From Suriyya al−Asad to Souriatna : civic nationalism in the Syrian revolutionary press

Abstract

Scholarship on the Syrian conflict has too often reduced the analysis of political behaviour to the causal variable of sectarianism and therefore overlooked the role of other identities sustaining mobilization since 2011. Using the case of the revolutionary newspaper Souriatna, this article argues that a civic re-imagining of the nation that was neither ethnic nor sectarian informed the identity claims of anti-regime protestors throughout the conflict and well beyond the peaceful protests of 2011. Civic nationalism, a re-imagining of the nation as a self-determined community of equal citizens was generated through print newspaper practices and the iteration of symbols, specifically the map of Syria in its current territorial boundaries and the Independence flag. This re-imagined nationalism from below challenged both state discourse of sectarian fragmentation since 2011 and Suriyya al-Asad, the personification of power around the figure of the state leader.