What Arts Do They Have in Syria How Is the Culture Like in Syria

Summary

• Syrian arab republic remains one of the well-nigh dangerous countries in the earth for reporters, with 129 media workers and journalists killed since 2011. Local reporters comprised 90 per centum of journalist deaths.
• Despite the dangers, there are at least 196 agile, non-land media outlets in Syria every bit of 2016. Of those organizations, 37 percent are pro-regime, 36 percent are pro-opposition, 20 per centum are independent, and seven percent are aligned with Kurds.
• A study of contained media outlets by the Syrian Female Journalists Network found that female representation was relatively high, making upwardly 35 per centum of the print media workforce and 54 pct of radio. Women, however, remain underrepresented in leadership positions, making up only four percent of senior journalists.

Electric current State of affairs

New media sources have emerged on all sides of the Syrian conflict since 2011. These outlets present a wide range of ideologies and are distributed through print, the internet, and radio waves throughout the country.

Women have been instrumental in establishing independent news sources in independent news sources, founding leading media outlets like SouriaLi Radio, Syrian Female person Journalists Network (SFJN), and Enab Baladi. SouriaLi and Enab Baladi both have staffs fabricated up of more than 50 per centum women, while SFJN currently works with 77 male and female member journalists to railroad train them in gender problems.

Journalists and other media activists are targeted not merely by the Syrian government but also by opposition forces, both radical and moderate. Syria now ranks 177 out of 180 countries in printing freedom and is currently ranked the deadliest country for journalists. Vii male journalists and ane female announcer have been killed since the get-go of 2017 in Syria.

Background

Later Bashar al-Assad's ascent to power in 2000, at that place was a brief catamenia of optimism that he would ease the media censorship of his father'southward era, but additions to the Penal Code like the 2001 Publications Law that bans any content threatening "national unity" and allows censorship of strange media, dashed these hopes. News outlets were owned and operated past the government exclusively until 2001, when the same Publications Constabulary made private newspapers legal. However, all periodicals require a license issued by the prime minister, which tin can be denied for about any reason, so these publications are primarily aligned with the regime. Due to such strict government controls on media licensing, the majority (86 percent) of non-state media sources in regime controlled areas operate online, though they are publishing pro-authorities content.

The caput of Syrian National Tv set and Assad'southward leading media adviser are both women, Diana Jabbour and Bouthaina Shaaban respectively. Despite the presence of women in such high-ranking media roles, some women view these positions every bit simply ceremonial.

The Syrian Female Journalists Network conducted a written report of gender equality in emerging Syrian media (ESM) between 2011 and 2015 that found while women'due south representation is relatively loftier—they make up 35 percent of the print media workforce and 54 percentage of radio—women remain nether represented in the upper echelons of leadership. Just four pct of senior journalists are women, and those who are were generally founders of their organization. Additionally, coverage of women's issues remains shockingly depression: Barely 200 manufactures were published betwixt 2011 and 2016 by the outlets surveyed. There are, however, organizations working to modify this, seeking to diversify women'southward narratives beyond just victims of violence by empowering women as journalists and telling the stories of women who otherwise might not be heard.

The aforementioned security concerns besides create a difficult environment for women working in journalists. Restrictions on freedom of expression and movement prevents female journalists from being able to convene for grooming sessions on journalism and writing about bug disproportionately affecting women. These issues are amplified past societal distrust of women in the public sphere. Some male relatives volition non allow women work exterior the home, fearing for their lives, while other men refuse to be interviewed by a woman.

The Islamic State does not allow women to work in whatever kind of journalism, just does use women and girls equally recruiters on social media. Additionally, at that place is a manifesto published by the all-female person morality police, al-Khansaa Brigade, that sharply critiques Western feminism, asserting instead that women should be pleased serving their husbands within the home.

Facing such barriers, many women operate in the denizen-journalism realm. At that place are activists who operate in cities occupied past armed opposition groups, like blogger Lina Shamy who used Twitter and Facebook to post blogs and brusk videos reporting on the ongoing conflict in Aleppo. Zaina Erham, another citizen-journalist living in Aleppo, received the 2015 Peter Mackler Award for Mettlesome and Ethical Journalism for her work on training close to 100 citizen-journalists, thirty of whom were women. Nonetheless, these individuals face grave dangers if defenseless by the government or opposition forces and increasingly have chosen to abscond the country.

