H E A LT H I N A T I M E OF MONSTERS T H E W E A P O N I S AT I O N O F H E A LT H C A R E I N S Y R I A SALMA DAOUDI O X F O R D Q ATA R T H AT C H E R S C H O L A R The aftermath of a rocket attack launched by the Syrian government on the al-Shifaa Hospital and surrounding residential areas in Afrin. The town is controlled by Turkish-backed rebels. According to a war monitor, the attack killed 21 people, including 17 civilians.
The Syrian Conflict has witnessed the evolution in the brutal tactics of weaponising and strategically damaging healthcare. Our new Oxford Qatar Thatcher Scholar Salma Daoudi (2021 DPhil International Relations) is carrying out vital research to increase awareness of the strategy and evaluate its impact on the health security of the region as a whole. “When the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born…[it] is the time of monsters”. – Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) Witnessing the ‘monstrosity’ of the Arab Spring left many people (including myself) feeling utterly powerless in the face of raging injustice. While these movements began in hope, they soon progressed to violence as regimes fought back. In light of what many term to be failed democratic experiments, such as in Tunisia or Egypt, it might be tempting to lose faith in Arab revolutions as a force for good. But the failure of a revolution lies not in the maintenance or re-establishment of an authoritarian government. Rather, it is when that order is longer contested. The uprisings of the last decade in the Arab world are an ongoing and transformative social, cultural and political phenomenon, continuously resisted by counter-revolutionary movements: there is no clear break separating the pre- from the post-revolutionary order. The best example of this struggle for freedom and democracy in the face of repression is the Syrian revolution. As a scholar of health insecurity in conflicts and asymmetric warfare, the bravery and resilience of the Syrian people has long fascinated me and inspired my work. They have faced extremely difficult circumstances; the country has become the setting for high levels of indiscriminate violence, with severe human rights violations a fact of daily life. In particular, the conflict has featured the strategic use of healthcare services as a weapon at hitherto unprecedented rates. This prompts several concerns: how and why has this been carried out in the course of the war, and how does the instrumentalisation of health infrastructure in this way translate into a threat to regional health security? Answering these questions lies at the heart of my research. Health weaponisation refers to a broad range of tactics used to restrict or deny access to care, including the
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