While political, social, and economic influences on national, ethnic, and religious groups generally dominate the focus in researchers’ studies of revolution or war, the sway of the arts remains largely overlooked. According to Salam Kawakibi in his “Baathist ‘Culture Shock’: Pre-2011 Syrian Regime Policy in Culture and the Arts,” (scheduled to appear in the forthcoming issue of Al Jadid magazine, Vol. 21, No. 72, 2017), this oversight continues to occur despite the importance of the arts in creating a “collective identity and harmony.” Kawakibi’s essay, which offers an in-depth introduction to Ettijahat’s recently published “Cultural Activities in Syria During the Dark Assadist Years,” states that the arts not only play significant roles in the settlement of civil disputes, effectively “renew [ing]…the social fabric of war-torn countries,” but also build a favorable climate for creativity and expression, a task the state often fails to promote.

“From “Self-Criticism after the Defeat” and later through his monograph “Love, and Platonic Love,” al-Azm engages in refuting myths and justifications, while also rejecting their use in perpetuating various kinds of ideological and political dominations…The correct answer to the question ‘Is Islam compatible with the humanist secular tendency and its components?’ is to call them incompatible if we examine them from the perspective of rigid dogma, but to label them compatible if we look at them from a historical perspective."