Policy Implications and Problems

The highly publicized nature of the Syrian conflict has given ascent to a "propaganda state of war" between all those involved. Attempts to accost this have come from the United States and the Eu with programs to promote good journalistic practices and constructive dialogue while countering "extremist soapbox". The U.S. program, Support for Contained Media in Syria, reportedly reached a full of $31.six 1000000 by 2015 focused primarily on just nine networks, while the Eu set aside €iv.2 million for media projects in 2016. These projects, however, were initially conceptualized every bit short term "seed coin" and efforts to grow and sustain these programs remain in progress.

Organizations like SouriaLi and Syrian Female Announcer Network cited donations from Liberty House and National Endowment for Republic, simply reported that their funding oftentimes came tied to short-term projects dictated by Western interests. These pieces centre on primarily on violence and perpetuate the image of Syrian arab republic that these groups specifically aim to disrupt. The brusque nature of these assignments make it difficult for local women journalists to plant themselves and to create a sustainable living. The employment and empowerment of women in media has the possibility to meaningfully change societal conceptions of women'south potential, but must be prioritized and cultivated in gild to exercise this.

This report is part of TIMEP-News Securely's Syria'south Women: Policies & Perspectives partnership. It first appeared on News Deeply'due south website hither.

Women at the Forefront of Saving Syria'southward Heritage

Authors: Florence Massena and Arwa al-Basha

Syrian women at home and abroad are leading efforts to safeguard Syria's cultural heritage and ensure that traditions are preserved in the wake of years of conflict and widespread deportation.

Syrian and Lebanese women and girls decorating baskets as function of a therapeutic handicraft training class in southern Lebanon. (Russell Watkins/Department for International Development.)

BEIRUT – When Fadia Mrad, 25, graduated with a degree in fine arts, she never imagined she would end upwardly at the vanguard of a group of women preserving Syria's traditional cultural heritage amid the war.

"Women are capable of playing an important and influential function in this sector, only they demand to be given opportunities to unleash their potential," says Mrad, who works with the Day After Project, a U.S.-funded initiative to preserve Syrian arab republic's cultural heritage past teaching traditional handicrafts. Mrad, who first worked equally a teacher following graduation, noted that in the by, women were ofttimes marginalized in traditional industries.

Syrian women – architects, journalists, academics, writers, filmmakers, collectors, craftswomen or cooks – both at abode and abroad – are now leading efforts to safeguard their heritage. From sharing their stories to sharing their recipes, many are working to ensure their civilisation and traditions alive on despite years of war that have scattered Syrians around the world.

Women also have more agile roles than ever earlier in efforts to preserve Syria'south heritage sites, many of which take been damaged or destroyed during the war.

Archaeologist Lina Kutiefan has been with the Syrian state-run Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) for 27 years, and has worked on everything from restoration to registration of new sites for possible inclusion on UNESCO'south World Heritage List.

With the start of the conflict, she was appointed director of Syrian World Heritage Sites at DGAM, and she and her team began documenting harm of heritage sites. Preserving "this irreplaceable heritage is in the public involvement because information technology protects a vital cultural legacy for coming generations," Kutiefan tells Syria Securely.

"I believe that cultural heritage can provide an automated sense of unity and belonging inside the Syrian people, especially during this hard crisis," she says. "It volition allow united states of america to meliorate understand the unique history of where we come from."

In improver to making the work of archaeologists more vital than ever, the war has allowed more women to "take center stage, notably in governmental jobs," in this field, she says. Kutiefan's advice for women interested in this sector is straightforward: "You must be able to work difficult. You have to know more than than anyone else. Learn to pay attending, read, attend educational seminars and join us in these difficult times."

Though the war may have helped highlight the important part women play in this field, working to preserve the country's heritage all the same comes with significant danger and social stigma in some areas of Syria.

"Few women on the ground in Syria are active in preserving cultural heritage because of social taboos over women working in such a field, in add-on to the lack of financial support," says Nwayrat al-Qaddour, who works with The Twenty-four hours After projection on emergency response to protect artifacts and archaeological sites in the northern province of Idlib.

