Burhan Ghalioun
Burhan Ghalioun (; born 11 February 1945 in Homs, Syria) is a French-Syrian professor of sociology at the Université de Paris III Sorbonne University in Paris, and the first chairman of the Syrian National Council (SNC). He was named chairman on 29 August 2011. His chairmanship was criticized for his perceived closeness to the Muslim Brotherhood, his early reluctance to arm opposition forces, and what opponents called the autocratic nature of his leadership. On 17 May 2012, feeling he had become an increasingly divisive figure for the council, Ghalioun resigned. Early career Born in Homs in 1945, Ghalioun is a Sunni Muslim. He studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Damascus. In 1969, he moved to Paris, where he received a PhD in social science from the University of Paris VIII and another in humanities from Sorbonne University. In the late 1970s, he made a name as an opponent of President Hafez al-Assad by publishing a pamphlet titled "A Manifesto for Democracy". ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Syrian National Council
The Syrian National Council (SNC), sometimes known as the Syrian National Transitional Council or the National Council of Syria, was a Syrian opposition coalition, based in Istanbul, Turkey, formed in August 2011 during the Syrian civil uprising (which escalated into civil war) against the government of Bashar al-Assad. Initially, the council denied seeking to play the role of a government in exile, but this changed a few months later when violence in Syria intensified. The Syrian National Council sought the end of Bashar al-Assad's rule and the establishment of a modern, civil, democratic state. The SNC National Charter lists human rights, judicial independence, press freedom, democracy and political pluralism as its guiding principles. It acted as a conduit by which the factionalised Syrian opposition attracted and distributed money and arms from foreign sponsors. On 28 October 2011, the SNC expressed worries about the Libyan scenario (with the violent overthrow of Muammar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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European Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a European intellectual and philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained through rationalism and empiricism, the Enlightenment was concerned with a wide range of social and political ideals such as natural law, liberty, and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state. The Enlightenment was preceded by and overlapped the Scientific Revolution, which included the work of Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton, among others, as well as the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and John Locke. The dating of the period of the beginning of the Enlightenment can be attributed to the publication of René Descartes' ''Discourse on the Method'' in 1637, with his method of systematically disbelieving everything ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Communism
Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need.: "One widespread distinction was that socialism socialised production only while communism socialised production and consumption." A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the State (polity), state. Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a Libertarian socialism, libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers' self-management, and an authoritarian socialism, authoritarian socialist, vanguardis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Islamism
Islamism is a range of religious and political ideological movements that believe that Islam should influence political systems. Its proponents believe Islam is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to communism, liberal democracy, capitalism, and other alternatives in achieving a just, successful society. The advocates of Islamism, also known as "al-Islamiyyun", are usually affiliated with Islamic institutions or social mobilization movements, emphasizing the implementation of '' sharia'', pan-Islamic political unity, and the creation of Islamic states. In its original formulation, Islamism described an ideology seeking to revive Islam to its past assertiveness and glory, purifying it of foreign elements, reasserting its role into "social and political as well as personal life"; and in particular "reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam" (i.e. Sharia). According to at least one observer (author Robin Wr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nasserism
Nasserism ( ) is an Arab nationalism, Arab nationalist and Arab socialism, Arab socialist List of political ideologies, political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and Egypt's second President of Egypt, President. Spanning the domestic and international spheres, it combines elements of Arab socialism, republicanism, secularism, nationalism, anti-imperialism, Developing country, developing world solidarity, Pan-Arabism, and Non-Aligned Movement, international non-alignment. According to Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Nasserism symbolised "the direction of liberation, socialist transformation, the people’s control of their own resources, and the democracy of the peoples working forces." Many other Arab countries have adopted Nasserist forms of government during the 20th century, most being formed during the 1960s, including Algeria under the National Liberation Front (Algeria), FLN and the Libya ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Local Coordination Committees Of Syria
The Local Coordination Committees of Syria (; LCCSyria or LCCs) were a network of local groups that organise and report on protests as part of the Syrian uprising. In June 2011, the network was described by ''The New York Times'' as beginning to "emerge as a pivotal force" in Syria. , the network supported civil disobedience and opposed local armed resistance and international military intervention as methods of opposing the Syrian government. Creation The Local Coordination Committees of Syria started in March 2011 from local groups that published reports about protests during the Syrian uprising and developed into a national network involved in journalism about protests and the protests themselves. The groups had developed from informal networks of friends and colleagues involved in dissidence that had existed for many years. Prior to the uprising, Syrian activists had brought in mobile telephones, satellite modems and computers in anticipation of Arab Spring protests developi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Free Syrian Army
