ‘other’, and therefore denied of genuine and serious solutions. For the most part, intellectual rhetoric is obsessed with proving that ‘they’ are the root of the problem, and that ‘we’ are free of any responsibility regarding what occurred and continues to occur (regardless of the affiliations of ‘them’ and ‘us’), while in the midst of this mania the region drowns further and further into the dirt of its conflicts. This excessive righteousness in taking the role of the ‘victim’ and repudiating the role of the ‘aggressor’, this deep desire to pronounce our ‘innocence’, and hiding our ‘hands’ that are drenched to our elbows in blood, is not only an obviously desperate escape from facing the painful truth –it is, as well, a recipe that ties a prevalent mentality drowning in metaphysical concepts and megalomania, drowning in its narcissism, isolation, and arrogance. It is a recipe dedicated to disaster by reproducing what already is. Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Editorial Yet after all of this, are we still in need of more evidence to determine the need for radical change in the region? Whether on an individual or social level? Change does not stop at political parameters, but is expressed through tools of knowledge and intellectual engagement. It is expressed through the depth of stances taken towards life, things, and concepts. It is expressed through methods and the rules of prevalent mentalities, with recognition of the mundane and the sacred. This is a difficult phase, a deeply complex crisis searching for solutions, posing major questions waiting for various answers; brave answers, answers able to raid ideologies of fear and silence. It is a phase that requires emergence from the detention of ready-made templates, with answers that are free from

uniformity and tradition, while reconsidering the human rationality in an anti-intellectual age where insulting the rational has become a virtue. It is perhaps superfluous to say that all of that the aforementioned will be met with great responsibility by those interested, particularly those working in the field of thought and public affairs. We hope that Delta-N is a lively voice regarding these issues; an open source for the pens of those young and serious, for all creative ideas, for all brave propositions that discuss what our region is experiencing, publicly contributing, with others, in the process of desired change.

Talal Al-Mayhani

Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Selection

News from the Centre for Thought and Public Affairs Congratulations Maher Al-Mounnes has been awarded best script at the First Festival of Cinema and Short Films for Youth in Damascus. The winning script was a blog entry based on real events that Al-Mounnes shared on his blog Overdose, and was transformed into a short film produced by Nadine Al-Hubl under the title Ten Minutes After Birth. Maher Al-Mounnes is a member of the Editorial board of Delta-N, where he oversees the Journalistic section of the journal issued by the Centre for Thought and Public Affairs.

Collaboration with OpenDemocracy In a meeting that took place in May 2014, it was agreed that initial collaboration between the Centre for Thought and Public Affairs and OpenDemocracy would take place. Based on this agreement, the Editorial Board at Open Democracy will select some of the published articles in Delta Nun to be published on the OpenDemocracy website. This collaboration will allow these articles, which will be translated into English, to be read by a wide Western audience. It is a point to note that OpenDemocracy is a non-governmental and non-profit organization that deals with issues regarding democracy. It is based in London.

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Editorial Meetings with International Alert A representative from the Centre for Thought and Public Affairs attended two workshops in May and July respectively at the invitation of the organization International Alert, along with a number of other organizations focused on Syrian affairs. The idea behind these meetings is to study the role of Syrian expatiates in the promotion of reaching solutions regarding the complex Syrian situation, as well as the role of peacebuilding.

Meeting with the president of the Conflict Analysis Research Centre at the University of Kent The Centre for Thought and Public Affairs convened in a recent meeting with Professor Feargal Cochrane to explore possibilities of collaboration regarding the intellectual ventures that that the Centre will launch concerning the Syrian conflict. Professor Cochrane is president of the Conflict Analysis Research Centre at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom, and was previously president of the Richardson Institute for Peace studies at Lancaster University. Professor Cochrane’s research focuses on the causes of conflict in areas where populations are heterogeneous; his work played a key role in finding solutions to the violent conflict in Northern Ireland.

Debates Adonis: a new edition of his 1980’s work reignites debates regarding his stances The Syrian intellectual, Adonis, has recently sparked a new fuse in the continued debate regarding the deteriorating Syrian situation, after publishing the second edition of his complete poetic works, and his book ‘Prologue to the end of the century’ by the Beirut publishing house Dar al Saqi. One of the last articles on this issue was published by the Al-Akhbar newspaper titled: Adonis … prologue to the end of the Arab Spring by the journalist Yazan Al-Hajj in which he questions the importance of the publication of both books in which the former was released in the 1980’s of the last century, while the second can be traced to 1967. Al-Hajj clarifies that the date of publication of both books coincided with one of the greatest Arab defeats of modern Arab history, in which the second book was published during the successive setbacks witnessed by the Arab world, therefore impeding the initiative to any new critiques of Adonis’s books. Indeed, Adonis sparked debate in 2011 after he published an article titled: ‘An open letter to the President Bashar Al-Assad’, in which he discusses his opinion concerning the outstanding crisis in Syria since its inception and gives advice to the Syrian president regarding this issue, only to open the fires directed at Assad upon himself. From articles beginning with Jalal Al-Azem, and responses from the writer Khalida Said, Adonis decided to retire from any responses to articles directed at him, saying: “All that I have written is supported in my books, which are available in libraries, and I have faith in the intelligence of readers.” Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Editorial Rudwan Al-Sayed runs raging controversy on ‘political Islam’ and ignites an undecided intellectual sphere In April 2014, Al-sharq Al-Awsat newspaper witnessed heated intellectual debates between a number of Arab intellectuals. It began with an article titled The campaign against Islam … and the campaign against Arabs by Professor of Islamic studies Rudwan Al-Sayed from the Lebanese University, in which he criticized intellectual enlighteners in their continued criticism of conservative, ideological, and terrorist Islam, from what Al-Sayed views as incomplete studies. In an article of issue 12925 of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Al-Sayed argues that the studies which some Arab academics and researchers celebrate launch campaigns against ‘Sunni Islam’, pointing out that 17 Arabic books published after 2010 hold biased Shi’a roots, using the resistance as an excuse to liberate Arabs and Muslims from this ‘Sunni Islam’. Syrian writer, George Tarabishi’s response came quickly, since Al-Sayed mentioned him in his article as one of the campaign leaders against ‘Sunni Islam’, in addition to Adonis and other intellectuals. In his article, Tarabishi pointed out that accusations made by Al-Sayed place ‘Shi’a Islam’ in the role of the executioner, versus his Sunni counterpart that has become a victim. Tarabishi clarifies that the only victim in this situation is ‘Islam’ in general, through the promotion of a ‘good versus evil’ paradigm, accusing all of those who hold this view to be led by an alleged campaign against Islam. In support of Tarabishi, the Libyan intellectual Mohammad Abdul Mutalib Al-Hawni responded in an article to Al-Sayed via the same newspaper and on the website Al-Awan of Rational Arabs, titled: To Mr. Rudwan Al-Sayed: the Gulf does not need another Qaradawi. Al-Hawni argues that the reality presented in Al-Sayed’s article is incompatible with actual reality, challenging him to give evidence of the accusations of sectarian bias that he has blanketed upon all Arab intellectuals. Yet the sparring did not end with Al-Hawni’s article, for Al-Sayed returned to the arena with a dual reply to both articles, highlighting his concern as others around him regarding what is happening in Islam internally, and the atrocities of ‘political Islam’ which has emerged with organizational potency in the region. In addition to the failure of civil society in bringing down their political regimes, Al-Sayed also criticized the interference of Lebanon’s Hezbollah in attacking those who calls them apostates in Syria. Al-Sayed concluded the fervent debate in early May, arguing that it is the right of enlighteners to deal with issues as they please, and it is also his right to reject their approach to dealing with their study and analysis of Islam. The full texts of the aforementioned articles have been published on the CTPA’s blog.

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Editorial

Books The book La Syrie promise is written by the Syrian writer Hala Kodmani and published by the French publishing house Actes Sud. The books is narrated by the writer in the format of an email between her recently deceased father and herself. The book Syrie, la revolution orpheline by the Lebanese writer Ziad Majed, published by Actes Sud, attempts to panoramically assess the Syrian situation in its interference on a regional and international level by observing some of the key regional and international players. The book Les Gardiens de l’air by the Syrian writer Rosa Yassin Hassan, published by Actes Sud, is a novel translated from Arabic. The novel was initially published by Alkawkab Publishing House, the sister company to Riad Alrayes Books and Publishing in Beirut. The book Salvation or destruction? Syria at a crossroads, published by the Cairo Institute for the study of Human Rights, encompasses research papers edited by Yassin Al-Haj Saleh, with Ahmad Hasou, Akram Al-Nabi, Anwar Al-Nabi, and Radwan Ziadah as contributors. In his book Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We’re In, Robert Spencer argues: ‘Maybe the weather is warm abroad, however a snow storm is about to blow in from cold hearts, that live in a frozen state, in an Islamic winter that seems to have no end’. In the book The Arabic Spring…Until When? New horizons in democratic change, published by the Centre of Arab Unity and edited by Abdulilah Balkazeer, old questions regarding Arab authorities are repeated: internal change or a new revolution? Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Editorial

Research and Reports

Report: Squandering Humanity - monitory report on the economic and social circumstances in Syria The Syrian Centre for Policy Research has published its third and fourth quarterly report (July – December 2013) titled: Squandering Humanity: monitory report on the economic and social circumstances in Syria in collaboration with the UNRWA and UNDP on May 2014. The report was introduced on the Centre’s website: “Syria faces one of the greatest humanitarian and developmental crises in modern history, demolishing everything from the economy to social and cultural human capital –not to mention the dislocation that has struck national identity. This crisis is driven and fuelled by powers on a regional and international level, resulting in Syrian humanitarian dissipation. The Syrian Centre for Policy Research aims to publish this report on a quarterly basis; assessing, documenting and analysing the critical developmental effects of the continued conflict, by depending on the latest available data, evidence, and econometric models”.

Report: ‘The continued crisis: an analysis into the Syrian military scene’ In line with its publications on political analysis, Brookings Institute has issued a paper titled ‘The continued crisis: an analysis of the Syrian military scene’ by the writer Charles Leicester, in which he analyses the Opposition backed by the West, the growing number of armed Jihadists, and the capabilities of pro-government forces. Leicester argues that these factions will stay in a state of opposition until a political solution is reached, particularly since achieving a comprehensive military victory is difficult to reach for all parties. However, observing the increased number of armed groups on both sides, it seems unlikely that the cycle of violence will stop in Syria, even if the government and Opposition reach an agreement. As a result, Leicester argues that regional and Western states should focus on two primary aims regarding their policies on the Syrian crisis. Firstly, that the international community should strengthen a coherent Syrian Opposition in its ability to face the Assad regime on the ground in battle and in roundtable negotiations. Secondly, the international community should help neighbouring countries in managing the indirect effects of violence that have emerged from this conflict, particularly limiting the scale of Jihadist activities in Syria and outside her borders.

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Editorial Lila Abu-Lughod’s contribution by the Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies The Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies in Doha has published a study by the political and legal researcher Iyad Al-Batneehi. The study addresses conclusions reached by the Palestinian-American academic Lila Abu-Lughod, in which she discusses the inconsistent premises of cognitive feminist rhetoric with the structured contexts of women in the Arab region. Al-Batneehi addresses the issues that Abu-Lughod discusses in obstacles facing Arab women; such as the inharmonious relationship between Western development and Human Rights rhetoric and the contextual reality of Arab women. Furthermore, Al-Batneehi analyses Abu- Lughod’s reading of the modern state as different to the discussion of modernity, and her opinion on global developmental liberal rhetoric as harmful to women, since it denies their right to defend their regional and cultural contexts. It is a point to note that Lila Abu-Lughod is Professor of Anthropology and Feminist studies at the Colombia University, graduating from Carlton College in 1974, and receiving her PhD from Harvard University in 1984. Abu-Lughod gained recognition due to her research on the Bedouin Awlad ‘Ali tribe in Egypt. Mazen Ali in collaboration with Noor Shalghen The Editorial Board, Delta-N Journal

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Articles

So that the Syrian revolution is not corrupted

by those who have hijacked it!

With philosophers and high-ranking leaders observing, recent events in the region have proved the demise of traditional standards of the revolution â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as though it were organized, restrained, far from chaos, and led by revolutionary parties. However, the fall of dictatorial regimes does not mean that the region will spontaneously and automatically be rid of dictatorial mentality. And the Syrian revolution is

no historical exception, nor has it leaped from past revolutions that were built upon a great chest of ambitions and dreams. However, what does distinguish it is that parasites, extremists, and the corrupt have saddled upon the revolution before it reaches power. This article is not meant for dramatization or exaggeration, but rather to ring more bells of danger lest our dreams of liberation crumble by all the shackles and outlets of tyranny.

By: Hoshang Ossi

Colourful paradoxes

inside Syria

Since January this year, and with the recent Syrian presidential elections in June, shops across Syrian cities began to close to wear the Syrian flag, which some saw as a prelude to election campaigns in which President Bashar Al-Assad was a candidate. The Syrian flag becomes void of its symbolic patriotism representing nation and state, and comes to

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

embody a specific political vision â&#x20AC;&#x201C; particularly when the Opposition abroad has adopted a flag with different colours. This article attempts to shed light on the rhetoric of visual media used in presidential elections campaigns, and its role in determining the colours of current political life inside Syria. In parallel, presidential campaigns in Lebanon and Turkey will be used as a primary example of comparison.

By: Riham Kousa

Articles

The relationship of artistic schools

with social and political realities

This article aims to introduce the influence of political movements on artistic cliques. For the reciprocal relationship between art and politics emerges in a variety of art forms depending on social and political movements, through the consideration that throughout the ages art cannot be divorced from the reality of mass popular movements. Art has expressed political

movements, which has been literarily crystalized and abstractly visualised in the political context of each age. This relationship reveals the continuity of particular artistic thought and its connection with continually experienced political realities; beginning with the Impressionism and ending with other schools of art whose orientation differed depending on their political and social contexts even until today.

By: Lilian Ballan

Political attitudes

of the capital in Syria

This article presents a brief account of the political attitudes of the capital in Syria, shedding light on its historical emergence and the unpatriotic nature of its accumulation. It will then discuss the corrupt reciprocal relationship between the authorities and capital wealth prior to the Syrian revolution and its disintegration during the revolution â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from incidents of AlHarika Market to calls for strikes. Furthermore,

it will discuss the absence of any political vision and social responsibility â&#x20AC;&#x201C;of the Syrian capitalwith the beginning of militarisation concluding with the withdrawal of capital. Finally, in this study we have attempted to bring to the attention of the reader the crucial difference of political patterns in relation to the capital in Syria and capital in the West.