However, according to the 27-year-erstwhile who studied history at the University of Aleppo before the war, it is central for women to take on a more than active office.

"Woman make up 50 pct of society and are no less important than men. Cultural heritage is function of a larger Syrian national identity, and protecting this identity is equally much a national duty for Syrian women as it is for men," she says.

Noura Alsaleh studied architecture at the University of Aleppo before the state of war, where her main focus was the rehabilitation of the buffer zone around the UNESCO borders of Aleppo'south old city.

"I did several studies and my graduation project on how can we preserve the cultural significance of that area and its heritage," she tells Syria Securely.

Today, Alsaleh is a scientific assistant at Brandenburg Academy of Technology in Germany, where she is writing her doctoral thesis on the postal service-disharmonize reconstruction of the old city of Aleppo and the function of cultural heritage in the rebuilding process. Her thesis is part of the research network supported past the German Foreign Ministry building.

She is an active member of both UNESCO'due south newly established young expert forum to safeguard Syria's cultural heritage, and its expert roster for heritage on Syrian arab republic problems that cut very close to home. Alsaleh's habitation city Aleppo was destroyed terminal winter.

"I felt a personal responsibility to contribute to the reconstruction process of the Syrian cities and cultural heritage sites, of which many are even so threatened by destruction and damage," she says.

Alsaleh hopes that the rebuilding process "won't be a 2nd destruction acquired past the unregulated urban reconstruction, which could cause more impairment to our heritage than the ane by the conflict itself."

Archaeological sites are just one part of the larger effort women are making to preserve Syria's cultural heritage. Some women have focused their efforts on documenting and preserving Syrian arab republic's culinary traditions, which became particularly important every bit roughly five 1000000 people fled the country.

In the cookbook, "Our Syria: Recipes From Home," filmmaker Itab Azzam and writer Dina Mousawi compiled stories of Syrian refugees scattered around Europe, forth with their traditional recipes, "to bring to the earth the glories of Syrian food and in the process honor these dauntless women who are fighting back against the destruction of their home with the only weapons they have: pots and pans."

Syrian-American journalist Dalia Mortada used a like concept to create "Savoring Syria," a website dedicated to the stories and recipes in the Syrian diaspora. As a member of the diaspora herself, she knows the importance of traditional food when far from home. (She's tested and tasted all the recipes herself, to be certain of the measurements, she said.)

"Fifty-fifty if I was built-in and raised in the U.Due south., my family is Syrian and I was raised that way," Mortada tells Syria Deeply. "I arrived in 2011 to be a journalist in Turkey, and afterwards a few years, more Syrians started settling in Istanbul, opening bakeries and restaurants. They came with their own ingredients, like the fresh coriander that was impossible for me to observe here."

In May 2015, she began organizing food-related events in the U.S., Europe and Turkey to help foster ties between local communities and refugees around Syrian dishes.

For her, telling the stories of Syrians displaced by conflict through food is a mode to eliminate the "victimizing angle, because the war is not the whole thing, and sense of taste and flavors have their identify in their narrative."

She also feels it is a way to preserve their civilisation and traditions: "It was so new that the recipes hadn't changed yet, not adjusted to the new ingredients and environment. It says a lot on the culture and history of a whole country, and I'm happy I got to know a lot about information technology through this project."

But she expects that, with fourth dimension, the recipes volition be adapted, influenced by local flavors and changed. "My grandmother used to send my female parent recipes by fax that my mother would copy and transform because some are impractical to make. Now, I use this same cookbook and copied it in English language, adapting the recipes, too, exchanging new ingredients or developing other techniques."

In a country that has been marked by war, with a population that has been forced far from habitation, more women have taken on the crucial mission of preserving ancient heritage sites, cultural history and even one grandmother'south tricks to roll the all-time waraq enib (stuffed grape leaves).

Summary

• Within Syria, women are standing in opposition to the Syrian government, the Islamic Country, and patriarchal norms by using traditional crafts, like weaving and storytelling, to call for peace and equality.
• Amid escalating violence, a large part of the Damascene art community has moved to Beirut, where it currently flourishes, but refugees are also using food and theater to preserve and promote Syrian civilization abroad.
• The international community has largely focused on efforts to preserve Syrian arab republic's heritage sites and artifacts in response to the Islamic State'south systematic destruction and illegal trade of antiquities.

