Publication: El proceso revolucionario y el conflicto armado sirio a través de su ciudadanía. El storytelling de los carteles del pueblo de Kafranbel
Loading...
Identifiers
Publication date
2021-09-14
Defense date
2021-07-13
Authors
Advisors
Tutors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Impact
Export
Abstract
Si observamos la cronología del conflicto sirio, desde las protestas pacíficas en 2011 hasta la guerra abierta que vivió el país hasta finales de 2018, llama la atención la gran cantidad de información producida en este período, que contrasta con las décadas anteriores de silencio informativo. Durante décadas de dictadura de los Asad en Siria, poco se supo de este país ubicado en el epicentro de una región estratégica y sacudida por guerras, ocupaciones y golpes de estado. La represión ejercida por la familia que ostentaba el poder había resultado en un país hermético que aislaba a su ciudadanía y que apenas recibía cobertura, con la excepción de cuestiones puntuales vinculadas a la geoestrategia internacional. A partir de marzo de 2011, en el contexto de las movilizaciones bautizadas como “Primavera Árabe” que se extendieron por Oriente Próximo y el norte de África y que encontraron en Siria una de sus máximas expresiones, tanto la propia población siria como el resto del mundo pudieron asomarse a la realidad de lo que hasta entonces había sido un país en el que todas las instituciones sufrían un fuerte control y que reprimía con brutalidad cualquier forma de disidencia. La dificultad de comprender las claves del conflicto sirio que se desarrolló en los años posteriores remite en a medida a esas largas décadas de silencio casi absoluto en torno a Siria. En 2011, el país pasó en pocos meses de ser un agujero negro informativo a ser “el conflicto más mediado de la historia” (O’Callaghan et al., 2014), con un flujo incesante de contenidos producido en su mayoría por la propia ciudadanía, ansiosa de canalizar unas necesidades expresivas reprimidas durante décadas. Sin embargo, estos contenidos no siempre contaban con un contexto que permitiera su comprensión al resto del mundo. Frente a una cantidad ingente de mensajes, vídeos e imágenes, muchos de ellos muy gráficos y violentos, difíciles de procesar y contextualizar, se impusieron discursos centrados en aspectos militares y geoestratégicos. A medida que las manifestaciones pacíficas devenían en un levantamiento armado tras la brutal represión del régimen, avanzaba una batalla por la hegemonía del país condicionada por la influencia de las distintas potencias –estadounidense, rusa, iraní, saudí, turca–, una influencia que se impuso también en el ámbito mediático eclipsando las cuestiones internas y las motivaciones, avances e iniciativas de la propia ciudadanía siria. A la ausencia de contexto para comprender un país aislado durante décadas se sumó la propaganda desplegada tanto por el régimen como por distintos grupos de la oposición, en una batalla por la legitimidad recrudecida en paralelo a los enfrentamientos sobre el terreno. Ante el ruido y la propaganda mediática, y sin corresponsales internacionales que pudieran retransmitir la realidad sobre el terreno, las voces de la población siria continuaron narrando su propia realidad, pero con un eco mediático e internacional que se mitigaba a medida que el conflicto se enquistaba. A pesar de los discursos oficiales y de la tendencia a la militarización que copaba la cobertura mediática, proliferaron los proyectos de construcción y reconstrucción sobre el terreno. Se sucedieron las campañas que denunciaban tanto los abusos del régimen como de los distintos grupos extremistas que buscaban imponer sus propias agendas sobre la población local. Surgieron un gran número de iniciativas ciudadanas impregnadas de creatividad y florecimiento artístico que rompieron con las largas décadas de represión y censura. Entre estos esfuerzos destaca la comunicación, sostenida desde el inicio del levantamiento, de un pequeño pueblo del norte de Siria, en la provincia de Idlib: Kafranbel. Un pueblo cuya actividad lo colocó en el centro de la diana de los ataques, primero del régimen y, una vez liberado de este, de distintos grupos extremistas que buscaron ocupar su lugar. Este trabajo de investigación se centra en un aspecto no explorado que creemos de gran importancia en el contexto mediático actual: partiendo de la relevancia de Kafranbel, realizamos una cronología a través de la recopilación y organización de los carteles existentes, o de los que hemos podido identificar en el largo proceso de búsqueda por distintos canales y plataformas de internet, y analizamos las claves y rasgos característicos del “storytelling digital” de este pueblo, paradigmático del contexto sirio. O, dicho de otro modo, de la comunicación sostenida en el tiempo a través de la voz colectiva, y “desde abajo”, del pueblo de Kafranbel. Partimos en esta investigación de la importancia del acercamiento a la guerra “desde abajo”, tal como lo plantea Joshka Wessels en Syrian masquerades of war (Wessels, 2015), donde analiza cómo los habitantes de Kafranbel proporcionan un análisis desde la base de cuestiones que a menudo se analizan sin contar con la relevancia de las dinámicas internas y sus consecuencias en quienes las sufren. También del trabajo desarrollado por Christine Sylvester, cuyo libro War as experience (La guerra como experiencia) ha sido un gran hallazgo a la hora de encauzar esta investigación. Sylvester enfatiza la necesidad empírica de promover acercamientos a la guerra que partan de las personas que la sufren (“study up”), en lugar de los acercamientos dominados por las élites, los estados y las estructuras de poder (“study down”) (Sylvester, 2013, p. 109). Esta visión “desde abajo” ha sido, según la autora, tradicionalmente descuidada en su ámbito de especialización, las Relaciones Internacionales, y consideramos de gran importancia, para una mejor comprensión del mundo y en particular de los conflictos, ponerla en valor también el ámbito que ocupa esta investigación.