By: Abdallah Shalash Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Articles

The Ultras: establishment and role

There is nothing easier than for a regime to create its own worst enemy, for the majority young Ultras (groups of football fans, Egyptian fans in the case of this article) come from poor and impoverished backgrounds. If united on the basis of a political, economic, and social programme they represent a source of great collective energy which poses a great threat to the regime. In contrast to Europe which managed to make great strides, even if on a minimal level, in issues related to social justice and freedom of expression, the presence of Ultras in the Arab world indicates the success of political regimes in misleading public awareness. In their hatred of the regimes security apparatus, particularly the Ministry of Interior, they may be considered the regimes ideal enemy. They are an enemy, which at the extreme end of their ambitions

desire a freedom of space that allows them to explosively express that of which is suppressed within themselves in this field – which either way does not reach a stage of threatening the regimes presence. In February of 2013, which came to be known as the ‘Federal Palace’ events, there was a decline in the presence of Ultras in comparison to the first wave of 2011, whereby there was an interesting documented presence of young people in parties and organizations which were established after the fall of former president Mohammad Hosni Mubarak. This indicates that this force was captive of a different political representation, which distanced huge groups of disenfranchised youths from what is in their direct interest – then came the revolution to restore them to their natural status. This means that large sections of them have become involved in political life via recently established parties and organizations.

By: Victorios Shams

The Internet succumbs to reality: deepening its flaws and sabotaging its knowledge roots were less noble than Nobel’s means, it has overcome this minor occupation in terms of what it has contributed today in terms of destruction. This article exposes the general effects of the Internet on reality after more than thirty years of its availability to civilians.

When Alfred Nobel invented TNT explosions, he was seeking to ease the work of miners –yet it was exactly the opposite that happened. In an attempt to ease his guilt he founded the Nobel Prize in its various forms. It is possible to treat the Internet as a similar case, and despite the fact that its military

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

By: Manav Zaitoun

Articles

In critiquing Syrian sectarianism

in the region. It clarifies that despite the differing aims of raids, they are united in submission to historical paradoxes that have existed between the city and countryside in Syria. It is therefore not difficult to replace, change, or even realign them under an organized, democratic, political authority based on nationalist principles. The only loser will be pseudonymous sectarianism.

Cases of rural raids have become a common feature of the Syrian crisis, which have partially come to exist on a sectarian basis whereby both parties differ dogmatically. This article reviews two cases as such and analyses them in the context of prevailing social and economic factors that exist

By: Nairouz Satik

Syrian ‘Opposition’ literature is in a dilemma in the satire of dictatorship and painting an image that is parallel to reality. These stand in contrast to the assumed position of enveloping itself in deep human transformations as a result of complex and absurd conditions, and of searching for new questions which these conditions force and participate in creating a long-term identity. Innovative Syrian writing, in the midst of the Opposition and after the uprising, has taken a stereotypical approach to describing the Syrian individual as either a victim or a hero, drowning

By: Abdul Wahhab Azzawi

Syrian theatre: in deep crisis that continues to intensify the excuse of Syrian theatre’s oppression was absent – prior to the rise of Islamists. So why do the different forms of interactive theatre not materialise or develop? Longstanding circumstances continue to affect the theatre in Syria, and keep creating its complex ‘crises’.

In some Syrian cities that witnessed grand protests against the political regime, or had even abolished all traces of the regime’s political authority, questions regarding theatre emerged. As a result,

By: Maya Jamous Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Studies

The absurdist movement:

between philosophy and theatre

Wars and revolutions have always contributed to the heart of intellectual, social, and political structures, through the marginalisation of mainstream ideas and reintroduction of formally marginalised ideas. There is no doubt that this change affects social infrastructure and produces ideological and cultural movements influenced by this new phase; both of which are a result of society and the individual. Since it was one of the most influential events, if not the most important in modern European history, the Second World War contributed in updating European social infrastructure and changing many ideas that occupied the hearts of Europeans prior to the war in terms of beliefs and givens. Its effects were prominent, not only in changing European society, but also in changing the foundation of European mentality to which the European turned to address the causes and factors that created this war. The Second World War’s catastrophic consequences which demolished Europe and killed more than forty million people, shocked European mentality to the brutality and practice of mechanisms of war. This shock actively influenced the European mind to create contemporary ideologies and philosophies that correlated with the post-war period and were compatible with its ideological demands. One of the most prominent schools of thought was Existentialist philosophy pioneered by Jean-Paul Satre. Meanwhile, other ideological

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

movements that had shown initial emergence prior to the war were revitalised and flourished, such as Structuralism pioneered by Claud Levi Strauss in Anthropology, literary theory by Roland Barthes, and even feminist movements in post-war Europe were revitalised calling for women’s rights and social equality with reference to the pioneer Simon de Beauvoir. However, we do not exaggerate in saying that one of the most important ideological movements that emerged from the effects of the Second World War which represents the shock of Europeans and their failure in detaching criminal machinery which emerged in the war, is the absurdist movement which was based on the shock and paralysis of Europeans from the effects of this destructive war. The movement was characterized by irrationality and the detachment from prevalent ideological patterns; a reaction to the incredible moral and financial destruction that Europe suffered after the war – such as every European has stood before the mural of images of ruin and destruction; disabled, shocked and blasphemous before every postulation, believing in the ‘absurdity’ of life and its irrationality.

By: Alaa Al-Alem

Studies

Civil war: between Greed and Grievance human agency and fails to address domestic issues. This study will clarify the broad outlines of both arguments, referring to a number of civil wars and disturbances from around the world as examples. Furthermore, this study will strive to clarify the intersection of these concepts on the ground. This study aims to briefly analyse the concept of ‘Greed and Grievance’ which has been used to study the causes for the outbreak of civil war and its mechanisms. While a number of researchers view greed and material gains as definitive factors in civil war, others argue that this notion disregards

By: Sinan al Hawwat

The Syrian state

trapped between scope and power Opinions regarding the relationship between the scope of the state (the scale of its intervening job) and its power (its institutional efficiency) have grown in abundance. Some economists argue that institutional efficiency requires a reduction in the scale of the intervening job provided by the state, while others hold the opinion that institutional efficiency of a state is dependent upon a large scale of intervention. Meanwhile, a third group of economists argue that there is a distinction between the scale of the intervening job provided by the state and its institutional strength, since institutional strength is dependent on a number of variables; economic and otherwise. There have been a number of published studies demonstrating the inability to produce a fixed model that can be applied across all states. Fukuyama demonstrates in his book State Building that there is no certain relationship between power and endurance, for state power was reduced in its ‘institutional efficiency’ from Russia to Japan when there were cuts in state sector jobs, whereas the opposite happened in New Zealand in which a reduction of state

sector jobs coincided with increased institutional efficiency. For the contradiction of endurance and power is unrealistic, and asking the wrong questions will only lead to wrong answers. Achieving optimum economic performance is not a matter of choosing between a larger scale of intervening job or institutional efficiency. Reducing state sector jobs will not necessarily result in an increase of institutional efficiency, just as institutional efficiency is not dependent on a reduction of state sector jobs. Rather, it is dependent on a number of variables, most important of which are institutional factors. We will focus on the relationship between the size of the Syrian state and the power of its institutions, launching from an analysis of the scale of state sector jobs on three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. We will study the power of state institutions in the contexts of the aforementioned levels, depending on the World Bank’s criterion in its 1997 global development report, which was adopted by Fukuyama in his book State Building, and referring to two state sector jobs in each level. By: Wajdi Wahbi Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Book reviews

Anxiety

in Doctrine and problems of denial

This article is concerned with addressing and critiquing the primary hypotheses made in the book Anxiety in Doctrine by Saed Nasheed. The author’s method of approach is ideal when exploring these doctrines, to the extent that he adopts a vision that is even compatible with Islamists –and when critiquing that vision, he argues that religious reform is the solution to our society’s crises. Nasheed argues for personal interpretation of religious texts, rejecting orthodox religious legislation and jurisprudence and calling for values at the crux of religion. While Islamists argue that religion (without any reform) is the exact solution to society’s ills. Indeed, Nasheed’s interpretations are closer to secularism. Instead of considering religious reform as an intellectual affair subject to research, he approaches the issue, in every sense, as a door to general reform; as a solution to social crises. In this respect, he manages to reconcile with political Islam that defines religion as state and religion. We find that the problem of backwardness in our societies is not read from the angle of legislation as backwards, and Islamic religious values as progressive with a metaphysical concept of God unrelated to the lives of people

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

(a God that does not require any sense of guilt or fear), but is rather read from the angle that our societies are dictated by a global capitalist system. A system that is at the heart of the crisis –from political sectarianism, war, poverty, and terrorism in the name of religion, to the return to religiosity and proposing religion as a definitive solution to all crises. The idealist approach of the book prompts the author to argue that “ideas rule the world, and when ideas change the world will change”. Yet this idea appears to be completely wrong; for the world is vastly ruled by a global capitalist system, resulting in various scenarios forced upon various levels of global social structures. It is through this structure which global crises are read, such as the crisis of development. Therefore, the solution does not lie in religious or political reform, but rather in changing the capitalist class.

By: Ammar Dayoub

Book reviews

Immortality of spirit, rebellion, and fear:

worship in places of sanctuary

This review attempts to shed light on a Syrian novel, which received a partially pessimistic response after its publication. Through consequent negative discussions, many came to misunderstand some key elements of the novel. The author’s words summarise his incentive, passion, and loyalty to Immortality – all of which are features of the book from cover to cover. The distinguished style of the author describes the southern region of Syria (Daraa) in which he critically analyses and explains the region in minute detail, which was the cradle of the great Syrian revolution in 1925 against French colonialism. The region is the novels hero, besides many of the characters that defined its features – which is carried through to the reader with unique courage, while others expressed their dislike on the website Good Reads wryly commenting on the novel and its author. Either way, it is difficult to directly compare the novel to current affairs in Syria, and while its features may have highlighted deep issues of Syrian

liberation from handcuffs over the years, it remains a reasonable attempt to predict the great transformation of Syria in 2011 which was close to the novel’s publication. The novelist Fadi Azzam returns to his mantra of hope despite the quasi destruction of his biography: “Words render us free, for every time a place or time is destroyed the tortured seek refuge in words, granting them hope and solace.

By: Noor Shalgheen Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Reports

In the midst of war in Syria,

the right to childhood is being pulverised

The past three years of war in Syria has managed to disrupt the growth of a whole generation of children psychologically, physically, socially and educationally. In a report released by UNICEF in March 2014, statistics reveal that 5.5 million children have been affected by the ongoing conflict in Syria. For the greater the war has grown in ferocity, it has managed to target children

with its weapons to accumulate the diseased, disabled and orphaned. Indeed, the destruction of infrastructure has been reflected in the lack of access to basic rights such as education and health, which will definitely leave an effect on a child’s life from a psychological and social perspective. In this investigation, we will attempt to shed light on the psychological, educational and health effects of war on Syrian children.

By: Dima Nicholas

Insurgents in Syria:

the search for support and leadership

Over the past two years and a half of armed insurgents in Syria, it seems that the situation is becoming more complicated. The hundreds of phalanges, brigades and military groups that differ in every sense have come to intersect at one truth: they are all bodies without heads. In the search for financial support and arms, the primary aim of these groups is not to bring down the regime but rather to further their own political agendas. In the course of oncoming issues of Delta-N, we

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will address the issue of insurgency in Syria; how do insurgents attain financial support? And what is the strategy behind their actions? Which are the most prominent groups of warring factions? What is their ideological direction? And has it managed to have an impact on the Opposition? In the following report, we will be introduced to three of the most significant insurgent factions in Syria: the ‘Islamic Front’, ‘Al-Nasrah Front’ and the ‘Free Syrian Army’.

By: Tarek Alabed

Reports

Kidnapping,

as a result of detention or its effect? Despite many link kidnap with detention, events on the ground have speedily broken this association – whether as a result of a lack of security that has propelled the growth of this crime as a criminal act independent of political and security affairs, or due to the conflict of armed insurgents waging between brigades and armed groups. There are no exact figures for the number of kidnapped persons in Syria, and here we are not focusing only on those detained by ruling authorities in Damascus, but also on individuals kidnaped at the hands of gangs on either side of the conflict; for political, vengeful, or even financial purposes.

By: Kussay Amamah

Cohabitation

Cohabitation is the residence of two individuals of the opposite sex in one place without any filial affiliation, yet it is not necessarily based on a sexual clause. However, the idea of cohabitation surpasses the concept of residence to greatly encompass a sexual aspect, and consequently cohabitation becomes first and foremost an ‘unofficial relationship’. Sarah responded that it was “out of fear of scandal” when I asked her “why [she] did not want me to use [her] full name in the interview?”. The majority of candidates whom I interviewed felt the same as Sarah. Some say that cohabitation “whether we want to or not, is a reality”, while others view it as a natural condition of the modern city, and some reach the extent

that even to discuss is a sign of backwardness. Yet despite the practical conviction that those who cohabit hold, the majority feel a sense of anxiety when the issue is related to their choice becoming public. Legally, we cannot observe any article in the penal code that discusses cohabitation. Whereas social institutions oppose cohabitation, there has never been a violent or legislative case regarding the issue. Cohabitation is an act of rebellion against Syrian social morals. However, the institutions that oppose this rebellion are silent on the level of their actions. Similarly, the rebels are silent on the level of pushing change towards legalising cohabitation; society says to the cohabiter: “Go ahead, but do it in silence”.

