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Amazing, inspiring Once again gives the lie to those who claim there is no peaceful grassroots resistance And the centrality of the women in this project should give the denialists pause On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 9:59 AM, Michael Karadjis via Marxism < [email protected]> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > While most reporting on the role of women in the Syrian revolution, > whether from the imperialist media or their "anti-imperialist" echo, tends > to follow the Islamophobic-Orientalist template (ie, women don't exist), > the reality has been sharply different from the very beginning. Here is > just one story of many of revolutionary self-sacrifice by Syrian women. > MK > > The "Gang of Girls" Risks Their Lives to Report From Inside a War Zone > Amid the rubble of Syria, a band of women are risking prison, or worse, to > report, write, and edit the civil war's paper of record. > http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a28194/the-newsroom/ > > By Christina Asquith > > (clip) > > "We're the gang of girls. [Assad] would kill us, but he can't find us," > Waleed says. The "gang of girls" she refers to are her colleagues at Enab > Baladi; a little more than half the staff are women. Many of them are now > refugees, in Turkey and Lebanon, and the rest are in hiding in > Syria—reporting over sporadic Internet connections, giving new and urgent > meaning to the phrase working remotely. > > "To be a journalist in Syria is one of the most dangerous professions in > the world," says Sherif Mansour of the New York–based Committee to Protect > Journalists, himself a reader of Enab Baladi. Of the 24 founding staff > members, three top editors have been killed in separate attacks. Eight > reporters have been detained and tortured, and 12 have fled the country. In > Waleed's birthplace, Darayya, 75 percent of the population has been > displaced. By the beginning of 2015, an estimated 200,000 people had been > killed in the Syrian civil war, many of them civilians. The government has > been accused of gassing entire towns, suffocating thousands. An ancient > country famous for its Mediterranean coastline, medieval castles, and > relics dating back to the Babylonian period is in ruins. > But Gaziantep, Turkey, where Waleed and other Enab Baladi staffers are > holed up, is full of its own perils. More than a quarter million Syrian > refugees have poured into this border town since the civil war began. A > city of covered bazaars and wandering tea sellers and the domain over the > centuries of the Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, and Ottomans, > Gaziantep has increasingly become a staging ground for all those trying to > get into or away from Syria: ISIS jihadis, rebel fighters, arms > contractors, U.S. intelligence operatives. Like a black hole, the civil war > keeps expanding, sucking in anyone at its edges. > > In the ensuing void of order and information, Enab Baladi has become one > of the most prominent independent publications of the war. That it's > largely female-staffed is extraordinary. Women are barely represented in > the government or in opposition groups—and certainly not in the Islamist > gangs that control large swaths of the country. Yet the female editors and > reporters have driven deeper coverage of how war affects civilians, > families, and day-to-day life for millions of Syrians. "Women have been a > big part of Enab Baladi since the beginning, and most say it's their > resilience that's kept the paper going," says Jawad Sharbaji, a man and one > of the publication's veteran editors. "They have easier access inside > people's homes, and they can travel more easily and get to places where men > cannot go." > > Full: http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a28194/the-newsroom/ > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
