Join author Dr. Montassir Sakhi on Wednesday, November 6 at William Doo Auditorium from 5 – 7 PM for a free public lecture as he presents his recently published book Revolution and Jihad: Syria, France and Belgium by La Découverte, with a preface by Olivier Roy.
Revolution and Jihad: Syria, France and Belgium
Revolution and Jihad; Syria, France and Belgium explores how ordinary individuals experienced their commitments, marked by the transcendence of partisan organizations and the unlikely rapprochement between Islamists and the left.
After the Syrian population’s uprising against the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in 2011, its brutal repression drove many revolutionaries to take up arms. The involvement of groups claiming political Islam and foreign interference rendered the conflict increasingly opaque, culminating in the emergence of the Islamic State in 2014, which centered religion as the core of a policy of terror. This led a small, misguided minority of young Europeans to join the revolution and carry out devastating suicide attacks in France and Belgium in 2015 and 2016.
In an effort to make sense of these tragic chains of events, ideological interpretations focusing on the ‘radicalization’ of political Islam have often dominated. This is where the importance of this book lies, as it is based on testimonies from key actors—Syrian revolutionaries and ‘jihad migrants’—collected by the author between 2015 and 2023 in the Middle East and Europe.
The book explores how ordinary individuals experienced their commitments, marked by the transcendence of partisan organizations and the unlikely rapprochement between Islamists and the left. These testimonies recount the meaning of their actions, from the initial peaceful mobilization to revolutionary warfare. They illuminate the role of religious symbolism in the Syrian revolution and in the motivations of approximately 2,500 young French and Belgians, largely from postcolonial immigrant backgrounds, who became new ‘internationalists’ joining the revolution in the wake of the Arab Spring.
Overall, this offers an unparalleled perspective on the unique confrontation between two utopian forces in the fight against dictatorship: the positive force supporting the revolutionary cause and the negative force fueling the fascism of a theocratic state.
Author
Dr. Montassir Sakhi
Dr. Montassir Sakhi, anthropologist is a current postdoctoral fellow at KU Leuven (Belgium). His research focuses on post-2011 mobilisation in the Arab world, European migration to jihad, and repressive migration and security policies in Europe. He published “La révolution et le djihad : Syrie, France, Belgique”, (ed. La découverte, 2023)
Event Details
Book Presentation with Dr. Montassir Sakhi – Revolution and Jihad: Syria, France and Belgium
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
5 PM – 7 PM ET
William Doo Auditorium, New College – 45 Willcocks Street, Toronto (doors open at 4:45 PM)
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This event is funded by the New College Initiatives Fund (NCIF) and we would like to thank NCIF and Critical Studies in Equity and Solidarity (CSES) for their collaboration.