By: Kefah Zeini Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Reports

Boats of death to Europe:

organized gang smugglers divide land and sea immigrants, and with each immigrant comes a story. available border loopholes or through recourse of human trafficking networks. The complication of circumstances for illegal immigrants exist not only on the level of the obstacles and problems they face from states receiving them, but also on the level of states that happen to be on the geographic routes of the country from which they primarily seek refuge. Migration may be considered as one of the most complicated social human phenomena. Its influence spans across a number of realms, specifically in the case of continuing increase of immigrants from the Middle East, and Syria in particular, to Europe seeking refuge via illegitimate means. This often happens in secret, with immigrants sneaking through various

By: Abed Al-Haj

Lebanon:

refugees in tents, refugees in castles

This report addresses an emergent phenomenon in Beirut: the attraction of older men inviting young men and women to live with them to participate in a sexual or general relationship for the sake of money and shelter. This article addresses four cases, discussing them from four perspectives: psychologically, socially, legally, and religiously. The issue is

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considered unacceptable on a religious level and defies acceptable social norms in some societies. However, it continues to exist on a psychological and social level. And despite the acceptance of some factions in society of this phenomenon, the particular situation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon continues to spark discussions, for whatever one might gain from leaving their country, the issue remains highly dubious â&#x20AC;&#x201C; particularly in the shadowed existence of a vast age gap.

By: Ammar Al-Maâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;moun Abdullah Kassem

Reports

Sport as one

of the victims of the Syrian crisis

Sport in Syria suffers what other remaining aspects of life have suffered, for the past three years of this crisis have had a negative impact on all of its joints, and entered it into a state of slow death. The lands that produced Joseph Attieh; wrestler and silver medallist in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and Ghada Shu’aa; winner of the gold lion medal in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, have become poor in sports and athletes after the effects of the ongoing war on sports facilities and infrastructure. As a result, many athletes have chosen to immigrate in search of professional opportunities abroad. Some have been killed, while others have sustained injuries that have killed their athletic future and rendered them disabled after great athletic careers. And yet sport has failed to escape the fire of political polarisation; athletes have been assassinated and detained on the basis of their political views, as some have chosen to take up arms and join a faction of the conflict, while others have chosen to split from the ‘Institute of General Sports Union’, which belongs to the Syrian government, to join the ‘Free Syrian Athletics Association’ which sought to be an alternative to the official governmental

organization. Meanwhile, the world adjusts its rhythm to the June 2014 Brazilian world cup. Countries continue to prepare for the beginning of the world cup as per usual. However, these preparations cannot be applied to Syria today. The country’s turbulent security status over the past three years has excluded the World Cup from the attention of Syrian youth. Syrian city piazzas have transformed from places that gathered football fans and supporters to deserted spaces that exist under the threat of explosions and descending mortar shells. It is enough to walk a few minutes in the streets of Damascus to confirm that running from the ghost of death and finding a morsel of life has become the priority of the young Syrian who looks for an international deal to find a solution of his/her situation.

By: Alaa Ihsan Ahmad Haj Hamdo Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts

ISIS’

“Out-bidding” Overstep

The revolutionary struggle in Syria has been frequently cited as a case in point for the radicalisation theory known as “out-bidding”. The term was coined by Mia Bloom in 2005, and refers to the process by which groups operating in the same theatre under the same or similar ideologies and competing for the same constituent support will escalate their rhetoric and actions in order to win de facto ownership of that cause. In the context of Syria’s struggle, the expansive milieu of Islamist militant groups, all claiming ownership of the Salafi-Jihadi cause, have responded to ideological rivals by being more militant, more radical, and more uncompromising – all in an effort to cement their credentials as the purest of God’s warriors. In Syria, the out-bidding process has been energised by another dimension, which sees the more radical groups – most notably alQaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra – attracting the lion’s share of foreign funding from Saudi Islamic charities. This has incentivised more moderate – and even secular – rebel factions to up-theIslamic-ante in order to procure the weapons, supplies and recruits necessary to survive against the twin adversaries of Assad and rival Jihadi groups. This apparently unstoppable spiral of mutually provoked radicalisation and extremism has put

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ISIS has recently provoked media consternation, threatening the disintegration of Syria and Iraq, radicalising European Muslims and undermining the secular Syrian rebel cause. This article investigates a rival contention purporting that ISIS may in fact serve as a de-radicalising force; deterring would-be jihadists who fear fighting for ISIS will mean killing more fellow rebels than regime forces, and hastening moderation among other jihadist groups who fear association with ISIS will undermine their own legitimacy.

international media and policy makers on panic stations, driven to near hysteria by the latest and most overt manifestation of “out-bidding” – the blitzkrieg offensive of ISIS in Iraq, and their declaration this week of an Islamic Caliphate. Saudi Arabia are massing troops on their Iraqi border, the Iranian’s are said to scrambling fighter jets, while Obama and Cameron seem stunned into paralysis. However, despite everything, ISIS’ out-bidding triumph could just prove a doubleedged sword – one that could both cripple ISIS, and maim the entire Salafi-Jihadist movement. The problem with success is that it creates arrogance, and the historical record of Salafijihadi militant groups shows even God’s warriors to be vulnerable to such a vice. From the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria’s 1990s civil war to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) during the occupation years, operational success has led to strategic neglect. Revelling in the glory of battlefield

Full Texts successes, such groups have repeatedly failed to respect the importance of domestic relations, and both groups soon found themselves between a rock and a hard place as harsh implementation of Sharia law in areas under their control soon provoked the violent ire of their previous support bases. The GIA found themselves marginalised and abandoned by fellow rebels, while AQI crumbled into insignificance under the weight of the Iraqi National Army on one side, and an enraged indigenous Iraqi insurgency on the other. The 2011 publishing of the “Manifesto of the Gaza Youth” showed that even the revered Hamas was not immune to such a fate. In the first three years since the 2011 Arab uprisings, Salafi-Jihadist groups seemed to learn from the mistakes of their forebears. Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra, the poster child of al-Qaeda in Syria, has focussed on burnishing its military and patriotic credentials in its fight against Assad, rather than imposing a strict Islamic State which most Syrians do not want. In Libya, formerly existing jihadist groups such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group quickly accommodated towards the new democratic agenda, while even new groups such as Ansar al-Sharia quickly learned to respect public opinion, largely trading violence for “hearts and minds” campaigns after 30,000 Libyans rose up to chase them out of Benghazi following their attack on the US Consulate in 2012. ISIS however, has singularly not learned this lesson, and already it has been disowned by al-Qaeda Central for its extremism, and has increasingly become the target for rival Sunni Islamic groups in both Syria and Iraq. ISIS’ actions have made Syria’s Sunni neighbours think twice about supporting SalafiJihadist groups against Assad. While Jabhat al-Nusra effectively won Syria’s out-bidding contest by dint of its strong jihadist credentials, the group’s strictly nationalist agenda and demonstrated-rationality has maintained it as a fairly safe conduit for the likes of the Gulf States. In contrast, ISIS’ professed global agenda, and

outspoken hostility towards both rebel Syrian factions and neighbouring Sunni regimes, has made it a dangerous wildcard for prospective sponsors. In out-bidding Jabhat al-Nusra by expanding its operations beyond Syria, and establishing an Islamic Caliphate, ISIS has in actual fact more or less signed its own death warrant. While sponsors in the Gulf will be loath to sponsor a group with self-declared aims to destabilise the whole region, ISIS’ brutal tactics in Iraq and Syria, massacring fellow rebels and government forces alike, is likely to alienate would-be jihadists who will be slowly realising that joining the group will often involve killing fellow Sunnis rather than combatting tyranny. The sting in the tail for ISIS goes further still. With ISIS – or “the Islamic State”- so disgraced, fellow Salafi-jihadist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, or like-minded groups across the region such as Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, will be at pains to distance themselves from the group, with the most straight-forward option being “down-bidding”. As long as this association remains, would-be jihadist will not only be discouraged from joining ISIS, but also more accepted groups such as al-Nusra and Ansar al-Sharia. ISIS could just turn out to be the strongest de-radicalising force in the region.

※ Mark Bracher holds a BA and MA Degree in War & Society from the University of Wales, Swansea. He is currently finishing an MA in Middle East Politics at Exeter University where he has specialised in Islamic radicalisation and communal conflict.

By: Mark Bracher ※ Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

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What Beirut’s transport

infrastructure says about its politics

This article examines how socio-political inequality can be read, in the context of the Greater Beirut Area, through the discontents of its transport infrastructure. A brief stroll through the streets of Beirut would reveal to us a food chain of sorts, where the infrastructure treats consuming private transport vehicles as king, followed in importance by non-consuming private transport, then by mass transport and lastly by the pedestrian. This “food chain” manifests itself in physical encroachments committed, for example, by consuming private transport on its non-consuming equivalent, and by transport in general on pedestrian spaces. Parallel to these physical appropriations runs a thorough process of symbolic appropriation, where the neutrality of the street is subjugated to the iconography of that street’s ruling party – whichever that may be. The methodology used is photographically recorded participant observation, whereas the leading theoretical framework is that of Enrique Peñalosa’s discussion of urban inequality. Introduction Equality is a thorny issue; at surface value it reads as a virtue, yet in practice it has often been used as a pretext for uniformity. In the context of cities, Richard Sennett has pointed at how polluted the practice of city planning is with notions of warfare, treating people’s differences as sources of threats to be walled, rather than as

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sources of knowledge (1990). Enrique Peñalosa, on the other hand, has posited social equality both as a desirable good and as a value that can be directly read in a city’s structure (2007). It is interesting that Peñalosa in the context of his discussion has cited Francis Fukuyama, because Fukuyama in his book The End of

Full Texts History cited Lebanon as exemplary of what the Hobbesian state of nature looks like when materialised in a real-life setting (1992). Certainly, Fukuyama was referring to the Lebanon of the freshly breaking Civil War in 1975, and for all the fragility of Lebanon’s current political situation, it still qualifies for a weak state and not for a dissolved one, but it can be shocking to note just how minimal the presence of the state is in matter of urban planning even in the Lebanese capital Beirut. As such, looking at the inequalities of this scene is instructive because it tells of the possibilities that arise, not under bad governance, but under minimal governance. Setting out to conduct the research for this study, I was initially lost at whether to examine Beirut’s southern suburb or Beirut as a whole. Researchers often treat Beirut’s southern suburb – or Dáhye, as it is known in Lebanese Arabic – as a case on its own because it is the Hizbullah stronghold and therefore functions militarily as an independent unit where the Lebanese Armed Forces and Lebanese Internal Security Forces retain a strictly formal presence, while Hizbullah is de facto in charge of the region’s security. In terms of urban life, however, Dáhye displays essentially the same phenomena as the rest of Beirut (albeit in accentuations or dilutions) and will be considered under the wider frame of Beirut. Whenever a certain phenomenon is markedly accentuated or diluted in Dáhye, a note about that will be made to the reader. The multiple levels of inequality: It goes without saying that inequality as read through urban practice comes at many levels, and to sum what will follow, we can talk of an urban food chain that functions as follows: Pedestrian < Mass transport < Nonconsuming private transport < Consuming private transport I will look at this food chain by breaking it down to its constitutive binary hegemonies, namely

Figure 1: Parked car displaces pedestrian to street, Burj l'Brájne (Osman 2014)

the hegemony of mass transport (qua transport) over pedestrians, private transport over public transport, and non-consuming private transport over consuming private transport. Beyond the neatness of this structure is another, more superstructural hegemony, namely that of political symbolism over the public realm. 1. The supremacy of transport over the pedestrian

This supremacy displays itself in three levels. At the first and most basic level, the pedestrian is provided with a sidewalk, but this sidewalk is de facto occupied by parked vehicles: T h i s phenomenon is common due to shortage of parking s p a c e s in Beirut, abundance of SUV cars capable of climbing sidewalks, and to the fact that traffic law is enforced in only a small portion of

Figure 2: Dead end for the pedestrian, Burj l'Brájne (Osman 2014) Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts Beirut. Each of these phenomena owes itself to a larger socio-political problem: parking spaces in Beirut are rare because the Lebanese overrely on private transport – 68% of them to be exact (Aoun 2010) – which in turn owes itself to the poor quality of mass transport; SUV cars are abundant because in an environment where vehicle interaction (such as whether one may park one’s car, or what the aftermath of a car collision looks like) is organised more by power connections and less by strict legality, investing in SUVs is a sound option because it gives an image of power and connectivity; lastly, traffic law is enforced in only a small portion of Beirut because the Lebanese Internal Security Forces are generally undermanned and as such traffic enforcement is not a priority. At the second level is the encroachment or occupation of a formerly existing sidewalk by parked vehicles, such as the one seen below: Here, we can see that the building’s recession is made just enough to accommodate to the size of a car parked at an angle, completely engulfing the sidewalk and throwing the pedestrian to the street. Obviously, this tactic is only available to richer and/or better-connected investors since obtaining a building permit that turns the blind eye to the appropriation of the sidewalk requires access to municipal authority.

Figure 4: Barely-there sidewalk in comparison to two-way road & pedestrian body, Burj l’Brájne (Osman 2014)

Lastly, at the third level the pedestrian is simply not provided with a sidewalk whatsoever, or rather is provided a comically narrow space: As we can see in Figure 5, the width of this road in Burj l’Brájne (Dáhye) clearly lent itself for a one-way traffic with decent space for a sidewalk. Ultimately, however, the road was kept to accommodate both traffic directions as well as to the inevitable pedestrian, with the result being a 40 cm wide sidewalk capable of fitting two feet but certainly not the hips or shoulders carried by these feet. Obviously, this sidewalk is not used by pedestrians and therefore represents 40 cm of space lost to vehicles. This sidewalk is not a common phenomenon (although it is not an isolated incident, either), but streets that have no sidewalks altogether are indeed common and represent an insistence on the part of municipal authorities to maximise street use for cars at the expense of pedestrian use. 2. The supremacy of private over mass transport

Figure 3: Total appropriation of sidewalk by design, Ste Thérèse (Osman 2014)

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Because no master plans for modern Beirut were ever executed (Berry et al 2004), and because in whatever ad hoc planning mass transport is not recognised, there is only one place in Beirut that functions as "station" – namely the Charles Hélou Station – in the sense of being designed in such a way as to functionally host

Full Texts 3. The supremacy of consuming private transport over non-consuming private transport

Figure 5: Cab dropping a passenger off at a corner, Háret Hrék (Osman 2014)

space where mass transport may stop to pick up passengers. Elsewhere the three available modes of mass transport (cabs, vans, and buses) function by what Amer Al Dour calls a “hail-and-ride principle” (2005), whereby a mass transport vehicle simply stops whenever the passenger signals her desire to get on board or get off. Interestingly, corners often function as the spaces of choice for passenger and this is due to the visibility that corners give to those waiting at them. As we can see in Figure 6, however, corners are in fact the worst locations in which a vehicle could stop since they give other cars no leeway to pass. As earlier mentioned, most of the Lebanese rely on private transport and this is – at least partly – due to the fact that there is no value added to the current experience of mass transport; because the streets are cut to serve the circulation of private transport, there are no lanes specific to vans and buses, no stop points for cabs. Besides stigmatising mass transport drivers as nuisances on the road, this state of affairs deprives mass transport from its classical strength, namely relative speed due to specialised lanes. It is only normal, therefore, that mass transport be only used by those who have no other choice.