Overall Situation

The ongoing violence in Syrian arab republic poses a serious threat to Syrian arts and cultural heritage, but has too provided new creative spaces that previously did not be. Artists continue to be targeted within the country, but Syrian art is undergoing a renaissance in diaspora, peculiarly in Beirut. In Syria, women are making their voices heard through diverse media, from weaving to animation, despite dismissive attitudes toward women'due south problems and sometimes fifty-fifty straight violence. Amid refugees, cooking, painting, and theater groups accept helped to contain Syrian culture into life abroad.

There has been much international discussion and condemnation of the devastation of Syrian cultural heritage, simply it has centered almost exclusively on concrete artifacts. In 2016, at that place was an international conference organized by UNESCO and the German Archaeological Constitute on the emergency safeguarding of Syria'southward cultural heritage. The European Marriage pledged €2.46 for the cause, but there is significantly less international focus on the cultivation and preservation of the arts and other forms of living culture.

Background

The Syrian fine art scene was on the rise from 2004 to 2011, with Damascus described in 2010 by the New York Times as a "hub of Mideast art" with galleries most indistinguishable from their counterparts in Paris or London. Politics, still, was commonly off limits. The regime kept a close lookout over fine art and artists, requiring special permission to show work publicly and jailing or threatening those deemed likewise political. This greatly stifled Syrian creative expression and restricted art to the apolitical or protected elite.

During the revolutionary events afterward 2011, fine art was taken to the streets in the form of graffiti, posters, and chants. Nonetheless, in the face of increasing violence, artists were forced to flee or halt their work for fright of detention. Past 2014, fourscore–85 pct of Damascene galleries had airtight. In 2015, café owner Bemar Jomaa set up up an fine art exhibit of more nearly ii dozen works by 15 Syrian artists who had fled the land, titled And They Left. The bulk of Syrian artists went to Beirut, transforming it into the de facto capital of Syrian art. One such woman, Raghad Mardini, established the Art Residence Aley, an arrangement that provides immature Syrian artists with a place to live and materials to create their fine art. At the end of their stay, artists leave behind 1 piece, creating a collection of Syrian art from this pivotal moment in the nation's history.

Sanaa Yazigi takes a like approach with her website, Creative Retention, which is aimed at documenting the broad range of experiences and artistic expression that has come out of the revolution from 2011 to the present. The pieces are sorted by art form, from graffiti to radio, and include a broad diverseness of political stances, with the idea that to protect Syrian national intangible heritage is essential, "as it belongs to the collective Syrian memory."

Across Syria, women are using artistic means to stand up against oppression from the regime, armed opposition groups, and even their own male relatives through subversive uses of fine art forms traditionally used by women. The women of Mazaya Center in Idlib wove the largest-e'er flag of the Syrian revolution to remind President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the Islamic State, and men in their ain communities of the function women have played in the uprisings and to reiterate their call for equal rights. The centre was burned downwardly a calendar month later, and after it was rebuilt, it was attacked once again in 2015 by Jabhat al-Nusra fighters.

The anonymity of the internet somewhat alleviates these dangers for the women behind Estayqazat, an bearding online feminist group that takes stories from Syrian women and turns them into short, blithe films almost female sexuality and empowerment focused on the commonage rather than the individual. Though not exposed to concrete harm, the backfire they received on their Facebook page was emblematic of the widespread resistance to the discussion of women's issues in Syria. Some commenters called the pieces inappropriate and told the women to be ashamed of themselves, while others said the topics were niggling in comparison to the violence of the war, and notwithstanding others accused the women of exaggerating, arguing that women were not actually oppressed in Syria.

Within the Jordanian refugee army camp, Zaatari, a grouping called the Jasmine Necklace formed to paint the drab buildings to reflect different regions, greenspaces, and archaeological sites of Syria. Another group, Art is Zaatari, seeks to reconnect refugees with their heritage through three stages: recreating models of lost monuments, showcasing Syrian folk art and aboriginal folk traditions, and creating original works of fine art that directly appoint artists' experiences of the war.

