To a large degree, historical analyses of the Levantine region tend to focus primarily upon martial interaction and state formation. However, perhaps of equitable impact is the chronology of those interactions which are cultural in nature. The long-term formative effect of cultural imperialism and cultural bleed can easily be as influential as the direct alterations imposed by martial invasion. While this study does not attempt to establish comparative causal weight or catalytic impact between these types of interactions, it does contend that the cultural evolution of the Levant has been significantly influenced by external interaction for a period of time extending beyond the Levantine Islamic Expansion. This study presents a chronological examination of the region from the pre-Expansion Period through the Mandate Period, focused upon relevant cultural structures. Specifically, emphasis is placed upon religious, ethnic, and nationalistic identity development, sociolinguistic shifts, and institutional changes within the societal structure. The primary conclusion of this study is that significant evidence exists to support a long-term historical narrative of externally influenced Levantine cultural evolution, inclusive of both adaptive and reactive interactions.

Under de senaste åren har flyktingströmmarna till Sverige nått historiska nivåer. Många av de som kommer flyr krigets Syrien. Gruppen av syrier som fått permanenta uppehållstillstånd och nu ska skapa sig ett nytt liv i Sverige är stor. Hur ska Sverige utnyttja denna grupps kompetens och hur ska flyktingarna själva ta plats i samhället på såväl arbetsmarknad men även få social tillhörighet. Detta kan antas bli en återkommande fråga i den offentliga debatten. Vi upplever att det finns kunskapsluckor om dessa människor och deras tankar om Sverige, hur de trodde att det skulle bli och hur det blev. Detta är en intervjustudie där sex syrier har tillfrågats om sina förväntningar på och upplevelser av Sverige. Resultatet visar att intervjupersonerna hört om Sverige som ett fritt, demokratiskt, jämställt land med generös flyktingpolitik och permanenta uppehållstillstånd. Ett land där man kan bli vad man vill bara man kämpar. När de summerar hur det blivit efter de första åren konstaterar de att mycket stämmer men att det är lång väntan på uppehållstillstånd och yrkesvalideringar, att det dröjer innan de får sitt första arbete och att det är svårt att hitta forum där de kan prata svenska. Studien kan i framtiden utvecklas till att undersöka hur samma grupp som varit i Sverige ytterligare en tid uppfattar sin situation. / In recent years, the flow of refugees to Sweden reached historic levels. Many of those who will flee Syria war. The group of Syrians who have permanent residence and is now going to create a new life in Sweden is great. How should Sweden take advantage of this group's expertise and how the refugees themselves will have a place in society in both the labor market but also socially. This is likely to be a recurring issue in the public debate. We feel that there are gaps in knowledge about these people and their ideas about Sweden, the way they thought it would be and how it turned out. This is an interview where six Syrians were asked about their expectations and experiences of Sweden. The results show that the respondents heard about Sweden as a free, democratic, egalitarian country with generous refugee policy and permanent residence permits. A country where you can be what you want only one struggling. When they add up how it has been for the first few years, they acknowledge that this is true but it is a long wait for a residence permit and yrkesvalideringar, it will take time before they get their first job and that it is difficult to find a forum where they can speak Swedish. The study can be developed in the future to investigate how the same group that has been in Sweden for some more time then understand their situation and if it changed.

This project examines the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war in 2013 and places the disarmament process in the context of the international nonproliferation regime and the history of United States weapons of mass destruction (WMD) policy. Additionally, I argue that U.S. policy on WMDs does not operate by a fixed set of standards; rather, cultural assumptions about a state and its weapons (such as the USSR, Iraq, Israel and their WMDs) are used to justify nonproliferation action. I present weapons as a mode of Othering that the U.S. and the nonproliferation regime employ to justify the designation of an enemy state. This analysis also examines the “myth of neutrality” of humanitarian intervention and applies these concepts to nonproliferation intervention.