El asesinato a finales de 2018 de Raed Fares y Hammod Junaid, dos de los artífices de los carteles elaborados desde Kafranbel, a la vez que el anuncio de las autoridades locales y geopolíticas del “fin de la guerra”, marcaron el fin de un ciclo y dieron paso a otro en el que destaca la recuperación del territorio por parte del régimen sirio y sus aliados geoestratégicos. Desde este contexto de re-normalización del régimen, y de creciente incomprensión o indiferencia hacia la realidad de la población siria, ofrecemos un análisis del comienzo del proceso revolucionario y de su evolución a través de la voz colectiva y “desde abajo”, del pueblo de Kafranbel.
If we look at the chronology of the Syrian conflict, from the peaceful protests in 2011 until the open war the country suffered until late 2018, we notice the huge amount of information produced during this period, which contrasts with the fifty previous years of information vacuum. For decades under the Assad regime, little was known about this country located in the epicenter of a strategic region, shaken by wars, occupations and coups. The repression exercised by the ruling family resulted in the country being shut off from the rest of the world and rarely got any media coverage, with the exception of issues related to international geopolitics. After March 2011, in the context of the mobilisations named by media as the “Arab Spring” which spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa region and reached Syria, both the Syrian people and the rest of the world could get a glimpse at the reality of a country that suffered severecontrol and where any form of dissident was brutally repressed. The fact that Syria was, and continues to be, a difficult conflict to understand is linked to those long decades of nearly absolute silence. In 2011, the country went from being an information black hole to “the most mediatized conflict in history” in just a few months (O’Callaghan et al., 2014), providing a constant flow of content produced mostly by citizens, eager to channel expressive needs that had been long repressed. However, this content didn’t always include context that allowed the rest of the world to understanding it. As a huge number of messages, videos, images, many of them extremely graphic and difficult to process and contextualize, continued to be produced, discourses focused on military and geopolitical aspects started gaining ground. As the peaceful demonstrations became an armed uprising after the brutal repression unleashed against protesters, a battle for the control of the country continued to develop under the influence of major powers –US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey…, an influence that was captured by media, eclipsing internal dynamics and motivations, advances and initiatives by Syrian civil society. In addition to the absence of context to understand a country isolated for fifty years, the propaganda displayed by the regime and by different opposition groups escalated, feeding a media battle in parallel to the confrontations on the ground. With so much noise and propaganda, and with few foreign correspondents to share the reality from the ground, a diversity of voices from the Syrian people continued to share their own reality, but with less and less international and media amplification. Despite official discourses and the tendency to militarization that captured media attention, projects of building and rebuilding continued to happen on the ground. Campaigns were launched xi by activists denouncing both abuses by the regime and by different extremist groups that tried to impose their agendas on the local population. A great number of citizen initiatives were born, full of creativity and artistic flourishing that broke with the long decades of censorship. Among these efforts there is the communication, sustained from the beginning of the uprising, of a small town in northern Syria, in the Idlib province: Kafranbel, a town that became the target of attacks, first by the Syrian regime and, after the town liberated itself from the regime, by extremist groups trying to fill its place. This research focuses on an unexplored aspect that we consider of key relevance in the current media context: the “digital storytelling” of the town of Kafranbel. We offer a chronology of the existing banners through different internet channels and platforms and analyze the characteristics of the town’s “digital storytelling”. In other words, we focus on the sustained communication of the war “from below” through the collective voice of a small Syrian town. A key idea that our research revolves around stems from the approach to war studies “from below”, as Joshka Wessels poses on Syrian masquerades of war (Wessels, 2015), where she analyses how the people of Kafranbel offer insights on internal dynamics and the consequences of the war on those who suffer it. Equally relevant is the work of Christine Sylvester, whose book War as experience has been key in channeling this research in a fruitful direction. Sylvester emphasizes the empirical need to promote approaches to war that stem from those who suffer it (“study up”) as opposed to those dominated by the elites, states and power structures (“study down”) (Sylvester, 2013, p. 109). This view “from below” has been traditionally dismissed in the author’s area of work, International Relations. We consider it key to a better understanding of the world, and of conflicts in particularly, and have chosen to apply it in our research area: Communications. The assassination of Raed Fares and Hammod Junaid, two of the most relevant actors in Kafranbel’s storytelling process, at the end of 2018, coincided with the announcement by the Syrian regime and its allies of the “end of the war”. This marked the end of a cycle and gave way to another period, marked by the regime recovering most of the territory it had lost, including the town of Kafranbel. From this context of re-normalization of the regime, and increasing misunderstanding or indifference to the reality suffered by the Syrian population, we offer an analysis of the beginning of the revolutionary process and its evolution through a powerful collective voice from “below”.
