She was a member of the Syrian National Council until August 2012. Randa Kassis is the former president of the Coalition of Secular and Democratic Syrians and member of the Syrian National Council."Entretien avec Randa Kassis, opposante et intellectuelle syrienne porte-parole de la Coalition des Forces Laïques et membre du Conseil National Syrien" ''France Soir'', 11 November 2011. The Coalition of Secular and Democratic Syrians, the nucleus of a
secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
and democratic Syrian opposition, was created by the union of a dozen Muslim, Christian,
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
and
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
parties, who called upon minorities in Syria to support the fight against the government of Bashar al-Assad."Les partis d'opposition laïcs syriens unissent leurs forces à Paris" Agence France-Presse, 18 September 2011. Kassis believes in the power of minorities and their role in society, especially in Kurds and highlighted in 2013 the importance of involving Kurds in any political process in Syria.
Kassis is no longer a member of the Syrian National Council, having been excluded due to her many declarations alerting the Syrian opposition about the rise of Muslim fundamentalists.
Kassis is also an anthropologist and
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
. She has also published a book called "Crypts of The Gods", which is a book on religions, their origins, and their ways of functioning. Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War on March 15, 2011, she has become a leading commentator on the Syrian Conflict and the wider complexities of the Arab Spring and the future of the Middle East region.
Randa Kassis initiated the Astana platform in 2015 after her request to the President of
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
to form a platform that could assemble moderate Syrian opponents. The first round of the Astana platform was moderated by Kazakh Ambassador Baghdad Amreyev and the opening session was chaired by the Kazakh Minister of Foreign Affairs Erland Idrissov. The second round was moderated by Fabien Baussart, President of the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA).
Randa Kassis participated in the 2016 Geneva Peace Talks under the banner of the Moscow/Astana groups. She is Co-President with
Qadri Jamil
Qadri Jamil ( ar, قدري جميل) is a Syrian politician, media editor and economist. He is one of the top leaders of the People's Will Party and the Popular Front for Change and Liberation,Russian intervention in the civil war.
In 2017, Kassis invited many members of the Syrian opposition, academics and constitutionalists with the help of French constitutionalist expert Xavier Latour, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey Yasar Yakis and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy Giulio Terzi, in order to start drafting a new constitution for Syria.
On 30 January 2018 Randa Kassis, along with other members of the Astana platform, participated in the Syrian National Congress as President of the Astana platform. Kassis emphasized the importance of creating a constitutional committee in order to facilitate the peace process in Syria, which the UN and Astana troika – Russian, Iran and Turkey – later agreed to create.
October 2018, Kassis worked to include many political factions of the opposition to reach a road map to peace. The document was drawn up by representatives of the opposition invited to Rome by Sant'Egidio, an organisation closed to the Vatican.
Bibliography
*''Crypts of the Gods'', Randa Kassis, Editions E- Kutub, 2013 (EN)
*''Le Chaos Syrien'', printemps arabes et minorités face à l'islamisme, Randa Kassis and Alexandre del Valle, Editions Dhow, 2014 (FR)
*''Comprendre le chaos syrien, des révolutions arabes au jihad mondial'', L'Artilleur, coll. Toucan essais, 2016 (FR)
*''La Syrie et le Retour de la Russie,'' Editions des Syrtes, 2018 (FR)
Secularism in Syria A process of secularization in Syria occurred under the French mandate in the 1920s. Syria has been governed by the Arab nationalist Baath Party since 1963. The Baath regime combined Arab Socialism with elements of secular ideology and an authorit ...