Not only are sidewalks an option, and not only are they – when existent – an easy prey to acquisition by vehicles to serve as parking spaces, but even as parking spaces they do not serve all cars. Rather, they are made the exclusive property of the cars affiliated to the place physically behind them, with the affiliation being one of consumerism; if the space behind the sidewalk is a store, it is appropriated to the exclusive use of its customers, while if the space is a residential building, the sidewalk becomes exclusively used by the inhabitants. The mode of appropriation depends on the wealth of the owner. At the bottom of the ladder is a spectrum of stores that use no insignia to appropriate the sidewalk, but whose owners or employees keep an eye on the sidewalk (the store typically being sufficiently small as to allow such an operation), shooing away neutral drivers if they attempted to park. Increasingly, however, stores are yielding to the use of insignia such as plastic chairs or improvised signs placed by the sidewalk, clearly indicating that the space in question is for customer use only (see Figure 8). Because this approach is explicit, it leaves no space for misinterpreting the sidewalk space as public space, thus eliminating the scenario of the occasional neutral parker and saving the store Figure 6: Improvised signs reserving the sidewalk for customer cars, Ste Thérèse (Osman 2014)

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Full Texts owner the burden of most personal shooing.

Figure 7: Designed signage befitting the store's visual identity, Ste Thérèse (Osman 2014)

At the top of the ladder are stores that use at least one of the three following elements: designed noparking signs (Figure 9), the services of a private security c o m p a n y (Figures 9 and 10), and a valet parking service (Figure 11).

What is interesting about this range of Figure 8: VPS ... You're in safe inter ventions hands (Osman 2014) is the brutality of their implicit premise: now that public space has been privatised, it is time to commodify it. There is now, literally, a sector of the Lebanese e c o n o m y feeding off the privatisation and commodification of sidewalks, which is bound Figure 9: Valet parking services to make the at the sidewalk adjacent to a transition to coffeehouse, Ste Thérèse public sidewalks (Osman 2014) a much rougher experiment, should such an attempt be made.

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Figure 10: Black flags commemorating Imám Husein, a key figure in Shiite faith, in Ste Thérèse (Osman 2014)

4. The supremacy of political symbolism over the public realm

Beyond the sheer physical, hegemony can manifest itself symbolically on the streets of Beirut, which is what this section will tackle now. In 2002, Sennett wrote “that each man possessed as a public right an invisible shield, a right to be left alone”. This notion is not respected in the streets in Beirut, and certainly not in Dáhye; no neighbourhood has the right to political neutrality or to apoliticality. The two pictures above show black flags commemorating Imám Husein (the most prominent political/religious figure in Shiite faith) erected at a traffic island and on an electricity pole, respectively. In a fashion similar to the

Figure 11: Religious-political iconography at an intersection, Háret Hrék (Osman 2014)

Full Texts commodification of the sidewalk by stores behind them, these flags spring from the initial neutrality of governmental structures and claim them, as well as the space around them, as Shiite-DáhyeHizbullah. It goes without saying that flags are not the only form of iconography with which the dwellers of Dáhye are bombarded daily, and Figure 14 is a simple illustration of the variety of techniques with which public space is appropriated; in this intersection the central figure (left) is a pillar used

by Hizbullah as a seasonal indicator of Shiite commemorations – currently commemorating the passing of the Prophet Muhammad –, while to the top right we can see a cardboard cutout of the back of the Imám Mahdi, presumably forgotten from a previous commemoration around a year ago and probably kept as a sartorial guide for the faithful. To the bottom right we can see a cardboard cut-out commemorating Imád Mighniyye, a major Hizbullah tactician assassinated by the Israeli Mossad in 2007. The latest wave of iconography, it goes without saying, commemorates those of Hizbullah’s combatants who fell and are currently falling in the Syrian Civil War (Figure 15), but I will not elaborate on this series due to the fact that it does not differ substantially from other symbolic appropriations of Dáhye’s public space by Hizbullah. As earlier mentioned, the phenomenon of symbolic appropriation is more accentuated in Dáhye because the Hizbullah socio-military project is the most ambitious amongst Lebanese political parties – ambitious in the sense of the size of the gap between the current society and the desired society. Nonetheless, Figure 16 is a quick reminder that symbolic appropriation of neighbourhoods by their respective political parties is a Beirut-wide phenomenon:

Figure 12: Agglomeration of political iconography around Beirut. Top three: Lebanese Forces (Ring wing Christian), middle two: Future Movement (Centre-right Sunni), bottom left: Syrian Nationalist Party (Left wing Secular), bottom right: Lebanese Phalanges (Centre-right Christian). Photographs, when not the author’s, have been retrieved from the following blogs: Mashrabiyya, kewe.info, photbeirut.typepad, and beirutntsc.

The symbolic appropriation of public space is a problem of inequality because it presumes that some ideas are more precious than others; more than once did flags of the Syrian Nationalist Party make a showing in the streets of Dáhye, but never did these flags last for more than three consecutive days. It is perfectly safe to produce a similar claim about, say, Free Patriotic Movement flags in areas dominated by the Lebanese Forces. Seventeen years of civil war have convinced the Lebanese that reaching an agreement on basic socio-political premises is an impossibility; dead is now the once-fiery debate on ※whether By: Ahmad Osman Lebanon is Arab or Phoenician, and in its stead Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts hovers a silent agreement that to each his own. The rule of non-intervention has worked well so far in stifling civil strife, but it has only done so by stifling the very heart of Habermassian publicness qua intellectual debate (Sennett 2008). More importantly, by allocating ideological difference over different confessions-neighbourhoods, the rule of non-intervention has encouraged the stifling of dissident voices within confessionsneighbourhoods, which bears an eerie echo to Sennett’s note that “unity [or here, harmony] can be gained only at the price of complexity” (1990). More importantly, the symbolic appropriation of public space indicates inequality because it insinuates that the idea in question is more precious than the right of the citizen to be left alone. Certainly valid is the objection that citizens cannot be possibly “left alone” much as we would want to, simply because the city is so rife with stimulants that it “harasses” its citizens despite itself, and this perhaps comes full circle with Peñalosa’s remark that “‘[i]nequality permeates everything around us so pervasively that it is difficult to differentiate between what is inevitable and that which could be altered” (2007), but the response to both diffusions lies in the refusal to succumb to that which is inevitable, and in the insistence on treating everything as “that which could be altered” until proven inevitable.

Certainly in such reasoning there lies the spectre of an excessively equal or an excessively neutral public space, but what Peñalosa seems to be suggesting in the context of equality, and what I am suggesting in the context of neutrality, is not the evening out of various tonalities to an overwhelming whiteness but rather the treatment of the citizen as a partner in the making of the city. In other words, my refusal of charging public space with political iconography stems not out of disdain for politics as a “pollutant” to public space, but rather to an understanding that confounding politics with the everyday scene denigrates both the former and the latter.

※ Ahmad Osman is an MSc Candidate at Cities Programme, London School of Economics. Originally he studied Graphic Design at the American University of Beirut (2007), and worked as a typeface designer for three years before embarking on an MA in Political Studies, also at the American University of Beirut (2013). His earlier research has spanned subjects as diverse as Functionalist architecture theory, paradigms in political reading, linguistic policies in the Arab-speaking world, and violations of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.

By: Ahmad Osman ※

References • Al Dour, Amer. Public Transport In Lebanon: A Proposal for Reforming the Jitney System: A Case Study of Beirut (Beirut: American University of Beirut MA Thesis, 2005) • Aoun, Alisar. Traffic and Transit in Beirut, Lebanon (Beirut: American University of Beirut MA Thesis, 2005) • Berry, I. et al. « lʼentre- deux » Des politiques institutionnelles Et des dynamiques sociales : Liban, Maroc, Algérie, Mauritanie (Tours: programme de recherche PRUD, 2004) • Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992) • Peñalosa, Enrique. The Endless City (London: Phaidon Press, 2007) • Sennett, Richard. The Conscience of the Eye (New York: Norton & Company, 1990) • Sennett, Richard. The Fall of Public Man (London, Penguin Books, 2002) • Sennett, Richard. “The Public Realm”, The Blackwell City Reader (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008)

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MAKING SPACE PUBLIC:

STREET ART IN IRAN

This paper investigates the contestation of public space in Iran through the medium of contemporary street art. While the transgressive cultural activities of Iranian youth have been the subject of increasing scholarly attention, street art has so far been neglected. However, while many counter-cultural activities are either limited to the private sphere or announce themselves in public only covertly, street art is both overtly contentious and produced and consumed directly within quotidian public space. Through such interventions, space is inscribed with an otherwise suppressed poly-vocality, as marginalised or excluded values and identities are brought into public visibility. The engagement which this provokes amongst audiences destabilises hegemonic boundaries between the public and the private, the visible and the invisible, the sayable and the unsayable, showing the prevailing order to be contingent, fragile and contested. It is also argued that street art reveals important shifts in attitudes to authority, identity and modernity amongst Iranian youths since the time of the Revolution, and these are discussed alongside the images. Introduction â&#x20AC;&#x153;Social space is produced and structured by conflicts. With this recognition, a democratic spatial politics beginsâ&#x20AC;? (Deutsche 1996:xxiv)

Life in the Islamic Republic of Iran is often portrayed as hopelessly constrained by the

demands of a repressive, omnipotent state. The very real limitations imposed by the regime notwithstanding, in Iran as elsewhere, hegemony remains an incomplete and evolving project, subject to multiple points of contention. While increasing attention has been paid to Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts the everyday, transgressive cultural practices of Iranian youth(1), street art has thus far been neglected(2). However, for several reasons, it seems a fruitful site of investigation. Unlike many other forms of cultural transgression, street art is produced and consumed directly within quotidian public space, and its oppositionality is both overt and radical. Space is thus re-signified as meaningfully “public” - a place of critical reflection and un-censored symbolic exchange, inhabited and contested by multiple voices. Antithetical to the administered rhythms and ownership structures imposed upon urban life by capitalist modernity generally, in the overtly ideologised space of the Islamic Republic, this transgression takes on even greater significance. Street art publicly exposes not only the failure of the hegemonic order to fully normalise its values, but the incomplete coercive and spatial domination of the state. Dissent is brought out of marginalised, exceptional or exclusive spaces and inscribes as an unavoidable fact of everyday life directly within the architecture of the city. I proceed through three sections, one theoretical, two largely empirical. First, I argue for the political importance of artistic practices, before discussing the relation between street art, public space and political order more closely. Secondly, the post-revolutionary ideologisation of public space is discussed, with a particular focus on the selective incorporation of revolutionary graffiti and street art in official public imagery. 1 For example, Nooshin (2005) and Robertson (2012) investigate Iran's underground music scene, Shahabi (2006) discusses cultural “bricolage” in dress styles, Bayat (2010) examines the “politics of fun”, and the likes of Varzi (2006) and Basmenji (2005) broadly survey a large range of similar practices. Sreberny and Tarfeh (2013) provide perhaps the most up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of such trends.

2 “Street Art” overlaps, but is in some ways distinct from, “graffiti”. While the latter generally communicates communityspecific meanings, is writing-based, and usually aesthetically undeveloped, the former is usually picture- or symbol-based, seeks to communicate with a wide audience, and is more concerned with disrupting urban normality than claiming exclusive ownership of space. See DeNotto 2014 for a discussion of some of these distinctions.

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Finally, I illustrate how this visual regime is being disrupted by contemporary street art and why, thanks to technological developments, this may be more resistant to appropriation and censor. Contemporary images also illustrate shifting attitudes to authority, norms, cultural identity and modernity – all broader social processes which the Iranian state is struggling to control (see Adib-Moghaddam 2013). Street art makes this struggle public in a unique and powerful way. SECTION 1 THE ART OF RESISTANCE 1.1 Art as Politics The energy and resources which states devote to art, whether as sponsors or censors, testify to the latter's capacity to both consolidate and contest power. Oppositional actors, likewise, draw on art's ability to move and persuade in challenging the status quo. Both share a fundamental assumption: that art does not merely represent power, but actively “participates in the struggle for power” (Groys 2008:3) – not directly, perhaps, but certainly as “a factor that shapes the environment in which attitudes to power are formed” (Tripp 2013:308). Art's forms, content and boundaries are thus important sites of struggle in which hegemony - the ideational aspect of power - is constructed, naturalised and reproduced, or, alternatively, subject to (ant) agonistic “question, disagreement, contestation, deliberation, negotiation and change over time” (Tally 1999:170). Particularly in authoritarian contexts such as Iran's, art provides both a means for conducting this struggle and a medium through which the shifting parameters of power may be traced. With art thus conceived, the artist stands as an irreducibly political figure – not necessarily as a regime propagandist or member of a revolutionary avant-garde, but as a producer of symbols whose work becomes meaningful only when read within and against the dominant

Full Texts patterns of symbolic exchange. As Mouffe (2007:7) writes, all artistic practices “play a role in the constitution and maintenance of a given symbolic order or in its challenging and this is why they necessarily have a political dimension. The political, for its part, concerns the symbolic ordering of social relations...and this is where lies its aesthetic dimension”. Similarly, Ranciere's notion of the “distribution of the sensible” considers political order to be structured by aesthetic practices through which “particular behaviours are presented to the citizenry as the total set of possibilities...a system of self-evident facts of perception based on…what is visible and audible as well as what can be said, thought, made, or done” (Ranciere 2004:85). The hegemonic constraint and control of art thereby seeks to delimit the boundaries of intellectual activity and define the field of political, social and cultural possibility. The critical artist, meanwhile, in “re-distributing” the prevailing aesthetic regime and expanding “the contours of perception and experience, rather than reinforc[ing] or accentuat[ing] political views on existing social divisions” (Papastergiadis 2006:19), closely resembles Said's (1994:11) definition of public intellectuals, “whose place is to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma, to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations”. Whether by fusing the power of the image with a specific message, or developing a radically new aesthetic, such artists hope to effect a shift in the perception of the dominant order – contingent, contested and fragile, rather than natural, inevitable and unassailable. Art may also perform a productive role, engendering new narratives, identities and solidarities. The monopolisation and de-monopolisation of artistic production is thus central to the establishment and erosion of hegemony.