Si, comme nous le suggérons, le mot « frontière » désigne un lieu de contact et d’échanges entre deux espaces plutôt qu’une ligne de séparation bien tracée, de nombreuses frontières existent, politiques, sociales, culturelles, linguistiques dans un Proche-Orient ancien qu’on qualifie souvent de « monde sans frontières » parce qu’il partage la même culture cunéiforme. Du XIVe siècle av. J.-C. au début du XIIe, les États syriens sont dans la mouvance successive d’empires puissants, Mitanni, Égypte, Hatti, qui se les disputent et fixent leurs frontières politiques, tandis que les frontières juridiques (de qui est-on justiciable ?) ou économiques (qui édicte les obligations fiscales ?) se superposent. Dans une Syrie où les langues parlées sont diverses, il existe, et même il se crée, des « entre-deux » linguistiques. Les zones frontières sont traversées sans cesse, volontairement (nomades, marchands) ou sous la contrainte (captifs). Dire qui est « un étranger » n’est possible en Syrie que de façon relative. Cependant, ni tout à fait étranger, ni membre de la communauté, un étranger résident peut, parce qu’il bénéficie d’une certaine protection et peut s’intégrer, devenir un de ceux par lesquels les cultures se transmettent. / If, as we would define it, the word “border” indicates a place of contact and exchanges between two spaces rather than a well-drawn line of separation, numerous borders exist: political, social, cultural, linguistic in an Ancient Near East often characterized as “a world without borders” since it shares the same cuneiform culture. From the fourteenth century BC to the beginning of the twelfth, the Syrian States have belonged to successive spheres of influence of powerful empires, Mitanni, Egypt, Hatti, which dispute them between themselves and fix their political borders, whereas the legal borders (to which jurisdiction you are under?) or economic ones (which authority imposes the tax obligations?) overlap. In Syria where the spoken languages are diverse, linguistic interspaces exist, are even created. Fringe areas are crossed ceaselessly, voluntarily (nomads, traders) or under duress (captives). To determine who is “a foreigner” is only possible in Syria in a relative manner. However, neither a true foreigner, nor a member of the community, a “resident foreigner” (since he is partly protected and may become integrated) can be one of these through whom the cultures are passed on.

The diploma thesis Comparation of the coverage of war conflicts in Yemen and Syria by the Czech media examines to what extent and in what way two wars, which have been going on for several years and are among the biggest humanitarian crises of the present, are reflected in selected media. The conflicts under investigation are the war in Syria and the war in Yemen. The aim of the thesis was to prove that although the two wars are comparable in many aspects, there is a considerable difference between their media coverage. The theoretical part summarizes and defines important concepts accompanying news and news selection and their impact, the role of the media in war and other concepts such as ideology or propaganda. The research part examines the individual reports of three selected news sites, which are Aktuálně.cz, Novinky.cz and iDnes.cz. Based on four theoretical bases, the variables in media content of selected media were investigated. Based on the analysis it was found that the Syrian conflict in the media space gets much more attention than the Yemeni conflict. Furthermore, it was found that while the war in Syria is most often put into the context of the actions of state actors, the most common theme of the reports on the war in Yemen is the development of the conflict. The third hypothesis...

In present time, to be mobile, to be able to physically move from point A to point B is something taken for granted by a small minority of the world’s population, while the vast majority are caught within or between borders. How did we reach to this point? This study examines the lived experiences of (im)mobility in Jordan. It captures the experiences of Syrians who live in Jordan and who have been denied mobility because of their flight from their homeland. By means of an ethnographical approach this study challenges conventional conceptions of what it means to be displaced. Situating the understanding of displacement in relation to the modern nation state, territorial boundedness, national identity and geographical categorizations it ultimately lays the foundation for conceptualizing the relative human (im)mobility and its links to a historical past. Through travelling and living in Jordan periodically between 2017-2018, totalizing approximately 6 months, conducting semi-structured interviews and engaging in everyday social and contextual encounters, this study offers a more multifaceted understanding of what it means to be (im)mobile in present time, as additional to conventional scholarship. It ultimately demonstrates that displacement as we understand it today is inadequate and simplified, and as we reassess its components we are able to reconceptualize the understandings of relative human (im)mobility.

