The Geography of Death in Aleppo (1) Leave, convert, or die. —King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to the Jews of Spain Down with the regime and the opposition… Down with the Arab and Muslim Worlds… Down with the United Nations Security Council… Down with the World… Down with Everything… —Occupied Kafranbel, October 14, 2011 Aleppo, once Syria’s capital of classical music, sophisticated cuisine, and Islamic culture, today lies in ruins. Insurgents controlled two-thirds of the city for four years before it fell to the regime in December 2016. This chapter begins with a brief urban history that explores the ways Aleppo’s urban fabric has evolved since the mid-nineteenth century. It argues that the city’s urban forms from various historical stages, including the Ottoman Empire, French Mandate, and post-independence, have been reorganized and utilized by the Syrian forces since 2011 to break the city. Using the concept of “urbicide” (the deliberate and systematic destruction of a ...
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51