If we look at the chronology of the Syrian conflict, from the peaceful protests in 2011 until the open war the country suffered until late 2018, we notice the huge amount of information produced during this period, which contrasts with the fifty previous years of information vacuum. For decades under the Assad regime, little was known about this country located in the epicenter of a strategic region, shaken by wars, occupations and coups. The repression exercised by the ruling family resulted in the country being shut off from the rest of the world and rarely got any media coverage, with the exception of issues related to international geopolitics. After March 2011, in the context of the mobilisations named by media as the “Arab Spring” which spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa region and reached Syria, both the Syrian people and the rest of the world could get a glimpse at the reality of a country that suffered severecontrol and where any form of dissident was brutally repressed. The fact that Syria was, and continues to be, a difficult conflict to understand is linked to those long decades of nearly absolute silence. In 2011, the country went from being an information black hole to “the most mediatized conflict in history” in just a few months (O’Callaghan et al., 2014), providing a constant flow of content produced mostly by citizens, eager to channel expressive needs that had been long repressed. However, this content didn’t always include context that allowed the rest of the world to understanding it. As a huge number of messages, videos, images, many of them extremely graphic and difficult to process and contextualize, continued to be produced, discourses focused on military and geopolitical aspects started gaining ground. As the peaceful demonstrations became an armed uprising after the brutal repression unleashed against protesters, a battle for the control of the country continued to develop under the influence of major powers –US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey…, an influence that was captured by media, eclipsing internal dynamics and motivations, advances and initiatives by Syrian civil society. In addition to the absence of context to understand a country isolated for fifty years, the propaganda displayed by the regime and by different opposition groups escalated, feeding a media battle in parallel to the confrontations on the ground. With so much noise and propaganda, and with few foreign correspondents to share the reality from the ground, a diversity of voices from the Syrian people continued to share their own reality, but with less and less international and media amplification. Despite official discourses and the tendency to militarization that captured media attention, projects of building and rebuilding continued to happen on the ground. Campaigns were launched xi by activists denouncing both abuses by the regime and by different extremist groups that tried to impose their agendas on the local population. A great number of citizen initiatives were born, full of creativity and artistic flourishing that broke with the long decades of censorship. Among these efforts there is the communication, sustained from the beginning of the uprising, of a small town in northern Syria, in the Idlib province: Kafranbel, a town that became the target of attacks, first by the Syrian regime and, after the town liberated itself from the regime, by extremist groups trying to fill its place. This research focuses on an unexplored aspect that we consider of key relevance in the current media context: the “digital storytelling” of the town of Kafranbel. We offer a chronology of the existing banners through different internet channels and platforms and analyze the characteristics of the town’s “digital storytelling”. In other words, we focus on the sustained communication of the war “from below” through the collective voice of a small Syrian town. A key idea that our research revolves around stems from the approach to war studies “from below”, as Joshka Wessels poses on Syrian masquerades of war (Wessels, 2015), where she analyses how the people of Kafranbel offer insights on internal dynamics and the consequences of the war on those who suffer it. Equally relevant is the work of Christine Sylvester, whose book War as experience has been key in channeling this research in a fruitful direction. Sylvester emphasizes the empirical need to promote approaches to war that stem from those who suffer it (“study up”) as opposed to those dominated by the elites, states and power structures (“study down”) (Sylvester, 2013, p. 109). This view “from below” has been traditionally dismissed in the author’s area of work, International Relations. We consider it key to a better understanding of the world, and of conflicts in particularly, and have chosen to apply it in our research area: Communications. The assassination of Raed Fares and Hammod Junaid, two of the most relevant actors in Kafranbel’s storytelling process, at the end of 2018, coincided with the announcement by the Syrian regime and its allies of the “end of the war”. This marked the end of a cycle and gave way to another period, marked by the regime recovering most of the territory it had lost, including the town of Kafranbel. From this context of re-normalization of the regime, and increasing misunderstanding or indifference to the reality suffered by the Syrian population, we offer an analysis of the beginning of the revolutionary process and its evolution through a powerful collective voice from “below”.
Description
Keywords
Kafranbel (Siria), Conflicto armado, Proceso revolucionario, Carteles, Storytelling, Propaganda política