Book Review: Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila Al-Shami, Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War
| Author | Alaya Forte |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929918814428 |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Review |
Political Studies Review
2019, Vol. 17(3) NP17 –NP18
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
814428PSW0010.1177/1478929918814428Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2019
Commissioned Book Review
Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution
and War by Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila
Al-Shami. London: Pluto Press, 2018. 320pp.,
£14.99 (p/b), ISBN 9780745337821
In his 2004 Kafkaesque novel, The Silence and
the Roar Sirees (2013), Syrian writer Nihad
Sirees explored the soundscapes of a dictator-
ship: the roar of marching regime supporters
chanting ‘Long Live the Leader’; the noise of
crowds intent on performing symbolic chore-
ographies of loyalty and obedience to the state;
the voicelessness of political self-censorship;
and the silence of prisons and detention centres
where dissidents are sent and ‘lost’. Sirees
wants us to consider how thought is possible in
this loud, deafening and deadly cacophony.
In this new edition of Burning Country:
Syrians in Revolution and War, completed in
March 2015, but which has now been updated
with a final chapter, human rights activist Leila
Al-Shami and media commentator Robin
Yassin-Kassab set themselves the arduous task
of recounting the soundscapes of authoritarian-
ism, revolution and war in Syria. Going back in
time to covey the geographical, historical
and political diversity of Syria’s inhabitants
and their resistance to successive invasions and
occupations, the authors’ aim is to demystify
and correct the contemporary mainstream nar-
rative – the book is an act of solidarity with the
Syrian revolution. It is, therefore, in the inter-
views with civil activists and revolutionaries –
the authors’ chief informants – that the original
contribution is to be found.
Al-Shami and Yassin-Kassab give ample
space to these voices, exploring how grassroots
activism and hope nurtured the peaceful pro-
tests and demonstrations that took to the streets
across Syria, ‘all the more astonishing given
the absence of civil and political organisation
before 2011’ (p. 57). The Assad regime was
built on the suppression of social networks
based on trust. The fact then that solidarity,
coordination committees (tanseeqiyat) and
local councils (LCCs) emerged across sects
and minorities despite this socio-political
premise is testament to the liberation of politi-
cal thought, synthesised in demands for reform
and democracy, which occurred after the Arab
Spring. In a cruel twist of fate, it was precisely
these organic forms of collaborative and col-
lective organisation that would later provide
vital aid when the regime’s brutal response
turned the revolution into an armed struggle.
The crushing of the peaceful demonstra-
tions and successive armed resistance was also
a result of the geopolitical context and condi-
tions on the ground. Groups soon splintered
and fragmented under the effects of long sieges
which starved communities and bombings of
infrastructure and civilians leaving nothing in
their wake but ‘scorched earth’. Al-Shami and
Yassin-Kassab lucidly guide us through all this
and more: the weakness of elites including
bodies such as the SNC (the Syrian National
Council) and NCB (National Coordination
Body for Democratic Change); the stirring of
communal tensions which strengthened the
regime; the effects of disinformation; eco-
nomic inequalities worsened by the neo-liberal
reforms of Bashar al-Assad’s early years in
power; the Kurdish question; and, finally, the
steady rise of Islamism in the region. The com-
mand of the subject matter underlying this
chronological overview means the authors’
analysis constitutes essential reading not only
for students of politics, international relations
and the Middle East, who will benefit from the
unsettling of academic debates on revolution
and war, but also for a wider public – an inter-
national readership who will find the book an
extremely useful source for understanding the
complexities of the Syrian crisis. The addi-
tional reading list, relevant documentaries and
films complement the text.
At the heart of the book lies a specific event
symbolising the tragedy of the revolution and
war in Syria, ‘the abduction and perhaps mur-
der of “the Douma Four” on 9 December 2013’
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