00:03 Miriyam Aouragh: [Thanks to] the organisers for inviting me [to share] some of my experiences and work.
00:03 One of the most significant, powerful indicators of the fact that there is a revolution in Syria — even though it faces a very big turn at the moment — is that the protests and the opinions expressed have been of an extremely expressive and popular character. And that's a really important mental shift in the way Syrians have expressed political dissidence.
00:34 Because until 2010, 2011, as many have shown, there was a kind of political culture in Syria that Lisa Wedeen [?], for instance, described as the politics of "as if" [?] — [publicly] agreeing with the nationalism of the regime; or a kind of politics that was expressed through media and writings, which [others] described as sort of letting off steam through the internet and media.
01:08 And that has really shifted — maybe you can even say reversed — because people don't pretend any more in Syria. People are very open and clear and expressive and verbal in their rejection of the regime and rejection of their oppression. [Inaudible.] It is actually encouraged, to create political change, in practice and in the open.
01:38 And what is really interesting is that the internet has played an important role in this, because the internet is a very different mediator compared to previous forms of communication and mediation. What is also interesting is to look at how the internet has enabled a large section of the Syrian population to contact the outside world and each other.
01:38 It has approximately twenty-five to thirty per cent penetration, and almost a hundred per cent of those are Facebook users. So it has become really mainstream, and especially for younger Syrians — you can describe them basically as internet natives. It's nothing special; they're brought up with it and they use it in a very self-evident way.
02:10 So the internet is thriving — [or rather] the revolution is thriving on the internet, and most political groups, even military factions, have incorporated [the] internet into their political practices. So gone are the days of this sort of Orientalist complaint about an incompatibility between modern technology and Arab Muslim cultures; or those Orientalist projections about Western NGOs and corporations bringing liberty to the Arabs [?] by offering them digital activism and projects.
02:41 And there are many examples of this kind of resistance expressed via the internet. There are two categories I want to point [to] among this amazing archive of expressions. One is video — the fact that YouTube and other platforms have allowed for user-generated content to be shared online is really important. And the second example is this kind of culture we can refer to as mashup culture: this mixing of genres and styles, through memes and visuals.
03:43 What I will share might not immediately [chime] with the kind of usual discussions we have about revolution [inaudible]. But I just think it's really important, because you can say that this kind of virtual politics, and these really creative productions, are part of what we can call the immaterial, or the emotional, revolution — the kind of ingredients that help create this mental click when people suddenly say, okay, enough is enough, I want to take a stand. And the kind of emotional politics that comes back through archiving the revolution allows us to go back in time and relive the moments of rebellious and brave expression.
04:48 So the first example I want to show is what really triggered my interest personally in the power of online videos. That's this video, basically a Syrian dabke song, [for] which Ibrahim Qashoush wrote the lyrics together with his friends — called "Yalla erhal ya Bashar", "Come on Bashar, time to leave".
05:20 And rather than [being recorded] from a hidden room or a secret studio and then shared anonymously online — which was the case for instance [with] the rapper El Général in Tunisia, who came out [with a] really powerful track just before Ben Ali was ousted, but he did it in secret, he did it anonymously — [Qashoush] performed his song in public. And everybody was filming it, [with] mobile cameras, digital cameras, and he didn't care.
05:52 It was evidence of the fact that some videos were prolonging this revolutionary stamina. People were waiting for a form of [inaudible] to help them go through the changes, and I think it helped change the balance of forces for some people, at least on an emotional level.
05:52 I wanted to show you, if I may, just a few seconds, where we can see how he manages to accentuate this rebellious insult in the lyrics — when he says [inaudible], when he says "screw you and those who praise you", when he says "to hell with you" — and then repeats them, as he sees that the crowd is not just welcoming it but actually supporting [him] and echoing the lyrics.
07:08 [Video clip. Applause.]
07:39 So when this came out, a lot of us were saying, okay — whenever I feel down, or whenever we hear terrible news about Bashar al-Assad, we sort of want to see this again and remember.
07:39 And what we see is that this really resonated. Just from what I found online, just the first ten YouTube entries — there are many [more], with different versions of this — just the first ten of them total, watched over two million times. And that was a year ago when I did the counting, so you can imagine. This is, I think, not unimportant, and should not be rejected as a kind of immaterial politics. It's part of the revolution.
08:09 The second example of the power of video and video uploading is actually what I consider a sort of antidote. We've seen a lot of horrific videos — of bombings, of torture, occasionally of acts of cannibalism — things that are full of negative and demoralising stuff. So the second example is a kind of antidote to all of that. But actually the source is [inaudible] from the militant groups, and I think it makes it extra comical, because it's kind of like a blooper — precisely because it was intended to be disciplined and serious politics.
08:40 Just to explain shortly: what we see is this rebel commander reading out a text, a message to Bashar al-Assad. Basically he rants against Assad, and his men are listening with devoted attention, and they're all wearing army fatigues. But somewhere in the distance this vegetable seller is singing melodiously what he has on offer. And the nearer he comes, the louder [he gets], and every syllable of what he's saying becomes clear — and then we hear "mulukhiyah".
