This is not a confession, dear Hassan, nor a eulogy. These are fragments of postponed conversations and letters. Your battle with illness held me back every time I wanted to send them to you. These are disorganized words, which you will never read; perhaps this is why I share them publicly today. These are words I swallowed many times over the last few months. They…

Wejdan Nassif, a friend and former cellmate of Samira al-Khalil, the Syrian democracy activist imprisoned by Hafez al-Assad and then abducted by Islamists, recalls their time together inside and outside prison.

In a talk co-organized by the assassinated activist Lokman Slim, former Syrian political prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh argues that “the politics of prison” are central to understanding the “politicide” of the Syrian people at the Assad regime’s hands.

In a previously-unpublished interview from 2019, the late Lokman Slim—assassinated last week—and his wife Monika Borgmann discuss living in Hezbollah’s Beirut; their film about Syria’s notorious Tadmor prison; the nature of political violence; and the question of fear.

[Editor’s note: This article is the ninth in a series published in collaboration with Mada Masr to mark the tenth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. It is also available in Arabic.] On its tenth anniversary, the Egyptian revolution that began on January 25, 2011 is being widely commemorated. Thinking back to its earliest days, I am struck by how hard it was for many activists, journalists, and intellectuals—including myself—to…

After the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011 and the brutal civil war that followed, a large proportion of the Syrian population was forced to flee the country. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), there are currently more than 6 million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers spread across Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Germany, Sweden, and over 100 other countries worldwide. Of the myriad challenges…

[Editor’s note: This article is the eighth in a series published in collaboration with Mada Masr to mark the tenth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. It is also available in Arabic.] What does the Arab Spring mean for those who have lived it? Ten years is insufficient to draw conclusions about this still-ongoing development. One way of approaching it, however, is through what research psychologists call “narrative identity.”…

[Editor’s note: This article is the seventh in a series published in collaboration with Mada Masr to mark the tenth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. It is also available in Arabic.] Can we speak of a revolutionary tradition produced by the January 2011 revolution? A tradition striving for emancipatory political change in values/attitudes and modes of action/organizational structures? Where can we look for such a tradition? Should we look…

Lebanon awoke Thursday to the gruesome news that Lokman Slim, an outspoken Hezbollah critic and pillar of civil society, had been assassinated in his car.

[Editor’s note: This article is the sixth in a series published in collaboration with Mada Masr to mark the tenth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. It is also available in Arabic.] Tradition suggests the sanctification of a certain act, the repetition of it with sincere devotion. Tradition is important in a global human climate obsessed with modernization and the new. Of course, we can’t deny the furious contradiction…