Theater is likewise being utilized as a tool for therapy and empowerment among women refugee populations in both Hashemite kingdom of jordan and Lebanon. Syria Trojan Women was founded in 2013 in Jordan as a therapeutic drama and advocacy grouping and in 2016 staged an adaptation of Euripides' anti-war play, The Trojan Women, to demonstrate the timelessness of state of war and women's plight inside it. A documentary, Queens of Syria, was made about their adaptation, following the women on their tour of Britain.

Catholic charity Caritas runs a cooking program in Beirut in which each woman creates her own version of traditional cuisine, sharing experiences and techniques across ideological bounds as well as calling attention to the rich variety within Syrian food and civilization. Similarly, one of SouriaLi Radio'due south about successful programs is Fattoush, a radio cooking show that spotlights regional cultures and communities, including Kurdish, Alawite, and Christian voices, considering "nutrient is something that brings people together."

Policy Implications and Challenges

Despite the varied forms of cultural expression, media coverage and policy discussions surrounding the preservation of Syrian heritage have centered nearly exclusively on the protection of concrete artifacts. All six of the UNESCO Globe Heritage Sites in Syrian arab republic have been damaged or destroyed, and this violence has been perpetrated past both the Syrian government and extremist groups such as Islamic Land. In 2016, a task force compiled a report titled #CultureUnderThreat, and chosen for the Pentagon to use air strikes to protect heritage sites. The United states of america Senate responded by banning the import of aboriginal fine art and artifacts from Syrian arab republic in an endeavor to discourage illegal trafficking. France offered $30 one thousand thousand toward a proposed $100 meg for the protection of Syrian heritage sites. Despite the increasing sectarianism and unraveling of Syria'due south social fabric, the only form of intangible culture deemed "nether threat" by UNESCO is falconry.

UNHCR helps to fund a few projects focused on arts and culture, such equally Syria Trojan Women, simply there has not been an organized, international effort to preserve non-archaeological aspects of Syrian culture. Parties on all sides of the conflict have sought to silence and subjugate the Syrian population, specially women, but the arts are an essential means to button back confronting this violence. While the protection of Syrian archaeological heritage sites is of import, it is as important to preserve living cultural heritage and narratives, and international policy must take steps to reflect this.

This study is part of TIMEP-News Deeply's Syrian arab republic's Women: Policies & Perspectives partnership. It outset appeared on News Securely's website here.

The Fight – and Plight – of Syria'due south Female Journalists

Writer: Anna Lekas Miller

The rise of independent Syrian news outlets created more opportunities for women in the media, but many of Syria's female journalists still confront higher security risks than their male colleagues and rampant sexism in the workplace.

Members of the Syrian Female Announcer Network at a contempo female storytellers' exhibition on women'southward rights and gender-based violence, in Beirut. (Syrian Female Journalist Network).

Marvin Gate does not look like a Marvin. This masculine pseudonym became essential to her security in 2015, when she began secretly working with a motley crew of photographers in cities across Syria, documenting the daily lives of ordinary people during the war. The multimedia projection would subsequently become known as Humans of Syria.

"I couldn't tell anyone what I was doing, even my closest friends," Gate told Syrian arab republic Securely.

She was living in a Syrian government-controlled area at the time – which meant that she didn't necessarily face the daily bombardments and anarchy endured by many other members of Humans of Syrian arab republic in opposition-controlled areas. However, the constant government surveillance, and enforced loyalty to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, made it difficult – and oft dangerous – for her to written report and communicate, even in cloak-and-dagger.

Many of her days working against the government directly underneath its watchful eye were spent wondering which checkpoint or intercepted telephone call would be the ane to give away her identity.

"I wasn't just putting myself at risk. We lived in constant fear of existence discovered, and something terrible happening to a friend, a family unit member or someone on our team," she said. "Nosotros weren't doing anything wrong. We were only telling stories of ordinary people, who are artists, photographers and teachers – but the regime only wanted them promoted as terrorists."

Gate grew increasingly disillusioned with life in government-controlled areas of Syria, and while her work grew more than and more dangerous, she no longer felt that information technology had a significant touch on. She fled to Turkey.