1.2 Street Art and Public Space Street-artists perform this role in a particular, perhaps unique, way. As Bayat (2010) argues, states - whether liberal or authoritarian – desire a passive use of space, a habitus in which the dominant order is unconsciously reproduced through everyday activity. An intense locus of disciplinary and biopolitical power, such space functions as “a vehicle for state domination, subordination and surveillance” (Deutsche 1999:121), regulated not only by the city's material structure and the coercive power of the state, but through tightly controlled aesthetic regimes. Street art disrupts this dominance by rendering otherwise excluded or marginalised images, identities and values publicly visible. Only through such interventions does space become “public” in any meaningful sense, re-signified as an organic environment “formed by the interaction and the integration of different practices” (Ledrut 1986:122), which, like hegemony itself, “is never finished; never closed...always under construction” (Massey 2005:9) and, therefore, open to contestation. The inscription of space with a poly-vocality suppressed by the dominant systems of representation both illustrates and enacts such systems' semiotic breakdown – their inability to represent society in its totality, to resolve its contradictions, to inculcate the unthinking domination fundamental to the project of hegemony. By “create[ing] space for alterity, for deviance and drifting...for taboos...for the forbidden, for transgression, the breaking of norms and normality” (Cauter, De Roo & Vanhaesebrouck 2011:10), street art disrupts ordered, passively inhabited space with elements of the unexpected and spontaneous. Whether met with appreciation, disapproval, curiosity, bewilderment or reflection, the encounter with such images seeks to provoke audiences' critical intellectual and/or emotional engagement with everyday space and, therefore, with the forces by which that space is constructed, contested Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts and occupied. Through such engagement, space becomes public and the public subject, in turn, becomes political, a producer (intellectually, emotionally, imaginatively, artistically, symbolically) as well as a product of social environments. The images analysed below should therefore not be seen merely as representative of the struggle to define public space and political order in Iran, but as constitutive elements within that struggle. The symbolic field is an arena of contestation, and street artists actively disrupt both corporate and governmental dominance of this field. From regime efforts to master the multiple Utopian yearnings of the 1979 Revolution, to the failure of the this project to truly universalise its values as Gramscian “common sense”, public images participate in the ongoing construction and deconstruction of hegemonic order. SECTION 2 THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC AND THE IDEOLOGISATION OF PUBLIC SPACE 2.1 The “Spotless Society” “Not the 'republic of Iran,' nor the 'democratic republic of Iran,' nor the 'democratic Islamic republic of Iran,' just the 'Islamic Republic of Iran,'” (Khomeini in Arjomand 1988:137). Khomeini's address to the nation, as Iranians prepared to vote on a new constitution in 1979, encapsulated his vision for the new society. As a “tradition totally without ambiguity” (Khomeini 1981:68), Khomeini's Islam neither tolerated nor required additional modifiers. Thus, while the Revolution itself had erupted from a vast, anarchic and creative constellation of radical visions “spiritual and empirical, religious and secular, western and eastern, progressive and nativist, modern and fundamentalist, revolutionary and reactionary” (Adib-Moghaddam 2011:255) – the architects of post-revolutionary order envisioned a “spotless society” (Khattam 2009), purged of corrupting elements. Far from some primordial

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“Muslim rage” (Lewis 1990), this urge for unity and order is a quintessentially modern response to contemporaneous social, economic and political realities – a society “desperately seeking structure” (Bauman's 1992:x) against the disintegrative effects of capitalist modernity and, in Iran's case, colonial and imperial predations(3). The state's domination of public space was integral to this project. Public behaviour is subjected to micromanagement, with “the shape and color of clothing, the movement of the body, the sound of one's voice, the level of laughter, and the intensity of looks” all surveilled by agents of the state (Bayat 2010:143). This regime is also exercised by citizens upon themselves and one another, leading to paranoia and self-censorship within public space (Varzi 2006). As Kashani-Sabet (2002:170) writes of the Pahlavi regime, under the Islamic Republic, the body of the individual remains “a medium for the implementation of social and cultural policy”, with subjects denied the right “to assert [themselves] or diverge from the norm”. Notwithstanding the multiple ways in which hegemonic norms are covertly transgressed (see Varzi 2006, Shahabi 2006, Bayat 2010), a certain Foucauldian governmentality is thus inculcated in public space, even if this conformity is merely the performance of what Wedeen (1999) calls the politics of “as if”. Public space is also where the state demonstrates its ultimate sovereignty, administering executions and floggings. An intense locus of biopolitical, disciplinary and juridical power, public space is thus both a vehicle through which subjects are socialised to hegemonic norms and the consequences of transgression are made violently clear.

3 As multiple scholars have shown, the radicalised Shi'ism which displaced and subsumed its ideological competitors as the Revolution's meta-discourse was a highly innovative and synthetic construct, an “invented tradition” (Hobsbawn 1983) which emerged from, and was heavily influenced by, extended engagement with Western ideologies – particularly nationalism and Marxism – in response to the crisis of colonial modernity. See Dabashi (1993), Boroujerdi (1996), Mirsepassi (2000), Vahdat (2002).

Full Texts Although the level of enforcement has fluctuated with changing administrations – relative relaxation under Khatami and now Rouhani, a return of revolutionary fervour under Ahmadinejad – public expression and conduct remain subject to severe restrictions, with overt dissent strictly prohibited. The state's desire to produce a coherent, “Islamic” public sphere is of course essential to its claims to moral authority and popular legitimacy. The enforced appearance of social and political consensus appropriates public space as a vehicle for the reproduction of official ideology. 2.2 State Art and Identity Production The state's colonisation of public space following the Revolution was most spectacularly achieved through the art it produced. Most well-known are the huge murals displaying martyrs, religious figures and anti-imperialist images and slogans, which “advertise, solidify and disseminate the basic tenets of the Islamic Republic” (Gruber 2008:24). Such images extend the disciplinary apparatus of the state, marking the space over which it has dominance and within which its expectations of public conduct must be observed. The state also selectively incorporated or appropriated revolutionary graffiti. As various authors have stated (see Dabashi & Chelkowski 1999, Sreberny-Mohammadi & Mohammadi 1994), graffiti was extremely prevalent during the Revolution, occupying space and communicating information about upcoming demonstrations, while posters advanced nationalist, Marxist, feminist and democratic, alongside Islamist, agendas(4). This produced a highly pluralistic and fluid visual field, in which multiple voices competed and conversed. The selective incorporation of revolutionary graffiti and appropriation of these posters into a monolithic aesthetic regime performs a legitimising function, presenting the

post-revolutionary order as the direct, inevitable and organic outcome of the Revolution itself. That the authorities simultaneously cracked down on graffiti-writers and street-artists (Tripp 2013:273) illustrates the importance they attached to achieving public visual dominance. During the Revolution, posters of various ideological currents were produced in make-shift workshops, a “'free press' in all senses: anyone could participate, it was indiscriminate as to content...and everything was distributed free of charge” (Sreberny-Mohammadi & Mohammadi 1994:123). Following the Revolution, the state seized control of these workshops, and many pieces were confiscated. Posters and paintings “that were at first experimental and personal” were thus “appropriated and put to ideological use... for the creation of public identity and memory” (Gruber 2009:687). This shift from the poetic to the instrumental, from the non-hierarchical to the institutional, fundamentally changes the meanings of the pieces, even if their content remained unaltered. Whether confiscated from independent artists or produced directly by the state, the following images utilise graffiti to gain popular appeal: Illustration 1: This poster, produced by the Revolutionary Guard, reproduces spontaneous revolutionary graffiti as official propaganda.

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Illustration 2: A graffitied wall, with slogans opposing the Shah, USA, Israel and Russia and pictures of Khomeini and Shariati.

Both feature a red palm, symbolising martyrdom, printed in a wounded protestor's blood as well as pictures of Khomeini. The first image also shows the renaming of Galeh Square as “Martyrs' Square”. In reproducing these posters as items of official propaganda, the state reifies and appropriates the act of martyrdom itself. While the emancipatory hopes for which the actual martyrs died can never be precisely known, those of the official posters unambiguously gave their lives for the Islamic Republic. In claiming ownership of the dead, in extending their martyrdom through space and time, the official art changes entirely the meaning of their sacrifice: once an act of solidarity in struggle, now an authoritarian demand for conformity and submission. This tactic of appropriation is repeated in the following examples: Both images display the same line, which, taken from a poem by Hafez, became a popular Illustration 3: The graffiti reads: "when the demon departs, the angel shall enter". Referring, respectively, to the Shah and Khomeini, this was a common revolutionary slogan. It has been partially painted over by supporters of the Shah.

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revolutionary refrain: “when the demon departs, the angel shall enter”. Ostensibly, both celebrate the departure of the Shah and the return from exile of Khomeini. The Ayatollah became the Revolution's iconic figurehead not because Iranians shared his vision of the future Islamic state in any precise way. On the contrary, his blending of Shi'a-, anti-imperialist-, nationalistand Marxist-inspired motifs gained such a mass following “precisely because it meant different things to different contenders” (Moaddel 1992). Thus, where the former image is anticipatory and spontaneous, the latter is retrospective and calculated; while we cannot know precisely which Khomeini was imaged by the graffiti-writer, the official billboard celebrates the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. Produced for the Revolution's 25th anniversary, the later piece folds the original slogan into a particular symbolic order. Overshadowed by the much larger images of Khomeini and the Iranian flag, the graffiti's revolutionary vitality is transformed into deference to the regime. As fleeting inscription becomes fixed image, symbols of emancipation transform into signs of hegemony. The use of revolutionary graffiti and street art illustrates this appropriation in a particularly stark way. Such state art colonised public space, turning what had so recently been an arena of contestation and struggle into a site of domination. Just as “the Revolution and its art were mutually constitutive” (Ram 2002:90), so the power of public images was then wedded to a new hegemonic project. Illustration 4: This billboard, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the victory of the Revolution, shows the incorporation of the above slogan, which appears bottom-left, into state propaganda.

Full Texts SECTION 3 ERODING HEGEMONY, RE-CLAIMING SPACE 3.1 Contemporary Street Art It is in this highly ideological space that contemporary street art intervenes. While the hegemonic order in Iran is subject to innumerable points of contestation, from elite fracturing (Arjomand 2009) to a bottom-up “pluralistic momentum” (Adib-Moghaddam 2013), street art is perhaps unique in bringing over dissent directly into quotidian public space. Although slogans and images adorned the walls during the Revolution, contemporary street art clearly represents something radically new in Iran. Aesthetically, artists partake in a global culture which Irvine (2012:25) calls a “manifesto-in-practice for the complex forms of globalization, cultural hybridity, and remix which are increasingly the norm for life in global, networked cities”. This aesthetic choice directly challenges official discourses of “authenticity”, illustrating Iranian youths' increasing tendency to “think beyond the nation” (Appadurai 1996). At the same time, many artists express the desire to “develop a unique Iranian style as much as possible”(5), making street art an important site of what Robertson (1995) calls “glocalization”. The distinctive aesthetic paradigm which results from this process, furthermore, means that while inhabitants have learned “to ignore or simply not register” (Varzi 2006:128) increasingly anachronistic official imagery, street art instantly distinguishes itself from its surroundings, prompting the kind of engagement discussed in Section 1. Global communications also facilitate a transfer of knowledge between artistic communities, allowing Iranian artists to develop the complex stencilling techniques which allow rapid creation of increasingly intricate images.

Preservation and dissemination in cyberspace also renders contemporary street art less vulnerable to simple physical erasure. The migration between online and offline spaces flows in both directions: while pieces in physical space are photographed and uploaded, designs for stencils or stickers may be distributed online and reproduced in multiple physical locals. This new spatial architecture, combining online and offline space in a single continuum, contains several points of visibility and dissemination less easily contained by the state. As images appear on websites, blogs and social media, they also provoke both artistic and political discussions, further amplifying their impact and producing another forum of public debate. In content as well, we see a marked shift. The images now appearing in Iran's streets are non-ideological. They do not envision total social transformation or commit to any revolutionary programme, Islamist, nationalist or communist. Instead, they are highly individualistic, often ambiguous and, when they do offer clear critique, do so by exposing the exclusions of the current order, rather than seeking to construct a new one. The shunning of meta-narratives, the individuality, the embrace of hybridity and circulation through global networks of exchange all indicate a shift away from the modern ideologies of the revolutionary period towards a more critical post-modernity – consistent with suggestion by the likes of Bayat (2007) and Dabashi (2008) that the Iranian Revolution paradoxically opened up a “post-Islamist” age. While revolutionary graffiti was either appropriated or erased by the state, the aesthetic distinction, non-ideological content and migratory life-cycle of contemporary street art makes it more resistant to the this fate.

5 Interview with artists Tehran Ratz, available at http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=I_pFQdJYXf0 Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts 3.2 Re-signifying Space The following image encapsulates many of these trends. While immediately reminiscent of the “tagging” style first developed in New York in the 1980s, the pattern of repeated overlay also resembles the siah-mashq tradition in Islamic calligraphy. The result is a hybridised calligraphic style combining a globally appealing aesthetic with local roots: Regarding this hybridity, the artist – known as A1one – comments: “I am deeply connected to my country and culture...whatever I do comes from such a background together with some wanted/unwanted mixes from the world through media. I try to search the visual heritage of my people. Sometimes it influences me and I get inspiration, and I add my own taste” (interview with author 06.04.14)

This conscious hybridising does not see “Iran” and “the West” as monolithic entities. In other ways, too, it rejects official discourse. Based upon multiple, overlapping and barely legible inscriptions of the word hakikah, meaning “truth”, the piece embraces a radical pluralism, closely resembling Groys (2008:3) notion of a “paradox object”, “capable of embodying the most radical self-contradiction” by carrying within it the terms of its own negation. According to the artist, the piece seeks to communicate the “complexity of truth” as a concept which can never be fully grasped (interview with author 06.04.14) – a radical departure from the absolutist principles of revolutionary discourse for a post-modern,

Illustration 3: The graffiti reads: "when the demon departs, the angel shall enter". Referring, respectively, to the Shah and Khomeini, this was a common revolutionary slogan. It has been partially painted over by supporters of the Shah.

