Profs & Pints DC: The Remaking of Modern Syria

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Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Remaking of Modern Syria,” with Daniel Neep, non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, lecturer on Middle East politics at George Washington University, and author of two books on Syria.

The fall of the Assad regime after a brutal 13-year civil war has renewed interest in the future of Syria. Among the questions that it has raised: Will Syria be religious or secular? How will the new government accommodate that nation’s religious and ethnic pluralism? Can its regional and class inequalities be overcome?

Syrians, far from entering into a new debate, themselves have been asking these questions for over 150 years.

Come gain an in-depth understanding of Syria’s history and possible future with Dr. Daniel Neep, a political scientist who has lived in Syria, has served as an expert on that region for numerous universities and think tanks, and remains focused on studying conflict and state-building in the Middle East. Along with being published extensively in scholarly journals and widely quoted by the media he is the author of Occupying Syria: Insurgency, Space, and State Formation and the upcoming book The Nation Belongs to All: The Making of Modern Syria.

You’ll learn how Syria has long been home to dynamic struggles between different visions for the country’s political future, from its origins in nineteenth century modernization efforts under the Ottomans through years of colonial rule by the French followed by rule by a revolving door of would-be dictators and corrupt elites. Dr. Neep will explore the waves of popular protest, economic transformation, and ideological contention that have shaped and reshaped Syria over the decades.

The story of Syria is not one of dictators, generals, presidents and prime ministers ruling over a meek and passive population. The Syrian people have fiercely clung to their right to live with respect and dignity, whether they were fighting for independence from French rule, battling local landowners to give impoverished peasants a fair share of the country’s wealth, or rising up against the violence and repression of the Assad regime. How their protest and perseverance has shaped their nation’s political destiny is the history that now needs telling. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)