Gate is one of thousands of citizen journalists and media activists who have been pushed out of Syrian arab republic and forced to written report on their country from away. Thousands of others remain, merely their jobs are growing increasingly dangerous every bit their colleagues leave. The result is that fewer and fewer journalists are able to report the news from inside Syria. In some ways, this has created greater opportunities for women to be function of the media.

By the end of 2015, women represented 35 percentage of the workforce in independent print media and 54 per centum in radio, according to a report from the Syrian Female person Journalist Network (SFJN), a nonprofit organization that trains both male person and female journalists on bug of gender and media, and challenges stereotypes facing female journalists in the region.

In Turkey, Gate continued working with Humans of Syrian arab republic, which in addition to uploading photographs and stories to social media had go a de facto news bureau, oftentimes deployed to get together breaking news and ostend data for journalists unable to access stories themselves. Gate disseminated news to international media outlets using her vast network of media activists and documentarians inside of Syria.

"We understand that our stories might not necessarily change what happens," Gate said, recalling a piece she put together for the Mail service Online, questioning whether or not the United Kingdom should intervene in the Syrian civil war.

"But these stories are like a newspaper for our history," she continued. "We want to brand certain that history has a paper that says that nosotros, as Syrians, did non want more bombing – that nosotros knew that this was non going to assistance our state of affairs."

In addition to frequently beingness highly educated, many of these journalists accept an advantage over their male colleagues because of their gender alone. As women, they have a unique insight into the humanitarian impact of the conflict, which has disproportionately hit women and children. They are also able to conduct interviews with women in bourgeois areas of Syria, bringing stories to light that their male colleagues could never admission.

The plethora of media outlets that opened to disseminate news of the revolution increased the number of opportunities for women. In add-on, many women were forced to go principal breadwinners for their family, shifting from traditional roles out of necessity – and most importantly, shedding light on the cultural debate of whether or not women should be allowed to occupy professional positions in Syria.

Nonetheless it remains more challenging for women to piece of work as journalists and newsgatherers than it is for men. In addition to the occupational hazards of existence a announcer in Syria – such every bit Gate'south experience of extreme surveillance and distrust in government-controlled areas, the aerial bombardments and anarchy of the front line in opposition-controlled territory and "the increased stigma of detainment" in Syria – female journalists still confront enormous sexism.

"It's extremely unsafe to live and work under shelling and heavy weapons, also every bit the constant threat of detention of one of us, or our families," Sarah al-Hourani, the caput of the media office of the Complimentary Women Assembly in Daraa (FWAD) and a volunteer documentarian for the Syrian Civil Defense, told Syria Securely.

In addition to the sexist surround in which many women work, the ascension of extremist groups, such every bit the so-called Islamic State, further endangered working women by causing them to become from controversial figures to targets, al-Hourani added.

"The armed forces presence, and deteriorating security surround impacts us, as women, that much more," al-Hourani said. "We also accept to factor in the social environment effectually u.s.a.."

Ane adult female journalist interviewed for the SFJN written report said, "my colleagues do not let me get on the basis with them, though I really want to and can." Some other interviewee, a male manager of a Syrian media outlet, said that "he fears that his institution will get the blame if something bad happens" to a female staff fellow member working inside Syria.

The SFJN study found that, past the end of 2015, only 4 pct of senior journalists at emerging Syrian media outlets were women. Many women working at news agencies interviewed for the study said that their reports were being sidelined in the newsrooms, in favor of their male person colleagues' opinion pieces. Others report more blatant sexism, such as being chosen "unfit" for matrimony, but considering they're participating in public infinite and interviewing strange men.

Since many female journalists are likewise caregivers – looking after either children or elderly relatives – many have grown wary of the dangers of traditional war reporting, and try to minimize the hazard to their lives and families by participating in the media as documentarians. Many spend long hours on the phone, confirming and following upwards on events, gathering testimonies of violations and war crimes.

"I realized how important this work was in 2013, when the people of Daraa were facing such difficult atmospheric condition," al-Hourani said, recounting the trying days of the armed services offensive on Daraa.

"I am driven forward by the magnitude of the sacrifices fabricated past the Syrian people," she said. "Most of all, I am driven by the need to ensure that justice is served to the criminals who have committed countless crimes against the Syrian people."

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Source: https://timep.org/syrias-women/media-arts-culture/women-in-arts-culture/

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