NM's blog

“The focus on ethnic or religious identity has surely undermined any prospect of a class-based politics developing . Civil society — once vibrant in the early days of the uprising — has been stifled by state violence, while political parties and trade unions have been dissolved in the name of national transition.” “ While the HTS leadership maintains strict control over many Sunni militias in Idlib, it must now negotiate with non-Sunni communities, such as the Druze and Kurds…” Here the writer is inaccurate. The Kurds are not a non-Sunni community; most if the Kurds are Sunni. According to some estimates,  Kurdish forces lost an estimated 11,000 fighters in the battle against ISIS (a Sunni too), with over 22,000 wounded. 

The geography of death in Aleppo (2) The protests and grassroots movement in Aleppo Aleppans organized their first protest on March 25, 2011, just a few days after the initial demonstrations in Damascus and Dara’a. Aleppo shopkeepers organized two successful general strikes in June.30 June 30 became known as the “Volcano of Aleppo,” and protests took to the streets in at least ten different locations. A few weeks later, on August 17, protesters reached Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, Aleppo’s Tahrir Square, in large numbers for the first time. The largest protest to date, however, was during the burial of Aleppo’s Mufti, Ibrahim al-Salqini, on September 6, 2011, when protesters marched in the Old City and chanted “Better death than humiliation!” At that point, protests, many of which were spontaneous, were organized on a daily basis at Aleppo University. Lawyers and the Bar Association issued a statement to denounce the violence of the regime, and held a protest at the Palace of Justice th...