Order the summer edition here

Inside Syria: two lived experiences

Book review written by Namjed Mohammadkhani
Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their War and What the World Can Expect / The Impossible Revolution: Making Sense of the Syrian Tragedy
Forfatter: Reese Erlich/Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Forlag: Prometheus Books/Hurst Publishers (USA/UK)
American Reese Erlich and Syrian Yassin al-Haj Saleh go in depth and depth in their books on the war in Syria, respectively.

Historical lines. The riots of the Syrian civil war have affected the entire Middle East region with unrest, violence and tyranny. Historically, the region itself is a sufficient source of tension. The stream of refugees and homeless Syrians, the amount of civilians killed as a result of military interventions and destroyed cities and other residential areas are commonplace in the news. In reality, the Syrian civil war is no longer regional, it has become a global disaster. One relevant question is: How did this fateful civil war start? Quite fresh is not exactly Reese Erlich's book Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their War and What the World Can Expect, but it can still contribute. . .

Dear reader.
To continue reading, create a new free reader account with your email,
or logg inn if you have done it before. (click on forgotten password if you have not received it by email already).
Select if necessary Subscription (69kr)

Namjed Mohammadkhani

You may also likeRELATED
Recommended

The war – and most people

In this issue, as MODERN TIMES's editor, I publish a selection of articles that may reflect different opinions most people have about the war in Ukraine.
Truls Lie -

War resistance with a feminist look

UKRAINE: In this romantic fairy tale with a pure Hollywood dream of a man stands Volodymyr Zelenskyj. But we know that this could develop into a new world war.
Marielle Leraand -

The rawness of silence

WAR: The barbarism of the West came from the "free world" itself. Because it was silent
Orientering -

The military-industrial complex

MODERN TIMES CONVERSATIONS: From someone who should know the intricacies of foreign policy and geopolitics: Thorbjørn Jagland on military rearmament and enemy images – when it comes to the USA, Russia, China, Turkey and Libya.
Truls Lie -

Latest books:

More books

Ethics in the time of the climate crisis

ECOLOGY: Despite this book's general critique of anthropocentrism, one could go even further in practicing an ecocentric ethic.

The Mystery of Vladimir Putin

SPIN DICTATOR: After dictators left their mark on the 20th century with indescribable crimes, it can be difficult to understand how the authoritarian forms of government have made an apparent return in our time.

In the direction of the totalitarian

PRE-FASCISM: Timothy Snyder's little textbook on tyranny – written for society "between Hitler and Stalin" – lies between patriotic obedience and political disobedience. The book is still current.

Eternity policy

UKRAINE: What is the influence of the philosopher Ivan Ilyin on Putin's politics? Today, information warfare is at least as important as military warfare.

"The New Jew"

MESSIAN THOUGHT OF VIOLENCE: From Jewish identity in New York to messianic racism in the West Bank: The controversial rabbi Meir Kahane, whose thoughts live on with certain radical settlers in the West Bank, is the subject of a new and thorough biography.

Self-sufficient, financially sustainable community with low cost of living

ECO VILLAGE: Communal house, own organic farming, a professionally run livestock farm, various network models in permaculture and economics.

The danger of modified nature

ECOLOGY:With technological measures in all directions, researchers are faced with sky-high challenges. One of them is human ignorance linked to indifference.

A gigantic loss project

THE DISCLOSURES: For 20 years, US authorities lied about the war in Afghanistan.

Challenging climate sobriety

ECOLOGY: We need such voices as Holly Jean Buck, who criticizes wishful thinking – precisely to help bring forward a hopeful, serious and long-lasting climate fight, beyond all easy optimism.

The comprehensive self-insulation

COVID19: SARS in 2003, bird flu in 2005, MERS in 2012, Ebola in 2014, combined with the financial crisis, massive refugee flows, and revolutions in the Middle East and Greta Thunberg's shrill doomsday voice, had largely immunized the population against something as abstract as Covid19.

We call it precariat

WORK: Precarious working life is perhaps alluring with its freedom and flexibility. But with the precarious also comes the uncontrollable, the unpredictability and the lack of rights. Precarious work has become widespread in a subject such as journalism. Nevertheless, I am still tempted by the flexible tasks, by the sense of variability, freedom almost.

An ever-creeping feeling of loneliness

INSULATION: Acute loneliness affects both winners and losers. Daniel Schreiber visits a wealth of hermit literature – such as Thoreau's Walden and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. But what does social withdrawal mean today – whether it is the occupational or pandemic condition?

An incantation against neo-fascism

CAPITALISM: Is not the struggle now about the right not to be exploited, but the right to be allowed to participate? There is much that is valuable in Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen's short book about the possible return of fascism in today's world – but it is weak in terms of empirical documentation.

The aesthetic manifestations of fascism

FASCISM: This does not necessarily manifest itself through mass spectacles and revolutionary fractures, and it is not a primarily European phenomenon. But like a product of political crises in the modern capitalist states.

Late fascism is here

CAPITALISM: The West's 'thin' fascism, which Bolt analyzes, is there especially because there is currently nothing else. Which does not rule out that it will one day grow as "thick" as Russian and Chinese fascism.

Ecology is playfully serious

ECOLOGY: Penguins' newly launched green series presents old and new books that change the way we think and talk about the living earth. You are in the age of mass extinction, but the philosopher Martin Heidegger brings us here on the trail of what we need.

The Israeli mentality and the militaristic undertones of society

ISRAEL: Two Swedish authors portray the people of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a large reportage book.

The world's best Catholics?

CANADA: With the discovery of children's graves in Canada, the Canadians are arguably making the Irish rank as "the world's best Catholics". Children from First Nations were outright stolen, imprisoned in isolation, forced into a foreign culture, a foreign language, subjected to sexual abuse and general neglect.

The battle is between carbo-fascism and eco-socialism

CARBON FASCISM: Climate change facilitates economic speculation and political positioning. Against corruption, we must prepare not only for a state of emergency, but for a climate war against declared enemies, writes Marc Alizart.

The animated paradigm

TECHNOLOGY: What can we say about the ever-increasing technological and state-of-the-art sphere we live in? Animations and simulations appear more and more as "living organisms", while biological life has increasingly become "artificial".

The pandemic exhibits dictatorship states

LATIN AMERICA: Mexican Sabina Berman's novel, HDP, is self-experienced from the interior of a mega-group. In a Latin America with 9 percent of the world's population, and 32 percent of the world's covid 19 dead.

Exploring sexuality unrestrained without being judged by others

DATING: Marie Bergström looks at modern love and sexuality in connection with online dating. But is online dating really as safe as she claims?

A wish – for a new reality

GLOBALIZATION: When the concept of «globalization› took over the academic and political language, and since everyday language, it was not primarily a description of reality that fit into a post-Cold War capitalism, argues new book.

Every war is a war against children

DIPLOMA: The life stories of Ich lebe reflect some of the worst war scenes we know from the last century.

Experiences with death

SORROW: This book pretends that we are together about something that every single human being is basically really alone about.

Full 100-page MODERN TIMES including the appendix Orientering and Modern Times Review comes out quarterly (March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1) with international book reviews, essays and comments – in addition to the physical newspaper and PDF, the articles are eventually published online here (see also the newsletter).

© MODERN TIMES & Orientering AS Dronningensgt. 16, 0152 Oslo Chief editor: Truls Lie

Newsletters