The Free Syrian Army (FSA; ) is a Big tent, big-tent coalition of decentralized Syrian opposition (2011–2024), Syrian opposition rebel groups in the Syrian civil war founded on 29 July 2011 by Colonel Riad al-Asaad and six officers who defected from the Syrian Armed Forces. The officers announced that the immediate priority of the Free Syrian Army was to safeguard the lives of protestors and civilians from the Syrian revolution#Crackdown, deadly crackdown by Bashar al-Assad's security apparatus; with the ultimate goal of accomplishing the objectives of the Syrian revolution, namely, the end to the decades-long reign of the ruling Assad dynasty, al-Assad family. (Pages 6, 14–17.) In late 2011, the FSA was the main Syrian military defectors group. Initially a formal military organization at its founding, its original command structure dissipated by 2016, and the FSA identity was later used by several different Syrian opposition to Bashar al-Assad, Syrian opposition groups. T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Al Akhbar (Lebanon)
''Al Akhbar'' (; ) is a daily Arabic language newspaper published in a semi tabloid format in Beirut. The newspaper's writers have included Ibrahim Al Amine, As'ad AbuKhalil, Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Sharmine Narwani, Pierre Abi Saab, and Amer Mohsen. Until 2015, it also had an English version published on the Internet. It is pro-Hezbollah and in general opposes Saudi Arabia, the United States, the Future Movement, and the March 14 Alliance. History and profile The newspaper began to be published and distributed in 2006, and is registered with the same license of the paper of the same name, established in 1953, owned by ''Akhbar Beirut'' S.A.L. (News of Beirut). It was established by the late Joseph Samaha (a leftist intellectual and former editor-in-chief of ''As-Safir'') and Ibrahim Al Amin (also a leftist journalist and political analyst). A 2009 survey by Ipsos Stat established that the daily is among the five most popular newspapers in Beirut. In December 2010, ''Al Akhba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abdulrazak Eid
Abdulrazak Eid, (Arabic:عبد الرزاق عيد; born September 10, 1950) is a Syrian writer and thinker and one of Syria's leading reformers. He helped to found the Committees of Civil Society in Syria, drafted the Statement of 1000 and helped to draft the Damascus Declaration. Because of his opposition writings and political actions, he was arrested many times in Syria, banned from working and traveling, kidnapped by the Syrian intelligence forces, and was threatened with being assassinated. He fled Syria in 2008 for exile in Europe where he was elected president of the National Council of Damascus Declaration in exile. Childhood and education Eid was born on September 10, 1950, in the small city of Ariha, Syria, where he spent the first five years of his childhood before moving with his family to Aleppo. He finished his undergraduate studies in Arabic Literature at Aleppo University in 1974. In 1978, he traveled to France to continue his studies, where he received a di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antalya Conference For Change In Syria
The Conference for Change in Syria (), or Antalya Opposition Conference, was a three-day convention (meeting), conference of representatives of the Syrian opposition (2011–2024), Syrian opposition held from 31 May until 3 June 2011 in Antalya, Turkey. Since the early days of the Civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War, Syrian civil uprising, it was the second of its kind, following the Istanbul Meeting for Syria that had taken place on 26 April 2011. Organized by Ammar al-Qurabi's ''National Organization for Human Rights in Syria'' and financed by the wealthy Damascene Sanqar family, it led to a final statement refusing compromise or reform solutions, and to the election of a 31-member leadership. Background More than two months into the uprising, the death toll had reached 1,000. So after the April 2011 Istanbul Meeting for Syria, Istanbul Meeting had only resulted in a first joint declaration, a second meeting was envisioned to form a permanent committee, that was likened ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Arab Spring
The Arab Spring () was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings, and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began Tunisian revolution, in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation. From Tunisia, the protests initially spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Rulers were deposed (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt all in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012) and major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ''Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam, ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an- ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Damascus Declaration
The Damascus Declaration () was a statement of unity by Syrian opposition figures issued in October 2005. It criticized the Assad regime as "authoritarian, totalitarian and cliquish," and called for "peaceful, gradual," reform "founded on accord, and based on dialogue and recognition of the other."Wright, Robin, ''Dreams and shadows, the Future of the Middle East'', Penguin Press, 2008, p.232-4 The five-page document was signed by more than 250 major opposition figures as well as parties "both secular and religious, Arab and Kurdish." It was considered important that the statement included the Muslim Brotherhood group of Syria, in addition to secular groups.The statement called for a "fair solution for the Kurdish issue in Syria in a way insures the equality of Kurds with all other Syrian citizens". Syrian journalist and activist Michel Kilo launched the declaration, after the Syrian writer and thinker Abdulrazak Eid had written its first draft. Riad Seif, another democracy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |