By Rasha Milhem
One lonely night recently, during a particularly hard time of the coronavirus quarantine, a high school friend and I reviewed our lives and recalled the 2000s with some nostalgia.
We are millennials, born in the early 1980s, when Israel invaded and occupied parts of Lebanon and conflict between the state and the Muslim Brotherhood Movement threatened to destabilise...
Foul, or ful, is traditionally eaten for breakfast (or sometimes supper*) in Syria. The main ingredient is broad (fava) beans. Delicious and healthy, there are quite a few variations of foul, and they include vegan or dairy, depending on whether you choose to add yoghurt or not.
The two variations of foul dishes seen in this video were prepared by a Syrian...
Published by Beloved Syria with the permission of the author.
Lady Damascus was first published in SYRIA through writers’ eyes, edited by Marius Kociejowski (Eland Publishing Ltd, 2010).
Brigid Keenan is a journalist and author. Her book Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City (Thames & Hudson, 2000) and the photographer Tim Beddow who helped her produce it are mentioned in Lady Damascus. See this...
… any attempt to force cultures and peoples into separate and distinct breeds or essences exposes not only the misrepresentations and falsifications that ensue, but also the way in which understanding is complicit with the power to produce such things as the “Orient” or the “West”.’
- Edward W. Said (Orientalism, p. 348, 1995 Penguin edition)
The following article appeared in...
- By Greta Medawar and Carissa Gilham
In May 2017, Shaam Group presented the inaugural Shaam Syrian Film Festival in Melbourne and Sydney with the objective of providing a platform for Syrian cinema to be screened in Australia. Sponsors of the festival included Melbourne travel agency, CedarJet Travel, and popular Sydney based Knafeh Bakery that specialises in Jerusalem street food....
This video message to Australian members of parliament (MPs) was recorded in Madam Janset Kazan's office, Damascus, 21 September 2019. Captions were added by Sarah Nachar, and Rana Alkhayrat and Rasha Milhem translated the interview with Madam Janset.
In this country, we believe in all religions, so we took the concept of forgiveness and reconciliation from all the religions that...
This video interview with Professor Maamoun Abdulkarim took place in a Damascus cafe on 22 September 2019. It wasn't the best environment to discuss a serious subject, and I had no external microphone for my mobile phone, but we made do.
Susan Dirgham
(For a transcript of the interview, please go to the bottom of this page.*)
During the worst years of...
Published by Beloved Syria with the permission of the author.
'A Child in Damascus' was first published in SYRIA through writers' eyes, Edited by Marius Kociejowski (Eland Publishing Ltd, 2010)
A Child in Damascus
by Josceline Dimbleby
...years later I understood the saying that once you have lived in Damascus, it lives in you
In the early summer of 1950, aged seven, I arrived...
Five-part series following a year in the life of four schools in Damascus, a high pressure crossroads in the Middle East.
It concentrates on some remarkable characters finding their way in a country that has never before opened ordinary life up to the cameras in this way, challenges the usual cliches of Arab life and charts the highs and lows...
Beloved Syria
'Beloved Syria - Considering Syrian Perspectives'
Since 2016, Syrians and non-Syrians have contributed to 'Beloved Syria - Considering Syrian Perspectives'.
What unites our contributors is their love for Syria.
In the first issue of 'Beloved Syria' for Spring 2016, we expressed a simple, but heart-felt prayer:
May Syria and its people survive the war united; may the Eid festivals, Christmas and Easter...
