The conversation starts from Syrians’ experiences of non-citizenship within their own homeland – specifically, the denial of citizenship to a significant portion of the Syrian Kurdish population in the northeastern al-Hasaka region (from 1962 to 2011), and the experience of “undefined nationality” among Syrian communities remaining in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights (al-Jolan). While these cases differ in important ways – the former involves the denial of national citizenship, and the latter reflects a form of colonial incorporation – the discussion explores their shared significance for the Syrian national imaginary, both as a historical reality and as an evolving challenge, and whether they hold relevance to evolving Syrian (and other) experiences in the diaspora.
Munir Fakher Eldin is the Arab Center Associate Professor of Social Sciences and Humanities at Birzeit University. He was a EUME Fellow of the Forum Transregionale Studien in 2009/2010 and returns as a EUME Fellow in the current academic year. He is the chief editor of the fourth edition of The General Survey of Israel (2020), published by the Institute for Palestine Studies, and the co-editor of The Untold Story of the Golan Heights: Occupation, Colonization, and Jawlani Resistance (I.B. Tauris, 2023). Currently, he is working on a manuscript about British colonial intervention in the land regime in Palestine.
Guevara Namer is a Berlin-based documentary filmmaker and visual artist who began her career in Damascus in 2007. Her work explores themes of feminism, identity, and exile. She is also an experienced panelist and consultant on MENA cinema, with a focus on socio-political artistic storytelling.
This event will be held in a hybrid format. For in-person attendance, please register in via eume(at)trafo-berlin.de. For online participation, please note the login details for Zoom:
https://zoom.us/j/94067499839?pwd=Q7OKR6tUWF5FiaWacACWptZaA27ryI.1
Meeting ID: 940 6749 9839
Passcode: 751520
This seminar is part of the open lecture series “Syria at a Crossroads”, organized jointly by the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies at Philipps-Universität Marburg, the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM) in Tunis, and Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe (EUME).