09:42 And there's something about this combination: this mild, harmless vegetable, a spinach-like vegetable, and that context — hearing the name of that vegetable, and the guy in the distance, makes the whole [thing] seem quite ridiculous. But the rebels continue, and they have this constipated face [?] where they pretend that they don't hear anything, but you can see in their eyes that they're really getting annoyed and don't know what to do with themselves.
09:42 So one militant, lined up next to the others [inaudible], cannot stand it any more, and slinks away [?] like an annoying teenager, cursing — in a fashion that does not befit the performance, let alone [inaudible]. It's actually quite hilarious. And maybe we can see a few seconds.
10:42 [Video clip.]
10:42 So you can see the [room] is roaring [with] laughter, and if you view it together again you can actually see the commander is unable to control the situation.
11:13 But what I find more important is the fact that [whoever filmed it] chose to post it online, which is testimony [inaudible] — they're basically taking all these staged acts with a grain of salt themselves. And after we're done laughing, the video actually tells the viewer also how bizarre the situation is — I mean, maybe these people don't live any more, maybe they're killed. But it tells us how bizarre the situation is.
11:44 And this video also humanises them. It gives us a different picture of these factions, because what we are consuming is the image of these [men] being aggressive, violent and radical militants.
11:44 So that was the video category. The second and last category that I thought was important to share with you is something that is really intimately related to the nature and the digital infrastructure of technology, which is this remix art. And that's something new that Syrians brought to the mix.
12:16 I think maybe it has to do with [inaudible]. But when talking with a Syrian friend about it, he [said, Syrian] language is very well known in the entire Arab world [for] language and poetry — and this is [an] art also of sarcasm. But they bring something to the mix that I hadn't seen before.
12:46 Because the main marker of online mediation is instant uploading and sharing, social networking sites and internet websites have become the popular site of contestation for this kind of politics being expressed. And the style is literally a combination of all [of it]: basically taking snippets from different genres, and collage techniques [?].
12:46 And what we see here is an example of how an old and a new message are combined, and it has multiple meanings. There are so many different meanings in this amazing example of the visual [inaudible — an Arabic visual pun on the word "Assad", explained in detail, which the captions do not carry].
13:49 [Inaudible] and I said, actually it's also [about] the foreseeable ejection of the Assad regime.
13:49 So — I don't [want to] mystify Syrians [?] and essentialise their cultural expressions as if it's only political. But I do have to say that there's really something special going on here. And maybe of course it has to do with the fact that it is coming out in the revolution and counter-revolution. But, having been brought up with Moroccan jokes and quite vulgar Amazigh humour [?], and experienced the beautiful and smart [inaudible] Lebanese dissident art — there is something that I think this political rhetoric mixed with graphics coming out of Syria is doing to us. And the fact that it's mediated online hugely speeds up this experience, and lets us also enjoy it.
14:52 Of course this is the nice side of the story. There's the other side, and we should never forget it: the fact that none of this is happening in a vacuum. There is a huge counter-revolutionary momentum at the moment, in which I've also seen visuals and creative counter-revolutionary productions. So these brave and creative examples — it's very hard for them to tip the scale, because there is this counter-revolutionary content and very loud pro-regime noise online as well, that is difficult to compete with.
15:23 And sadly I must say that part of the anti-imperialist [left] in the West echoes the claims of the Assad regime, and helps spread the kind of counter-revolutionary products coming out of Syria — for instance against Syrian media activists. I've seen posts by people from the anti-war movement in Britain claiming Houla, and even Ghouta, were false, were not real massacres, that it was self-inflicted etc.
15:55 So these brave Syrian activists do not only have to fight against their own oppressor, but have to deal with part of our own left in the West.
16:26 What I want to say [about] my work is that we should not treat it as if it's some kind of abnormality. Actually it's very normal, because it's a revolution, and there is no revolution without the counter-revolution. And I think this quote by Marx expresses it really strongly: actually, the fact that these Syrians who are fighting for a better world are confronted so harshly by counter-revolutionary forces is testimony to the fact that they're making a revolution. Otherwise they would not have been confronted with it.
16:59 So, to show the last slide, of the concentric circles: this is the reality of Syrian activists and rebels. They have to manoeuvre through this ecology, which on the one hand is shaped by the corporate complicity of [the] internet, where Western companies sell surveillance tools to Bashar al-Assad to survey and monitor activists; where the Syrian media is flourishing and thriving with propaganda, which is partly also helped by some of the anti-war groups abroad; and thirdly, they have to manoeuvre in this new media ecology which is very much shaped by the mukhabarat, the secret service, that is using the internet in pretty astonishingly accomplished ways, and usually [using] the Syrian Electronic Army as their gatekeepers.
18:02 So I think this is important, to show that the Syrian revolutionaries on the internet are doing amazing things — they make us laugh, they make us cry, they inspire us. But what makes it even more important, and leaves you in awe, is that they do all that amidst these counter-revolutionary realities online. They manoeuvre through these big circles that are opposing them.
18:34 And so I leave you with that, to keep in mind that whatever they're doing is against all the odds — but [that] they decided that doing something with these risks is better than doing nothing. I think [that] must leave us with a [pause], and at least, I think, [with the] demand that our governments here do not [contribute] to these concentric circles. It's also our governments that sell those tools to the regime; it's also our governments, and activists and former comrades, that are spreading this propaganda about the Syrian revolution. We need to stop that if we want to be useful — rather than just having nice debates.
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