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Illustration 6: A woman stops to consider a piece of street art. Artist: unknown

Illustration 7: A child's attention is caught by a break in the monotony. Artist: A1one

agonistic anti-foundationalism. This opens up an entirely different relationship between the viewer and the environment than that imposed by official imagery – democratic, critical, openended and non-coercive. Quite apart from this meaning, the aesthetic is itself striking. Tellingly, many images of street art feature passers-by stopping or glancing at the artworks. For a moment, space is removed from the domination of state or corporate interests and re-signified as a place for reflection, of spontaneous and unexpected encounter: The child, considering chopping down a “STOP” sign, perhaps communicates a disregard for authority and the administered rhythms of modern life. The second piece, though more

Full Texts underneath and detonating a grenade. The child is now re-signified as an exploited figure, no longer dying in service to the state, but through state negligence and abuse. Freedom of common theme:

expression

another

These pieces seem to approach the issue through a critique of self-censorship. The child in the first image is holding the pen which has Illustration 8: A child carries lego bricks on a construction site. Artist: Icy and Sot

ambiguous, ruptures the monotonous urban facade to reveal the underlying chaos and cacophony, the transgressive voices hidden just below the surface. Both photographs show street art's ability to engage audiences outside the normal demographics of youth culture. The older woman's poignant gaze expresses a fleeting but powerful connection between herself and the artist, mediated through the art and the space of the city. The boy, too young to appreciate any political significance, is nonetheless attracted by an aesthetic which he instantly perceives as somehow different from its surroundings. The strength of such spontaneous encounters lies at the heart of street art's transgressive potential.

Illustration 9: The words read, "At any given moment in the world, a child dies as a result of the pressures caused by poverty and forced labour". Artist: Nafir

When pieces are overtly critical, they often focus on those figures marginalised or disadvantaged by the hegemonic order, or those rights which that order denies. Children are one of the most recurrent subjects, and are often associated with urban poverty: It is interesting to read these images against the historic representation of children by the Iranian state. Children as young as eleven or twelve fought in the Iran-Iraq war, and were often immortalised as martyrs in state murals. Gruber (2008) shows a particularly famous example, depicting a twelve-year-old boy named Fahmida, who halted the advance of Iraqi tanks by jumping

Illustration 10: A child labourer, outside the International Islamic Organisation for the Protection of Children's Rights. Artist: Icy and Sot Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

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Illustration 11: A child's words have been censored. Artist: Geo Illustration 14: A couple danced amid blood and bullets. Artist: Nafir

on individual subjectivity also indicates a shift away from the collective subject of revolutionary discourse, a development consistent with changes in the intellectual and political fields (see Vahdat 2002).

Illustration 12: Multiple personalities escape into public view. Artist: A1one

blacked out her words; the figure in the second reveals the multiple identities which we all conceal; the man in the third hides a true feeling behind a fake smile. Varzi (2006) has written of the social “schizophrenia” engendered by the strict boundaries between the public and private spheres in Iran. These images challenge that divide and the self-censoring governmentality it inculcates in public subjects. Their focus

Illustration 13: A fake smile hides true emotions. Artist: Icy and Sot

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More direct criticism of the state is also sometimes made. The following pieces protest against state violence: Depicting the violent suppression of harmless enjoyment, these pieces explicitly politicise what Bayat (2010) calls the “politics of fun”, through which Iranian youth attempt to carve out an alternative habitus. The second piece refers to a specific event in July 2011, when hundreds gathered for a water fight in a Tehran park. Following a series of arrests, confessions of moral transgression were broadcast nationwide on state media - ironically merely publicising the incident, prompting similar events through the country(6). The street art, then, offers an alternative and oppositional narrative via an immediately intelligible public monument, which was then photographed, uploaded and subject to discussion online. The state's ability to represent events is undermined, while the juxtaposition of the innocence of the activity to the violence of the response highlights the degree to which a 6 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/04/water-fightpistols-iran-arrests

Full Texts hyper-sensitive regime is threatened by everyday acts of transgression – including street art itself. Street artists also played a role in the 2009 protest against the allegedly fraudulent reelection an Ahmedinejad. The below images show the metamorphoses of a previously ambiguous aesthetic meme into an overtly political image of protest: Here, we see the existing visual infrastructure of street art deployed around a specific political event. The preservation and dissemination of these images in cyberspace means that, unlike after 1979, the state cannot retro-actively monopolise the visual representation of popular struggle. Graffiti as well as cruder forms of stencilled street art covered Iran's street during

Illustration15: A child with a water gun is confronted by the riot police. Artist: A1one

Illustration 18: During the regime's violent crackdown on demonstrators, the monsters became a symbol of popular protest

the 2009 protests. While few photographs survive of 1979, thousands of images of the slogans and stencils of 2009 survive online(7). The above images seek to transform hegemonic order not by effecting total, revolutionary change, but through a kind of aesthetic “quiet encroachment” (Bayat 2010) which gradually erodes the state's ability to define public life. In inscribing public space with an otherwise suppressed poly-vocality, street art makes visibly the boundaries and exclusions by which a particular and contingent political order is structured, and begins to undermine the foundations on which it is built. Conclusion

Illustration 16: For years, A1one covered Tehran in his "monster" stickers, which peered enigmatically into urban life. Artist: A1one.

Illustration 17: In the build-up to the 2009 elections, the monsters campaigned for Mousavi.

Street art is a powerful example of the ways in which people contest hegemonic structures through everyday acts of resistance. While war-time murals stand as monuments to state anachronism, street art is dynamic, vibrant and engaging, inscribing public space with an otherwise suppressed poly-vocality. This space is then realised as “public”, and removed – even if only partially and fleetingly - from the multiple regimes of domination to which it is subjected. 7 www.Greens-arts.net is particularly impressive in this regard – an alternative, searchable public archive of thousands of images produced both by oppositional actors and regime supporters. Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts The clear influence of international styles and the dissemination and preservation of images in cyberspace also suggests street art as an example of how global culture can be adapted for local use and of the ways in which online media articulate with offline counter-hegemonic practices, amplifying their impact. This allows us to appreciate the real possibilities of such technology, without fetishising their transformative potential: new media is neither an instigator of political change nor inherently progressive, but it may contribute to and collaborate with real-world practices to produce new forms of expression and resistance. Although very much in its infancy, Iranian street art poses a considerable challenge to a state which has always sought legitimacy and exercised its power by controlling cultural expression and public space. This in itself makes the appearance of street art a political, as well as a cultural, social and artistic phenomenon. Street Bibliography Illustrations • Illustration 1: [picture of renamed “martyr's square with photograph of Khomeini]. Available in Chelkowski, P. & Dabashi, H., 2000., Staging a Revolution: The art of persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran, BoothChibborn Editions: London, pp. 109 • Illustration 2: [official poster, featuring graffiti and images of Khomeini and Shariati] Available at: <http:// www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/iranianposters/ revolution.html> [accessed 27.04.14] • Illustration 3: [Use of Hafez's poetry as revolutionary graffiti]. Available in Chelkowski, P. & Dabashi, H., 2000., Staging a Revolution: The art of persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Booth-Chibborn Editions: London, pp. 112 • Illustration 4: [anniversary of the revolution billboard featuring Khomeini and line from Hafez]. Available in Gruber, C., 2008, The Message is on the Wall: Mural Arts in Post- Revolutionary Iran, Persica, vol. 22 • Illustration 5: [graffiti, “Truth” in siah-mashq style]

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art destabilises the boundaries between the public and the private, the visible and the invisible, the sayable and the unsayable. It shows us the attitudes and concerns of a young generation of Iranians, for whom the crises and trials of the revolutionary period have little relevance. Postideological, but very much political, suspicious of grand narratives but nonetheless transformative in intent, street art brings many otherwise marginalised or excluded voices powerfully into public visibility. ※ Duncan Thomas is an MSc candidate in Middle East Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. He regularly writes on the politics of the region, and has been published by several websites, including Fair Observer and Al-Sharq.

By: Duncan Thomas ※

[photograph]. Available at <http://aidaforoutan. blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/taking-back-streets-iraniangraffiti.html> [Accessed 02.05.14] • Illustration 6: [boy chopping down “STOP” sign]. Available at: <http://soalife.com/the-best-cities-forstreet-art-hunting> [Accessed 22.04.14] • Illustration 7: [boy glancing at street art]. Available at: <http://www.fatcap.com/article/iranian-graffiti.html> [Accessed 25.04.14] • Illustration 8: [child carrying bricks on building site]. Available at: <http://www.streetartutopia. com/?p=6874> [Accessed 21.04.14] • Illustration 9: [boy committing suicide]. Available at: <http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/var/ albums/ Middle_East/artists%20of%20middle%20 east/a1one/IR%20A1one%20%20painting%20a%20 flower.jpg?m=130595694> [Accessed 02.04.14] • Illustration 10: [child labour, outside the International Islamic Organisation for the Protection of Children's Rights] Available at: <http://icyandsot.com/wpcontent/uploads/child-labor.jpg> [Accessed 15.04.14]

Full Texts • Illustration 11: [child, self-censorship] Available at: <http://www.fatcap.com/uploads/sht/19651/bgp _1629197ae8256d9a1e2c7fde5a6b2fc13c54ef69. jpg> [accessed 23.04.14] • Illustration 12: [multiple selves] Available at: <http:// w w w.stencilarchive.org/archives/var/albums/ Middle_East/ar tists%20of%20middle%20east/ a1one/IR%20A1one%20%20painting%20a%20 flower.jpg?m=1305956941> [accessed 03.05.14] • Illustration 13: [fake smile] Available at: <https://www. facebook.com/icyandsot/photos/a.18229501178720 4.49508.181763281840377/349727325043971/?typ e=1&theater [Accessed 27.04.14] • Illustration 14: [couple dancing] Available at: <https:// scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.09/556874_520891707929757_387983956_n.jpg> [Accessed 22.04.14] • Illustration 15: [child and riot officer in water fight] Available at: <http://www.stencilarchive.org/ archives/ var/albums/Middle_East/artists%20 of%20middle%20east /a1one/IR%20A1one%20 %20painting%20a%20flower.jpg?m=1305956941> [Accessed 20.04.14] • Illustration 16: [monster peering through crack] Available at: <http://papermonster.wordpress.com/ 2009/06/25/artist-profile-a1one-stencil-artist-iran/> [Accessed 02.05.14]

• Appadurai, A. (1996). Sovereignity without territoriality: notes for a postnational geography. In: P. Yaeger, ed., The geography of identity, 1st ed. Ann Arbor, Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, pp.40-58 • Arjomand, S. (1988). The turban for the crown. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press. • Arjomand, S. (2009). After Khomeini. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. • Basmenji, K. (2005). Tehran blues. 1st ed. London: Saqi. • Bauman, Z. (1992). Intimations of postmodernity. 1st ed. London: Routledge. • Bayat, A. (2007). Making Islam democratic. 1st ed. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. • Bayat, A. (2010). Life as politics. 1st ed. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. • Boroujerdi, M. (1996). Iranian intellectuals and the West. 1st ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. • Cauter, L., Roo, R. and Vanhaesebrouck, K. (2011). Art and activism in the age of globalization. 1st ed. [Rotterdam]: NAi. • Chelkowski, P. and Dabashi, H. (1999). Staging a revolution. 1st ed. New York: New York University Press.

• Illustration 17: [monster holding photograph of Mousavi] Available at: <http://fryingpanfireblog. wordpress.com/2009/06/14/images-for-a-new-agetehran-street-art/> [Accessed 30.04.14]

• Dabashi, H. (1993). Theology of discontent. 1st ed. New York: New York University Press.

• Illustration 18: [monster holding “where is my vote?” placard] Available at: <http://hragvartanian. com/2009/06/17/where-is-my-vote-street-ar temerges-in-tehran-photo/> [Accessed 02.05.14]

• DeNotto, M. (2014). Street art and graffiti Resources for online study. College \& Research Libraries News, 75(4), pp.208--211.

Works Cited

• Deutsche, R. (1999). Uneven Development: public art in New York City. In: R. Ferguson, M. Gever, T. Minhha and C. West, ed., Out There: marginalization and contemporary cultures, 6th ed. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, pp.107-130.

• Adib-Moghaddam, A. (2011). A metahistory of the clash of civilisations. 1st ed. New York: Columbia University Press. • Adib-Moghaddam, A. (2013). On the Arab Revolts and the Iranian Revolution. 1st ed. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

• Dabashi, H. (2008). Islamic liberation theology. 1st ed. London: Routledge.

• Deutsche, R. and Foundation, G. (1996). Evictions. 1st ed. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.

• Groys, B. (2008). Art power. 1st ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. • Gruber, C. (2008). The Message is On the Wall: Mural Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts Arts in Post-Revolutionary Iran. Persica, (22), pp.1546. • Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (1983). The Invention of tradition. 1st ed. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press. • Kashani-Sabet, F. (2002). Cultures of Iranianness: The Evolving Polemic of Iranian Nationalism. In: N. Keddie and R. Matthee, ed., Iran and the Surrounding World, 1st ed. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, pp.162-181. • Khatam, A. (2009). The Islamic Republic’s Failed Quest for the Spotless City. MERIP Report, (250), pp.44--49. • Khomeini, R. and Algar, H. (1981). Islam and revolution. 1st ed. Berkeley, [Calif.]: Mizan Press. • Ledrut, R. (1986). Speech and the Silence of the City. In: M. Gottdiener and A. Lagopoulos, ed., The City and The Sign: An Introduction to Urban Semiotics, 1st ed. New York: Columbia University Press, pp.114134. • Levine, M. (2012). The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture. [online] Georgetown University. Available at: http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/ articles/Irvine-WorkontheStreet-1.pdf [Accessed 14 Apr. 2014]. • Lewis, B. (1990). The roots of Muslim rage. The Atlantic Monthly, 266(3), pp.47--60. • Massey, D. (2005). For space. 1st ed. London: SAGE. • Mirsepassi, A. (2000). Intellectual discourse and the politics of modernization. 1st ed. Cambridge: New York. • Moaddel, M. (2002). The study of Islamic culture and politics: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, pp.359--386. • Mouffe, C. (2007). Art & Research : Chantal Mouffe. [online] Artandresearch.org.uk. Available at: http:// w w w.ar tandresearch.org.uk /v1n2/mouf fe.html [Accessed 5 Apr. 2014]. • Nooshin, L. (2005). Underground, overground: rock music and youth discourses in Iran. Iranian Studies, 38(3), pp.463--494. • Papastergiadis, N. (2006). Spatial aesthetics. 1st ed. London: Rivers Oram.