Traditionally, war and peace have been approached as incompatible entities; where war and violence are present, peace has been assumed to be absent. Recent studies of peace in conflict have started to undermine this assumption, since expressions of peace and attempts at building peace have been found among individuals and communities entangled in violent conflicts.   This thesis explores peace in war via democratic confederalism, an ideology that is being implemented in northern Syria. An ideational analysis is used to approach the ideology, which is later compared with an analytical framework developed from liberal and critical peacebuilding to explore democratic confederalism’s similarities and deviations in regard to the two theories. Afterwards, the findings are analysed in the context of northern Syria.  The study shows that there are several intersections between aspects of critical peacebuilding and democratic confederalism. Discussed through the war in northern Syria and it is argued that the self-defence part of democratic confederalism has taken a prominent and necessary role, but one that might obscure the aspects of democratic confederalism that are peace-conducive. The research paper concludes that while this might make democratic confederalism as a whole appear less peaceful, it should be understood through the context of war and aspects that contribute to peace should be interpreted as expressions of peace in violent conflict.

No description available.

Le sujet de cette étude est le commerce et l’utilisation de divers produits issus d’arbres et d’arbustes dans le royaume d’Ougarit, situé sur la côte de la Syrie et dont la documentation écrite nous renseigne sur l’époque du Bronze récent, principalement les XIVe et XIIIe siècles avant J.-C. Ce royaume est particulièrement bien connu grâce aux milliers de tablettes trouvées depuis 82 ans sur le site de Ras Shamra et plus récemment sur celui de Ras Ibn Hani. Ces tablettes sont écrites très majoritairement dans deux langues et deux systèmes d’écriture cunéiforme : d’une part, la langue locale, baptisée « ougaritique », notée grâce à un système alphabétique, d’autre part, l’akkadien babylonien, noté selon un système logo-syllabique. A cheval entre la côte et la montagne, ce royaume était situé entre les deux grandes régions pourvoyeuses de bois dans la plus haute antiquité, comme en atteste la documentation égyptienne et mésopotamienne, ainsi que la Bible, la montagne libanaise et l’Amanus. Le lieu est donc particulièrement important pour ce sujet. Après un aperçu géographique, démographique, linguistique, historique et économique sur le royaume d'Ougarit, nous avons étudié successivement l'ébène, le pin et le sapin, le cèdre, le genévrier, le cyprès, le buis, le ¶rgz, le palmier, l’olivier et le bois-¶lmg, ainsi que le vignoble, la vigne et ses produits.Nous avons commencé chaque chapitre par une identification botanique et linguistique. Puis nous avons tenté de situer quelles étaient les régions qui étaient les sources principales de ces richesses naturelles. Ensuite, nous avons établi un aperçu historique sur le commerce des produits d'arbres et d’arbustes et sur les moyens de transport. Nous avons tenté de préciser leur nature, leur quantité, leur qualité, leur poids et leur prix à Ougarit et à l'extérieur. A la fin, nous avons étudié les diverses utilisations et leur rôle dans l'artisanat, la médecine, la religion et la magie dans l'antiquité. Ce faisant, il nous a été donné aussi d’approcher la valeur symbolique de ces arbres et de ces bois. / The subject of our dissertation is the trade and use of various products derived from trees and shrubs in the Kingdom of Ugarit, located on the coast of Syria and whose written documentation informs us about the Late Bronze Age, mainly fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC. The kingdom is well known thanks to the thousands of tablets found in the last 82 years on the site of Ras Shamra and more recently that of Ras Ibn Hani. These tablets are written overwhelmingly in two languages and two systems of cuneiform writing: first, the local language, called “Ugaritic”, noted in an alphabetic system, on the other hand, the Babylonian Akkadian, noted by a logo-syllabic script. Situated between the coast and mountains, this kingdom was located between two major regions suppliers of timber in the most remote antiquity, as evidenced by Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature and the Bible, the Lebanese mountains and the Amanus mountain. The place is thus particularly important for this topic. Following an overview of geographical, demographic, linguistic, historical and economic on the kingdom of Ugarit, we studied successively ebony, pine and fir, cedar, juniper, cypress, boxwood, ¶Rgz, palm-tree, olive-tree, ñlmg-wood and vineyard, the vine and its products .We started each chapter with a botanical and linguistical identification. We tried to locate what were the areas that were the main sources of these natural resources. Then, we established a historical overview on the trade in products from trees and transportation. We tried to clarify their nature, quantity, quality, weight and price in Ugarit and outside. Finally, we examined the various uses and their role in craft, medicine, religion and magic. In doing so, we could also approach the symbolic value of these trees and woods.

