Karel Layla Asha

5 December, 1960. 56 years ago, a day not many today will remember but it was the day our great grandfather Hashem Bek Atassi passed. After an already long career as Ottoman administrator of Beirut, and Governor of Homs, Hama, Baalbek, Anatolia and Jaffa , Hashem helped lay the foundations to build a modern Syrian nation state - the state that began to be destroyed in the years surrounding Hashem's death and has been made into Hell on Earth in the last five by those who see its peoples, cities and cultures as collateral damage. Hashem was President of the Syrian national Congress, three times elected President of Syria and signed the independence Treaty with France. May be peace rest upon his memory and the souls who have lost their lives in Syria - he could ever have imagined what would come to pass. Some pictures of a time gone by - Hashem's state funeral, Prince Philip's visiting him as guest of honour at the Palace in Damascus - his times mentoring Prince Faisal of Iraq, the signing of independence in Paris , the first and last constitutional transition of power in Syrian history , and of course gratuitous Fez pictures from the archives...

A little piece of Virginia Woolf for a cold Saturday ....... because if walking the streets of New York feels like being in a film, then certainly roaming the streets of London on a cold autumn's afternoon must be living in a book...

An abstract of my research in Lebanon conducted with Syrian woman has been published the Council for British Research on the Levant  

Moved by the plight of refugees in Europe, a number of technology industry people have formed a small voluntary team to create the free, non-profit, "Techfugees" conference on October 1st in Central London, at Skillsmatter.

Tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/techfugees-tickets-186499444…

On October 2nd we will be running a "Hackathon" with the Telefonica-backed accelerator, WAYRA, to work on tech solutions and products to aid both refugees and agencies.

Tickets here: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/techfugees-hackathon-tickets-…

We'd like you to come.

The background:

In the last 48 hours our Facebook Group and Twitter account has exploded, with over 700 people from the tech community signing up. There is clearly a huge desire amongst the tech community to get involved.

See: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Techfugees

This will be an entirely non-profit event to bring together tech engineers, entrepreneurs and startups together with NGOs and other agencies in order to address the crisis in ways where the technology world can bring its considerable firepower.

Our partners for the conference and hackathon are Skillsmatter and WAYRA. More partners will be announced soon.

SPEAKERS SO FAR FROM: UNHCR Rewired State Paula Schwarz, StartupBoat Anne Kjær Riechert, Refugees On Rails Marieme Jamme, Africa Gathering Bernhard Niesner, Busuu language-learning startup Marianne Bouchart, HEI-DA Data journalism institute

On October 2nd we will be running a "Hackathon" with the Telefonica-backed accelerator, WAYRA, to work on tech solutions and products to aid both refugees and agencies.

Tickets: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/techfugees-hackathon-tickets-…

The aims of the Hackathon are to start working on products and solutions that can be fed into the I Am Here Hackathon in Berlin, run by Rewired State, on October 3rd. This will increase the chances of tech products being deployed by Winter.

We would like you to come and engage with the tech community so that we can help discuss and build solutions.

We are also looking for sponsors to cover the costs of the event.

Please email [email protected] about the event content and [email protected] to sponsor the costs of the event.

Techfugees Conference WHERE: Skillsmatter at CodeNode, 10 South Place, London, EC2M 7EB MAP: https://goo.gl/maps/8vCHh

WHEN: October 1st 9am - 5.30pm

Lunch and coffee/tea will be served.

ATTENDANCE: 300 people

Very happy and proud of this news -- thanks to everyone who helped fundraise  and raise awareness this year. Do share with your Syrian friends and family who might not otherwise have thought of applying to Oxford this year. And please don’t hesitate to be in touch with me if you are Syrian, applying to Oxford want help with your application. 

Jusoor is very pleased to announce Oxford-Jusoor Graduate Scholarship for Syrian Students St Antony’s College and the University of Oxford, in partnership with Jusoor, are offering one scholarship a year for entry in 2016/17 and 2017/18 to a student who is a Syrian citizen or a stateless person residing in Syria to study for a one year Master’s degree at St Antony’s College in the University of Oxford. The scholarship covers course fees, college fees and a grant for living costs of at least £14,057. Awards are made for the full duration of your fee liability for the agreed course. The scholarship is jointly funded by the University and by Jusoor. The scholarship is only tenable at St Antony’s College. All eligible applicants will be considered for the scholarship, regardless of which college (if any) you state as your preference on the graduate application form. However, successful applicants will be transferred to St Antony’s College in order to take up the scholarship. There is no separate application process for this scholarship: to be considered, submit your application for graduate study by the relevant January deadline (8 or 22 January 2016, depending on your course). Selection is expected to take place in April 2016. Full list of the eligible programs can be found here: https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/prospective-students/fees-and-funding/scholarships-new-students/oxford-jusoor-graduate-scholarship

Remembering September 9, 1936 ... their hopes for immediate independence were dashed only a few months later, but 79 years ago at least there was still hope and vision for Syria as a country. 

New article by Yassin al-Haj Saleh par Yassin Al Haj Saleh

في الوقتِ الذي كان خطرُ تدمير مدينةِ تدمر الأثريّة موضعَ اهتمامٍ عالمي، كان تدميرُ سجنِ تدمر على يدِ تنظيمِ الدولةِ الإسلاميّة موضعَ حديثِ السوريين، لشدّةِ رمزيَّتِه المُشْبَعة بممارساتِ نظامٍ أمنيٍّ هدفُه كسرُ أيَّةِ معارضةٍ كانت وأيَّ فرد كان. نصٌّ شهادة.

Deux images de Palmyre imprègnent l’imaginaire collectif des Syriens. L’évocation de l’une est rarement associée à l’autre. La première nous est enseignée à l’école. C’est celle d’un grand site touristique ; nous voyons les colonnes antiques à la télévision, peut-être même lisons-nous dans les journaux des éléments sur le tourisme annuel qui s’y rapporte. Mais il est un autre Palmyre, invisible : celui de la terrible et effroyable prison qui a semé la terreur parmi les Syriens tout au long des deux dernières décennies du XXe siècle.

Ce double visage de Palmyre est une métaphore de toute la Syrie. Le pays entier se compose de deux mondes dissociés, un premier monde visible où la vie se déroule de manière ordonnée et un monde invisible, enseveli dans l’obscurité, la souffrance et la peur.

Ala Bashir, Iraqi artist and former personal doctor to Saddam Hussein

Akkar, Relief and Reconciliation Peace Centre