A Syria writer, author of nine books on Syria’s political and social structures, contemporary Islamism, sectarianism, prison and atrocities, intellectuals and cultural life. A founding member of aljumhuriya.net. Lives in Berlin.

Project:

I will be working to elaborate the idea of manual rule, which I consider characteristic of the Assad regime in Syria, and which is shared by the militant Islamists. Manual rule refers to the systematic use of torture to govern societies. Bodies of the population are violently targeted by those in power in order to deter them from organization and protest, and to reduce them to obedient subjects. Manual rule stands in opposition to what can be called mental rule, which refers to the biopower of M. Foucault, and his disciplinary society. Manual rule replaces politics by sovereignty, in the Schmidtian meaning of deciding about the exception, and in the Foucauldian meaning of making die or letting live. The political change in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries will not be really revolutionary unless manual rule becomes a thing of the past.