Damascus to DC tells the story of Mamoun, a Syrian-Lebanese attorney whose life journey took him across the world from his hometown Damascus to Washington D.C. after he was forced leave Syria. Part 2 focuses on Mamoun's involvement in the 2011 protests, how he helped combat disinformation by contacting media outlets, and why he hasn't been able to return to Syria since 2012.
How did the Syrian Revolution lead to the Syrian Civil War? Why didn't the regime make any real concessions? How quickly did the regime resort to massacring protestors? (Answer: very quickly). This episode looks at what happened in Syria between March 15 to March 25, 2011. Sources cited: The Impossible Revolution by Yassin al-Haj Saleh My Country by Kassem Eid The Syrian Revolution by Yasser Munif We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled by Wendy Pearlman Assad or We Burn the Country by Sam Dagher Br...
Today, we're reaching into the vault and pulling out a pilot episode from mid-2020, before we knew what exactly this podcast would look like. Damascus to DC tells the story of Mamoun, a Syrian-Lebanese attorney whose life journey took him across the world from his hometown Damascus to Washington D.C. after he was forced leave Syria. Part 1 focuses on Mamoun's upbringing, what it was like to live in Syria when Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, and how the first protests began in 2011. You can...
What did protestors in Syria want? How does it feel to voice your opinion and show solidarity with your fellow citizens for the first time in a totalitarian state? How did protests in one part of the country differ from another? How quickly did the Assad regime resort to brutalizing and massacring protestors? (answer: very quickly) Suhail al-Ghazi is Non-Resident Fellow at the Tahrir Institute and a Syrian dissident from Damascus now based in Istanbul. He was arrested twice for political activis...
This week, we look at a topic that has dominated the discourse surrounding Syria: media coverage and disinformation. Dr. Idrees Ahmad is lecturer in journalism at the University of Stirling with a doctorate in sociology and a focus on international conflicts. He is also the author of The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War. Idrees has spent years tracking online propaganda and its impact on the international response to events in Syria. As the title suggests, we get into the best a...
This is a prototype bonus episode. Future bonus episodes will feature interviews with Syrians or experts in the topics we discuss. Our first set of Bonus episodes will be released for free. In the future, they will be available only to our Patrons on Patreon. Music licensing Fragments by Nomyn https://soundcloud.com/nomyn Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/l-fragments Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/ndyyIhwojys...
This episode delves into the roots of the Syrian Revolution, tracing Syria's long history of authoritarianism, French colonialism's legacy, and the brutal reigns of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad. It highlights how pervasive fear, economic inequality, and the inspiration of the Arab Spring culminated in the unprecedented nationwide protests of March 2011, marking the beginning of the civil war.
