20 Feb 2026 — Staying late reading a history book about prophet Mohammad and listening to early 20th century songs of Umm Kalthoum while waiting for the US to tell us that they have started bombing Iran again (or not). 23 Jan 2026 – “When I saw you in Egypt last August, you looked very […]
Published 5 April 2025 in the EU Observer and co-authored with Petra Stienen “In the trash-strewn zigzagging streets of Al Husseiniya, a slum less than 15km south of Damascus, Ahmad Bakr walks with his Oud strung on his shoulder on his way to a small apartment where he runs a music school. Al Husseiniya is […]
Celebrations of liberation are fading and sectarian violence has returned. Can Syrians avoid vengeance? First published in the Prospect Magazine on March 15, 2025 Fourteen years ago, I stopped traveling to Syria. A security agency was suspicious of my visits because my passport listed my profession as a journalist. So I felt a bit anxious […]
19 Jan 2025 – Palestinian poet Refaat Al’ar’eer was killed by an Israeli bomb on December 6, 2023, after he wrote this poem below. Let us execute his will left in the poem below, let us make kites, the least we can do now on the day of a temporary ceasefire in a war that […]
Time for the UN to Check Out of the Four Seasons As Geir Pedersen, the UN envoy to Syria, left the abandoned Sednaya prison near Damascus, a woman spat in his direction and threw her shoes at his car — a gesture of deep disrespect and disdain in the Middle East. Prior to the collapse of the Assad […]
