Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official

by Miriam Cooke

From 1970 until his death in 2000, Hafiz Asad ruled Syria with an iron fist. His regime controlled every aspect of daily life. Seeking to preempt popular unrest, Asad sometimes facilitated the expression of anti-government sentiment by appropriating the work of artists and writers, turning works of protest into official agitprop. Syrian dissidents were forced to negotiate between the desire to genuinely criticize the authoritarian regime, the risk to their own safety and security that such criticism would invite, and the fear that their work would be co-opted as government propaganda, as what miriam cooke calls “commissioned criticism.” In this intimate account of dissidence in Asad’s Syria, cooke describes how intellectuals attempted to navigate between charges of complicity with the state and treason against it. A renowned scholar of Arab cultures, cooke spent six months in Syria during the mid-1990s familiarizing herself with the country’s literary scene, particularly its women writers. While she was in Damascus, dissidents told her that to really understand life under Hafiz Asad, she had to speak with playwrights, filmmakers, and, above all, the authors of “prison literature.” She shares what she learned in Dissident Syria . She describes touring a sculptor’s studio, looking at the artist’s subversive work as well as at pieces commissioned by the government. She relates a playwright’s view that theater is unique in its ability to stage protest through innuendo and gesture. Turning to film, she shares filmmakers’ experiences of making movies that are praised abroad but rarely if ever screened at home. Filled with the voices of writers and artists, Dissident Syria reveals a community of conscience within Syria to those beyond its borders.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Middle East

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

miriam cooke is Braxton Craven Professor emerita of Arab Cultures at Duke University. She has been a visiting professor in Tunisia, Romania, Indonesia, Qatar and Alliance of Civilizations Institute in Istanbul. She serves on several international advisory boards, including academic journals and institutions.

Her writings have focused on the intersection of gender and war in modern Arabic literature, Arab women writers’ constructions of Islamic feminism and Arab cultural studies with a concentration on the Arabian Gulf and Syria. She has published fifteen books and is currently working on a novel about World War II Palestine.

Three of her books (Women Claim Islam; Women and the War Story and The Anatomy of an Egyptian Intellectual: Yahya Haqqi) were named Choice Outstanding Academic Books. Several books have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French and German.

Reviews

[Omar Abu samra · Rating 5 out of 5]

سورية الاخرى - صناعة الفن المعارض ، هذا البحث يسرد تاريخ سوريا الفني السياسي المظلم ، تاريخ الاستبداد والظلم ، فهو يشدد على طبقة المهمشين ، المثقفون المهمشون ، ويؤكد ان منذ انشاء دولة سوريا نشأت نشأة ديكتاتورية بأفكارها ومبادئها ، مبنية على قمع وطمس وذل الانسان المثقف والمبدع ، الملفت ان البحث لم يرصد الشق الفني والادبي ، بل كان شاملاً ، فتطرق الى السياسية كثيراً ، الى دور حافظ الاسد في قمع اصوات الحرية ، ومن بعدها ابنه بشار الاسد ، تطرق الى الادب والمسرح السوري الذي كان ولا يزال مقيداً ، الباحثة بذلت مجهود كبير وهذا واضح من خلال مقابلاتها مع كتاب وادباء سوريا المقموعين داخل سوريا وخارجها ، قد لا يعطيك الكتاب معلومة جديدة ، من حيث المبنى الفكري او السياسي لنظام سوريا المستبد ، اهمتيه كانت تكمن بالهشاشة والاصرار الذي كان يتمتع بها كتاب ومبدعي سوريا رغم اليأس وسياسة فرض الرأس والخضوع من قبل حافظ الاسد ، هذا الكتاب مهم ، مهم ، لانه كتب من شخص لا علاقة له من المعارضة او النظام . ان الفن يعني الحرية ، وان كنا لا نملك الحرية فنحن لا نملك فناً ايضاً .

[نُورهَا نْ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"إن الحرية التي في داخلنا أكبر من السجون التي نحن في داخلها"