Robin Yassin-Kassab

I still think that's unlikely. The Alawi area on the coast has Sunni majorities in the cities. Sweida has a Druze majority but is separated from Israel by Sunni-majority Daraa. Most of the SDF north east is Sunni Arab, and both turkey and the US want it to remain part of Syria. Chaos is more likely.

I urge all who were revolutionary activists until December 8 to continue to be revolutionary activists, to think critically and act oppositionally. Our words and acts count now much more than they will count when a few more months have passed.

Otherwise the country is heading for civil war, and all Syrians will continue to suffer. Syria has had an unexpected window of opportunity since December 8 to build a much better future for its people and their descendants. This window is beginning to close.

All criminals need to be held accountable, whoever they are and whoever their victims are. There must be transparency, and real participation by the people rather than decisions made in secret by unaccountable militias.

We need to speak up now in the hope that the authorities can be pressured to change course. Syria has to be for everyone of every sect and ethnicity. We can't just replace sectarian rule which favours (some) Alawites with sectarian rule that claims to favour Sunnis.

Look at Gaza, or at Iraq's Sunni Arabs, for evidence of this. It is important that we recognise the reality... and I know it's not easy. If I weren't talking to trusted friends who are in Sweida, or whose relatives are, I too would be very confused.

The government is not behaving as a government but as a militia. This is not only a moral disaster - it just won't work. Entire communities cannot be starved, intimidated, or murdered into submission.

government forces have committed numerous crimes against innocent Druze civilians. This is understood - correctly - as a sectarian attack on the Druze community as a whole, and has therefore unified most of the community against the Damascus authorities.

It is distressing to see the level of disinformation concerning Sweida, and the willingness of so many to believe it. The fact that Hajari's militias contain Assadists and that they have treacherously collaborated with Israel does not change the fact that

Powerful RUTA panel on documenting atrocities & seeking justice: @philipobaji.bsky.social on russian crimes in the CAR and Mali, Rota Dunajeva on Chechnya-Ichkeria, @dovzhyk.bsky.social on work with INDEX Ukraine, @qunfuz.bsky.social on Syria & Prisons Museum, chaired by @terrelljstarr.bsky.social

«لا شيء يمكن أن يُعزّيني بعد الآن» شهادة شخصية على مجزرة الصنوبر في الساحل السوري

An important and heartbreaking account of the March massacres on the coast by the revolutionary Hanadi Zahlout, whose relatives were murdered. aljumhuriya.net/ar/2025/06/2...

RUTA Association for Central, South-Eastern, Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies

and building solidarity between activists and engaged academics from across the post-Soviet/ Russian imperialist sphere, and far beyond. Thanks to RUTA and the great people I've met here. And Slava Ukraini! ruta-association.org

The conference was organised by RUTA. It's an academic organisation, but invites non-academics like me too. It's a model for engaged, cross-disciplinary thought and action, bringing together...

Now the conference is over, I'm permitted to say that we were in Uzhhorod, very near the Hungarian and Slovak borders. It makes me want to see much more of this big and diverse country.

Also great to discuss our work at the @isisprisonsmuseum.bsky.social with Sasha Dovzhyk of Index Ukraine - both of us documenting violent crimes perpetrated by tyrants.

Another highlight was Nigerian journalist Philip Obaji
talking about his investigations into Russian atrocities in the CAR and Mali. If people cared more about black lives than about their silly campist stories, these investigations would be much more widely known.

A highlight was hearing the Ukrainian-Palestinian Rita Adel talk about how both her homes are under occupation and genocidal violence.

know almost nothing about the Muslims of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Crimea, Dagestan, etc etc... If they did they would understand that Russia's empire is as racist and genocidal as any other.

It is interesting too to meet Muslims from places like Kazakhstan - a people who suffered a forced famine genocide under Russian rule. The iron curtain separating Muslims under the Russian boot was more solid than the curtain separating east and west Europe. Muslims elsewhere

One of the conference organisers told me that she was happy that so many women are platformed here, but that there's a sadness to it too, because most Ukrainian academics/ writers/ researchers are not available for conferences because they're on the front lines.

I spent three hours last night in a bomb shelter - this, and far worse, is what the people here have been putting up with for years. Perhaps campists and conspiracy theorists would find it more difficult to stick to their idiotic binarism if they experienced some of this suffering.

I had the opportunity to thank Ukraine as a Syrian for its wonderful solidarity with Syria - culminating in sending expert drone operators and lots of drones to help with the final offensive which brought down Assad.

West Africa, etc... Discussing anti-campism and solidarity, disinformation and propaganda, and the complexity of interlocking forms of imperialism and oppression. Nobody in this gathering supports Zionism. Plus there has been a Palestinian embassy in Kiev since 2001.

Those campist idiots who think all Ukrainians are anti-Palestinian should be at the conference in Ukraine where I am currently. Talking to and socialising with Ukrainians, plus other victims of Russian imperialism from Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Lithuania, Georgia, Chechnya,

I don't think India got them from the Pakistani guy who gave the tech to NK....

them too.... though the state is so poor, unstable, and badly run that I can't really see them succeeding.

certainly KSA. Turkey too.

The very clear messages from Ukraine and Iran are if you have nukes, don't give them up, and if you don't have them, rush to get them as soon as possible. I expect there will be at least two more nuclear armed Middle East states in the next few years.

Germans decided they weren't compatible with the European Jewish community that gave the world Freud and Einstein, so they wiped it out. Of the tiny remnant that survived, half became crazed and genocidal Zionist fascists, who the Germans find very compatible indeed.

If the US pretends it's doing 'the world' a favour by attacking Iran, remember that it did a deal with Iran when Iran was pouring tens of thousands of Shia militants into Syria to murder and expel en masse. This is to defend the genocidal Zionist terror state, nothing else.