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• Ram, H. (2002). Multiple Iconographies: political posters in the Iranian Revolution. In: S. Balaghi and L. Gumpert, ed., Picturing Iran: art, society and revolution, 1st ed. London: I.B. Taurus, pp.89-202. • Rancière, J. (2004). The politics of aesthetics. 1st ed. London: Continuum. • Robertson, B. (2012). Reverberations of dissent. 1st ed. New York: Continuum. • Robertson, R. (1995) Glocalization: Time-space and Homogeneity-heterogeneity. In: M. Featherstone et al (ed) Global Modernities, 1st ed. London: Sage. pp. 25-44 • Said, E. (1994). Representations of the intellectual. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon Books. • Shahabi, M. (2006). Youth subcultures in postRevolution Iran: an alternative reading. In: P. Nilan and C. Feixa, ed., Global Youth? Hybrid identities, plural worlds, 1st ed. London and New York: Routledge, pp.111-129. • Sreberny, A. and Mohammadi, A. (1994). Small media, big revolution. 1st ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. • Sreberny, A. and Torfeh, M. (2013). Cultural revolution in Iran. 1st ed. London: I.B. Taurus. • Tally, J. (1999). The agonic freedom of citizens. Economy and Society, 28(2), pp.161--182. • Tripp, C. (2013). The power and the people. 1st ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. • Vahdat, F. (2002). God and juggernaut. 1st ed. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. • Varzi, R. (2006). Warring souls. 1st ed. Durham: Duke University Press. • Wedeen, L. (1999). Ambiguities of domination. 1st ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Full Texts

The Right to Neighbourhood:

A Way Out of a Sectarian Quagmire

This article seeks to challenge the methodological sectarianism obfuscating how we think about what is happening inside Syria today. This is not to downplay the dangers of sectarianism, which are very real, but to begin a conversation on finding a common script that will help transform the parameters of this internecine conflict. To do so, I suggest the fight be taken to those who assert their authority by mobilising religious symbolism. This can be done by questioning the epistemological basis of their claim to authority through religion. Drawing on conversations with displaced people in the region, my argument is a simple one: religion is about relationships not identity. Religion encourages us to look inward to nurture the relationship with the self and with God. The practical manifestation of which, or â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;livedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; religion, is the nurturing of relationships with the Other. We are relational beings and religion is centrifugal. How we relate to the stranger is of paramount concern to religious teachings. In what follows, I consider the possibilities Islamic tradition affords in transforming strangers into neighbours and how a politics of propinquity could provide an alternative framing of the conflict to date. Introduction Reducing identity to primordial notions of religious belonging produces a distinctive set of processes and practices which seek to subjugate, dominate and exclude the Other while occluding social, cultural and economic

factors at play which cut across those very same communal cleavages. Tellingly the sectarian narrative of the Syrian conflict has been near hegemonic. Analysts from across Syria, the Middle East and the wider world have increasingly come to interpret the conflict through a sectarian lens. Think-tanks, policy-makers, journalists and Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts academics have all been guilty of demonstrating an unhealthy obsession bordering on perversion with geo-political readings that over-emphasise the clout of sectarian armed groups and gloss over the agency of millions of Syrians. This is in keeping with the al-Assad regime’s telling of events which from the very beginning of the conflict has employed a communitarian discourse that has been willingly reproduced by sections of the armed opposition. Although framed in the language of religious symbolism, this discourse has very little to do with everyday lived understandings of religion. This article seeks to challenge the methodological sectarianism obfuscating how we think about what is happening inside Syria today. This is not to downplay the dangers of sectarianism, which are very real, but to begin a conversation on finding a common script that will help transform the parameters of this internecine conflict. To do so, I suggest the fight be taken to those who assert their authority by mobilising religious symbolism. This can be done by questioning the epistemological basis of their claim to authority through religion. Drawing on conversations with displaced people in the region, my argument is a simple one: religion is about relationships not identity. Religion encourages us to look inward to nurture the relationship with the self and with God. The practical manifestation of which, or ‘lived’ religion, is the nurturing of relationships with the Other. We are relational beings and religion is centrifugal. How we relate to the stranger is of paramount concern to religious teachings. In what follows, I consider the possibilities Islamic tradition affords in transforming strangers into neighbours and how a politics of propinquity could provide an alternative framing of the conflict to date. But first, I shall explore how a right to neighbourhood has been eroded in Syria’s recent history.

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Strangers in our midst Sectarianism in Syria did not emerge overnight nor has it been expressed in a uniform manner. Indeed sectarianism has arguably been a disciplinary technique through which the Ba’thist regime has managed to maintain control over the movement and degree of interaction between Syrian people. One only needs to think of how little movement there was between and within urban centres thereby entrenching rigidly parochial understandings of identity. For the large part, even within a single city there is little reason for residents of one district to visit another. Spaces in which to have meaningful interaction with the Other have long been few and far between. Where they do exist, here I take the old city of Damascus as an example; they remain under the watchful gaze of the regime. A confined space allows for easier monitoring and surveillance of any signs of dissent. The centre of the city becomes a neutral space of carefully managed mixity. There are no markets specific to a district which can draw in people of other faith communities. There are no competitive sporting events which take participants and supporters on journeys to neighbouring districts. Theatres, art galleries, exhibitions, music concerts, cinemas, sporting complexes, restaurants are largely confined to the centre. Even more quotidian journeys are closely managed. Much of the movement across the city is mediated through the servīs - privately owned mini-buses seating a maximum of fourteen passengers that ply fixed routes between Damascus and its suburbs. The cost effectiveness and the rapid frequency of the servīs, means it is the favoured choice of transport in the city for those on low incomes. The mapping of routes is far from arbitrary - indicative of where movement to and from is deemed desirable. There are no direct routes linking Jaramana to Mhajirin or Mukhayim al-Yarmouk to Sayyida Zayneb; each home to different faith communities. Isolation and distance is re-enforced; and in so doing serves to reproduce the Other.

Full Texts Towards a politics of propinquity What do I mean by a right to neighbourhood? The rights discourse is built on an understanding of individual rights. While this has undoubtedly advanced debates on liberty and social justice - a dogmatic adherence to the individual fails to see the wood for the trees. Individuals are located relationally both within and outside of larger units in social space: family, neighbourhood, workplace. A right to neighbourhood guided by a politics of solidarity anchored in local relations would serve to protect the well-being, dignity and integrity of all those who form the neighbourhood including those who arrive as strangers. It would protect the neighbourhood against the caprice of a state which serves to defend the interests of those close to its centre - upholding not only social, cultural and political rights but economic rights also. This politics of propinquity is far from being parochial. It does not serve to exclude. Rather, social distance between self and Other is compressed and boundaries are recognised as spaces to cross rather than bound. It understands an individual, a neighbourhood, or a city to be part of a greater whole. Relationships are configured radially. It is useful here to think of a concentric circle spiralling outwards or of a matryoshka doll - the spaces in between are not void but thick with meaningful relationships. The conflict in Syria can be read retrospectively as a case where the right to neighbourhood had been eroded by decades of subjection to an insidious politics of entrenched sectarianism. The question ‘where are you from?’ takes on a sectarian glean when asked even within urban centres. Neighbourhoods and districts had become characterised by specific communities along the lines of religious belonging. While it can be argued that such an evolution of neighbourhoods is organic with people tending to inhabit areas where kin and social networks already exist, it remains debatable as to whether the Ba’thist state encouraged otherwise. On the eve of the conflict in Syria, social

transformation was already fast underway. Mismanagement of the agricultural sector by the al-Assad regime in tandem with a devastating drought had rendered rural livelihoods almost impossible with more than three million Syrians living in extreme poverty (i). Decimated communities from farming communities in the Houran to the South and al-Hassake, Deir Ezzor and Raqqa to the North and East were compelled to move en-masse, as many as 50,000 families, to the fast-expanding poverty belts encircling the key urban centres of Homs, Damascus and Aleppo. As long as this disenfranchised poor ‘Other’ kept to the margins of already marginalised outlying areas of cities, the al-Assad regime sooner imagined they were not there. Of course, this all changed following the events of 15 March 2011. Douma, which has been at the heart of the uprising against the al-Assad regime, provides an example where the economic rights of the neighbourhood had been sacrificed to make way for a liberalisation of the Syrian economy which privileged the centre (ii). Small to medium sized enterprises that comprised the mainstay of the Douma economy were squeezed out by cheaper Turkish goods as the détente between Syria and Turkey reached a peak in 2010. Here, the underbelly of globalisation is laid bare for all to see - unemployment, the immiseration of an urban working class and the erosion of community resilience. The call for bread, freedom and social justice in Douma was born out of recognition of the manifold ways in which the economic rights of the neighbourhood were being forsaken by the al-Assad regime. The fact that the uprisings against the regime across the country were driven by local grievances and the protests were multi-vocal has always meant that the opposition would not be cohesive but fractured. Iterations of discontent and disenchantment with policies not grounded in local lived realities - be they the policies of the so called ‘international community’, al-Assad, ISIS Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts or Jabhat al-Nusra - should be understood as a clarion call for localised solutions. Challenging sectarianism therefore demands first and foremost a politics of propinquity - where social distances (imagined or otherwise) are collapsed. It is here that religious traditions have much to offer in building a right to neighbourhood framework which is compatible with secular readings of a civil society. A religious idiom provides adherents with a learned grammar of interaction with the Other.

thinking people concerned with the role of Islam in the contemporary world have been confronted with the Sisyphean task of reconciling a universalizing religion with a nation-state framework which by definition is exclusionary. This paradox has drawn many into an intellectual morass wading through debates on authenticity where religion is largely understood as a matter of identity. Nowhere does the expression “you are what you eat and wear” seem more apt than in how Islam is currently discussed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

A forgotten vocabulary?

Equally damaging has been the gross oversimplification of the imagined community of believers - the ummah. For many it has simply become a byword of pan-Islamic solidarity. As with waṭan, it has been absorbed into the nation-state paradigm - the ummah becomes a confederacy of nation-states where convenient for ruling elites. The calls for an Islamic state arise from the same place. Grafting the notion of ummah onto waṭan (as understood by al-Tahtawi) we begin to see the emergence of a discourse of Pan-Islamism in the late 19th century with the writings of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. This coincided with calls for the ummah to defend the Caliphate during the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire - again elitist readings of ummah.

Before mobilising this grammar it is imperative we agree upon a vocabulary. In Arabic, the word nation or homeland is often translated as waṭan. In the context of modern nation states the right to belong is contingent on having been born in that country – jus soli (the law of soil) or on having a hereditary right – jus sanguinis (the law of blood). The Arabic term waṭan refers to any place which is inhabited (maḥal al-insānī), making no mention of either soil or blood. Pre-modern notions in the Muslim world of who is entitled to residency are contingent on the actual fact of residency – jus domicili. In contrast, under the dictates of the nation-state, citizenship becomes a matter of formal rights granted to those with a legal status: a logic which reduces belonging to the nation – and is heavily contingent on birthright. Waṭan should therefore be understood in its proper localised context. Waṭan is an elastic term which is contingent on the relationships an individual nurtures as she moves from place to place. The vestiges of this open tradition, which considers the mobility of people a norm rather than an aberration, is inscribed in the social and cultural practices of people in Syria today. Waṭan was appropriated by Islamic reformers confounded by their encounter with Western colonial powers in the 19th century. In one fellswoop, al-Tahtawi’s conflation of waṭan with territory placed the concept firmly within the framework of the nation-state (iii). Since then,

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The stranger in the Arab-Islamic imagination Once again, it is in the context of the encounter with Western colonialism and the emergence of the nation-state paradigm we find the language used to describe relationships with the Other becoming less conciliatory - moving from gharīb (stranger) to ajnabi (foreigner). Etymologically ajnabi (pl. ajānib) can be traced back to the root j-n-b or to put to one side. The word tajannub, which shares the same root as ajnabi, means to avoid - transforming the stranger or foreigner into someone to be avoided. This can be attributed in part to the encounter with colonialism and the confusion engendered through being made subordinate to a people who did not share the