Considéré comme un tournant dans l'histoire de la Syrie moderne, les raisons qui ont conduit Housni al-Zaim, Commandant des Forces Armées Syriennes en 1949, à effectuer son coup contre le président Kouatli, ce qui l’a conduit à prendre les décisions qui ont été les siennes sur le plan syrien mais surtout au niveau de la géopolitique moyen-orientale, restent ouvertes aux interprétations. L'objectif de cette thèse de doctorat est de fournir une nouvelle interprétation historique de l'interaction entre le principal protagoniste du premier coup d’Etat en Syrie, Housni al-Zaim, d'une part, et les acteurs moyen-orientaux et internationaux d'autre part, à travers l'étude de sources précédemment inexploitées et le réexamen de certaines déjà étudiées. Méthodologiquement, nous employons l'approche de Collingwood, « l’histoire étant le vécu, par l’historien, des pensées passées de son sujet d’étude », en nous penchant ainsi sur la reconstruction progressive des expériences de tous ceux qui furent impliqués dans les évènements du premier coup d’Etat de 1949, pour pouvoir nous prononcer sur la nature de la relation et de l’interaction, tout au long du régime d’al-Zaim avec les puissances étrangères, et jusqu’à quel point cette relation et interaction a-t-elle influencé le déroulement des événements. Notre étude s'appuie sur un large éventail de sources qui compose ainsi notre inventaire, et qui comprendra le plus grand nombre de mémoires et témoignages de personnalités et d'acteurs-clés rédigés en langue arabe, complétés par des rapports des services de renseignements libanais et américains, ainsi que par des documents d’archives diplomatiques françaises, britanniques et américaines. / Although considered to be a turning point in the history of modern Syria, the reasons that led Housni al-Zaim, the commander of the Syrian Armed Forces in 1949, to effectuate his coup against President Kouatli, as well as the reasons that led him to take the decisions he did in the course of his reign, decisions that both impacted Syria and Middle Eastern geopolitics, remained open to speculation. The objective of this doctoral dissertation is to provide a new historical interpretation of the interaction between Syria’s first coup d’Etat’s main protagonist – Husni al-Zaim, on one hand, and the regional and international actors on the other, an interaction that has long been a matter of discussion and speculation, through the study of previously untapped sources and the re-examination of some that have already been studied. Methodologically, we are employing Collingwood’s approach of history as the historian’s re-living of his subject’s past experience, by using a select number of sources to understand al-Zaim’s approach towards regional and international relations, in an attempt to first reconstruct the personal experiences of al-Zaim, and as much as possible, all of those of the protagonists of the events that his rule witnessed, so as to finally give our verdict on the extent to which this interaction with foreign actors influenced the turn of the events that his rule witnessed. Our study draws on a wide range of sources making up our inventory, which includes the largest number of memoirs and testimonies of key figures and actors written in Arabic, complemented with Lebanese and American intelligence reports, as well as with French, British and American diplomatic documents.