Full Texts same world-view. The 19th Century witnessed traditionalists vying for the hearts and minds of local populations in the territories of the Ottoman Empire with reformists. The latter looked to challenge orthodoxies and introduce new laws based on the imitation of colonial powers. While reform-minded individuals considered cultural and ontological borrowings from Europe an opportunity to cast off the shackles of stagnation attributed to orthodoxy, traditionalists understood such reforms in the light of colonial expansionism – strangers were now understood to be uninvited and unwanted guests. Paradoxically, supporters of orthodoxy - increasingly blurring discourses of nationalism with religion - were championing a view at odds with centuries of lived Islamic tradition which upheld the virtue of accommodating the stranger. In the pre-modern era the term gharīb was often used less as a legal category than an all-embracing label for any individual who had left her original place of residence voluntarily or involuntarily: it was not contingent on the length of stay. It encompassed students, religious scholars, wandering ascetics, pilgrims, traders and forcibly displaced people - clearly an ambiguous and nebulous term. On the one hand, good treatment of strangers was a highly regarded custom of pre-Islamic Arabian culture such that those who demonstrated kindness and generosity to strangers were lauded with the title of ma’wā al-gharīb (refuge of the stranger) (iv). This attitude towards strangers was further institutionalised by Qur’anic and Prophetic injunctions, which encouraged generosity and good conduct towards strangers. In particular, the bolstering of the pre-Islamic tribal practice of jiwār – the granting of protection and assistance to the one seeking refuge illustrates the central importance of hospitality towards the stranger (v). This is perhaps unsurprising given the geographical terrain Bedouins from the Arabian Peninsula inhabited. The harsh climate combined with the arduous journeys across desert necessitated hospitality – in short it guaranteed

survival. We are reminded of this on a daily basis whenever we greet one another with ahlan wa sahlan - may you be at ease among the plains as if you were among family. One ḥadīth attributed to the Prophet states: "Islam began as a stranger, and it will revert to its (old position) of being strange. So good tidings for the strangers".[ii] While the exact meaning of this ḥadīth is open to interpretation, it unequivocally celebrates the stranger - encouraging good treatment towards the other as a fundamental concern of Islam. Another phrase oft-used in Islamic traditions to denote the stranger include the ibn al-sabīl (literally the son of the path) and is interchangeable with 'ābir al-sabīl (traverser of the path). A ḥadīth of the Prophet states: "Be in this world as if you were a stranger or an 'ābir alsabīl” (vi) - pointing to the metaphor of religion or a life well-lived in accordance with God’s Laws as being a journey or a crossing. It is also worth remembering that the ibn al-sabīl is included as one of the categories eligible for financial support and assistance through the mechanism of zakāt. Yet, in the Arab imagination the loss of social and material capabilities through being made an exile is a fate worse than penury - it speaks of a poverty of relationships. A popular proverb in Damascus warns of the fate that lies in store for one forced to leave his home: mīn tarak dāru ‘all miqdāru - the one who leaves his home, lessens his value. To overcome this loss, human activity is re-interpreted through the narrative of religion. The idea religion is able to offer legitimation in a way that the state does or cannot is one which came up time and again in my conversations with displaced people in the Middle East. Belief in Islam ameliorates the anguish that comes with a life in exile. Being a refugee is un-stigmatized. One Iraqi refugee I met in Damascus told me: ‘Aref: For Iraqis to leave Iraq it was hard. No one wanted to leave Iraq; they needed a safe place to go. I found my belief in Islam makes it easier for me to think about being a refugee. Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Full Texts It’s a hard thing to do, to leave your home, but I know that my Prophet did the same, and he was a refugee. If we think about it, in Islam we see that borders are not important, there are no nationalities. The differences are with language. All the land belongs to God and you can find a place to live and work wherever you go. An Islamic narrative allows displaced people to re-imagine their migration. As ‘Aref reminds us: “all the land belongs to God”. Territorial sovereignty belongs to God rather than the state. Everyone has the right to move freely without hindrance - borders have no place under this schema. A Qur’anic injunction to demonstrate kindness to categories of persons includes among them aljār dhil-qurbā (the related neighbour) and al-jār aljunub (the unrelated neighbour)(vii). Al-Tabārī in his exegesis of the Qur’an states that the unrelated neighbour is one who is not necessarily Muslim and the command in the Qur’an is directed towards the treatment of all neighbours. Thus, the traditional interpretation of the unrelated neighbour equates it with the gharīb or stranger. The Islamic narrative demands the stranger is entitled to “find a place to live and work wherever [he goes]” Becoming Other: lessons learned from mass displacement My own research into matters of massdisplacement and the role of religion therein has indicated alternative understandings of ummah. Conflict induced violence and forced migration are key contributors to social transformation; communities are left fragmented; economic resources usurped or destroyed; and traditional ways of life are re-examined and interpreted anew. The loss and attempt to retrieve, recreate or perhaps even re-shape the vital cultural resources which constitute relational understandings of home lie at the heart of the decision-making, religious practices and beliefs of displaced people in the Middle East. As the social anthropologist David Turton reminds us:

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“the experience of displacement is not only about the loss of place, and the pain and bereavement this entails. It is also, inevitably, about the struggle to make a place in the world.” (viii) And so, with every fragmentation comes a reimagining and re-configuring of community and neighbourhood; with the destruction of economic resources come changes in livelihood strategies; and with the re-examination of traditional social structures are born new perceptions of identity and belonging. Many of the displaced people I have spoken to over the past eight years have identified communal home-like spaces (mosques, churches, places of learning, community centres) as being significant in helping orient themselves following displacement. Community centres, particularly those organised around networks of self-reliance, are often described as a refuge from the cramped conditions in which displaced people ordinarily live. Aside from being used as places of learning, such centres are used to celebrate festivities including weddings and annual religious festivals, to organise sporting and cultural events, to introduce neighbours to one another, to pray. In short, such spaces are deeply anchored in the lives of displaced people. In using communal spaces as much as possible including as a place to meet friends to eat, drink and be hospitable, displaced people affirm the centrality of relational understandings of home in religious practice and imagination. Religion is fundamentally concerned with the nurturing of relationships. The interactions individuals and groups have with one another on a dayto-day basis is what constitutes everyday lived religion. The sacrality of home is translocative; it is not fixed in bricks and mortar alone but in relationships. Home becomes migratory. The right to home and shelter is therefore closely correlated to a right to migration. The theme of neighbourliness was integral in their understandings of home-making and religion. It is in the understanding of reciprocal

Full Texts rights and duties pertaining to neighbourhood and neighborliness that the ummah is realized as lived practice. Far from political readings of ummah as understood by the modernizing efforts of Islamists such as Jamal al-Din alAfghani from the late 19th century onwards, the lived experiences of displaced people remind us that the ummah is found first and foremost in localized contexts. A Syrian refugee I met in Urfa echoed the experiences of Iraqi refugees I had met earlier in Damascus in 2010. He signalled the importance of neighbourly visits as a barometer of meaningful relationships: “I like it when they (Turks) treat us equally and not as ‘poor’ refugees. When they visit and invite us to their homes - I feel normal and equal to them. I’m not made to feel like a refugee. It’s great when people call on you like this. Visiting people’s homes like this means we have proper relations.” Conclusion: a Syrian sanctuary Who is a stranger but one who is different from me - the Other. The experience of becoming Other makes us sensitive to the richness of difference. Islamic tradition provides us with a vernacular for celebrating diversity and plurality. This is supported by the oft-quoted verse from the Qur’an (49:13): O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honourable of you with Allah is that (believer) who has At-Taqwa. Verily, Allah is AllKnowing, All- Aware. The stranger is thus readily transformed into a neighbour. She moves from being a guest who as common wisdom never fails to remind us must never outstay a welcome to becoming a neighbour. Lest we forget a neighbour in the Islamic tradition has rights due to her: 'A'isha reported Allah's Messenger as saying: “Gabriel

impressed upon me [kind treatment] towards the neighbour [so much] that I thought as if he would confer upon him [the right of] inheritance.” (ix) Similarly, the Prophet warned against the illtreatment of the neighbour: “He will not enter Paradise whose neighbour is not secure from his wrongful conduct.” (x) To emphasise the gravity of behaving improperly towards the neighbour irrespective of her faith, ethnicity, sexuality, we are reminded that good conduct towards the Other is in fact a characteristic of the believer. The Prophet observed: “He who believes in Allah and the Last Day should do good to his neighbour and he who believes in Allah and the Last Day should show hospitality to his guest and he who believes in Allah and the Last Day should either speak good or better remain silent.” (xi) By shifting our gaze towards those who are displaced within the territorial borders of Syria, we are reminded that conflict zones produce not only debris-ridden neighbourhoods, deserted villages and unimaginable violence but also engender networks of self reliance and spaces of hospitality, refuge and sanctuary despite the degradation and erosion of ever-dwindling resources at the disposal of host communities. In the midst of conflict the rights of neighbourliness are upheld on a daily basis across Syria. As the delivery of humanitarian aid to non-regime controlled areas becomes ever more challenging and less frequent, more and more Syrians are forced to migrate where humanitarian aid is more accessible and the threat of aerial bombardment negligible. By November 2013, the al-Assad regime was reporting that around 3% of the 6.5 million IDPs were housed in public shelters - mosques, schools and other public buildings. More than 85% of those displaced inside Syria’s borders have found refuge in the homes of relatives and extended family according to government statistics. (xii)

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Full Texts Cities such as Salamiyeh and Suweida, home to large minority populations of Ismailis and Druze respectively, have also welcomed the arrival of significant numbers of displaced Sunnis offering them shelter within their own homes. The arrival and reception of Sunnis in cities with large minority populations is significant in that it counters a sectarian narrative. It challenges the hegemonic account of the conflict as being one where one faith community is seeking to assert its dominance over another. Instead, the stranger is welcomed and supported by Others. There is no doubt that the strains under which local communities are placed is great: the lack of resources, even fewer employment opportunities, upward spiralling prices of daily necessities, and chronic shortage of space to meet the demand of new arrivals all contribute to possible flashpoints of tension. Yet, the crisis also brings with it the opportunity for the nurturing of

neighbourly relations and for demonstrations of hospitality - of knowing how to treat the stranger in our midst in an ethical manner and building towards a politics of propinquity.

※ Tahir Zaman is a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London. His work has focused on the socio-cultural lives of displaced people in the Middle East. His other key area of research interest is on the politics of humanitarianism with a focus on faith-based initiatives.

By: Tahir Zaman ※

Endnotes

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(i)

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(ii)

Popular Protest in North Africa and the Middle East (VI): The Syrian People’s Slow-motion Revolution Crisis Group Middle East/North Africa Report N°108, 6 July 2011. Available at: http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middleeast-north-africa/egypt-syria-lebanon/syria/108-popular-protest-in-north-africa-and-the-middle-east-vi-the-syrianpeoples-slow-motion-revolution.aspx

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(iii)

•

(iv)

•

(v)

Shoukri, A.M. (2010), Refugee status in Islam: concepts of protection in Islamic tradition and international law. London: I.B.Tauris.

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(vi)

Sahih al- Bukhāri Vol.8, Book 076, No.0425

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(vii)

Al-Qur’an 4:36

http://www.irinnews.org/report/90442/syria-drought-pushing-millions-into-poverty

Rifa’a al Tahtawi (2006) “Fatherland and Patriotism” in Donohue J & Esposito J (eds) Islam in Transition (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Rosenthal, F. (1997), “The stranger in medieval Islam”. Arabica, 44(1), pp.35-75.

(viii)

•

Turton, D. (2005), “The meaning of place in a world of movement: Lessons from long-term field research in Southern Ethiopia”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 18(3):258-280. p.278.

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(ix)

Sahih Muslim Book 032, Chapter 40, No.6354

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(x)

Sahih Muslim Book 001, Chapter 19, No.0074

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(xi)

Sahih Muslim Book 001, Chapter 20, No.0078.

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(xii)

See “2014 Syrian Arab Republic Humanitarian action Response Plan” Available at: http://reliefweb.int/report/ syrian-arab-republic/2014-syrian-arab-republic-humanitarian-assistance-response-plan-sharp

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A Journal Published by Centre for Thought and Public Affairs, Damascus - London.

Editor’s Introduction: About Delta-N journal

Islamic fundamentalism in the Levant

8 12

The role of Syrian women in transitional justice Ingenuity in the midst of pain

The Summary Edition: Vol 1, No 0, June 2014

14 16

The intellectual, the Opposition and public affairs in Syria Between poetry and Facebook

Delta-N: Aim of the Journal

Delta-N is a journal published by the Centre for Thought and Public Affairs (Damascus-London). The aim of the journal is to publish materials exploring the relations between Thought and Public Affairs in the Middle East generally, and Syria particularly.

Scope of the Journal

The Editorial Board considers the following topics a priority: • The current situation in Syrian and the Middle East, • the modern history of Syria, • challenges of economic and social development in Syria and the region, • cultural criticism in Syria and the region, • political thought in Syria and the region, • science and society, art and society, health and education policies, • reviews of relevant books (published no more than 3 years ago), and • the impact of conflicting ideologies and geopolitics on relations between the countries and societies in the region.

Types of Materials Published by Delta-N

The Editorial Board receives four types of submissions: articles, reports, studies, and book reviews. Delta-N also accepts artwork and caricature submissions for its visuals section.

For Submissions

Delta-N welcomes submissions in English, Arabic and Kurdish. All submissions, and enquiries about submissions, should be sent to the Editorial Board by emailing: editors@c-tpa.org

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Articles

- So that the Syrian revolution is not corrupted by those who have hijacked it! - Hoshang Ossi - Colourful paradoxes inside Syria - Riham Kousa

- schools with social and political realities - Lilian Ballan

- Political attitudes of the capital in Syria - Abdallah Shalash - The Ultras: establishment and role - Victorios Shams

- The Internet succumbs to reality: deepening its flaws and sabotaging its knowledge - Manav Zaitoun

- In critiquing Syrian sectarianism - Nairouz Satik

- Syrian ‘Opposition’ literature is in a dilemma - Abdul Wahhab Azzawi - Syrian theatre: in deep crisis that continues to intensify Maya Jamous

Studies

- The absurdist movement: between philosophy and theatre Alaa Al-Alem - Civil war: between Greed and Grievance - Sinan Al-Hawat

- The Syrian state trapped between scope and power - Wajdi Wahbi

Book reviews

- Anxiety in Doctrine and problems of denial - Ammar Dayoub - Immortality of spirit, rebellion, and fear: worship in places of

Reports

- In the midst of war in Syria, the right to childhood is being pulverised - Dima Nicholas

- Insurgents in Syria: the search for support and leadership Tarek Alabed - Kidnapping, as a result of detention or its effect? - Kussay Amamah - Cohabitation - Kefah Zeini

- Boats of death to Europe: organized gang smugglers divide land and sea immigrants, and with each immigrant comes a story. - Abed Al-Haj - Lebanon: refugees in tents, refugees in castles - Ammar AlMa’moun / Abdullah Kassem

- Sport as one of the victims of the Syrian crisis - Alaa Ihsan / Ahmad Haj Hamdo

Full Texts

- ISIS’ “Out-bidding” Overstep - Mark Bracher

- What Beirut’s transport infrastructure says about its politics - Ahmad Osman - MAKING SPACE PUBLIC: STREET ART IN IRAN - Duncan Thomas - The Right to Neighbourhood: A Way Out of a Sectarian Quagmire - Tahir Zaman

sanctuary - Noor Shalgheen

Delta-N Centre for Thought and Public Affairs

Delta-N Journal

‫@‏‬CTPA_English

‫@‏‬DeltaN_English

‫‏‬CTPA.English

‫‏‬DeltaN.English

London Office: 436A Hamilton House Mabledon Place, Bloomsbury London, WC1H 9BB Tel: +44 2075548530 Email: info@c-tpa.org Website: www.c-tpa.org

Delta-N Journal Summary Edition - August / September 2014

Email: editors@c-tpa.org Website: delta-n.c-tpa.org