Kelly Green
Spyer, J. (2012 June). Defying a dictator: meet the free Syrian army. World Affairs. http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/defying-dictator-meet-free-syrian-army
Spyer talks about the Free Syrian Army and how they are involved in the civil war. He explains that the FSA is a military force fighting against Assad and the countries military. They fight on behalf of the people, they protect them and fight to over power Assad’s regime. Spyer let’s us know that the majority of them are ex soldiers from Assad’s military. He revels the FSA’s challenges like finding supplies such as weapons to help them in the ongoing fight.
The information in this resource relates to my research because it reveals one of the major opposing forces in the civil war. This is a helpful source because it shows what the civilians are doing in order to stand up against the government. It also shows them as a more organized party which contrasts the general impression showed by the media. This article also gives first hand accounts of protest performed the people, which gives me a sense of the nature of this conflict and how tense it really is.
Jackson, D. (2012 June). Lines in the sand: Assad plays the sectarian card. World Affairs. http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/lines-sand-assad-plays-sectarian-card
Jackson talks about the major event that triggered the first violent outbreaks of the civil war in Syria. He surfaces the complexities of this conflict. He discusses the regional and political issues, which ignited the conflict. He also talks about the civil war on an international level as we see different countries begin to take sides. He specifically talks about NATO and President Obama’s administration’s plan of intervention in this conflict.
The information provided was helpful to me because unlike the other material I have read so far Jackson provides background information on how the conflict sparked off. Although he only gives a small aspect of the background it was a starting place for me to do further research. This article also helped me discover larger themes related to my conflict and how the war is affecting the world. The article also gives suggestion of why Assad made the different choices he has and how he thinks in regard to his strategy in this war.
Leenders, R. (2013). Social movement theory and the onset of the popular uprising in Syria. Arab Studies Quarterly. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0a33d186-4f0e-4913-8e6c-57f9a9b64154%40sessionmgr198&vid=20&hid=102
This scholarly article discusses the uprising in Syria particularly starting from 2011. It explains the difficulty that Syria had and is having in starting and in the mobilization of this conflict under their authoritarian government. He also explains how events around them triggered and help Syria and their own uprising. He reveals some pros and cons to social media in regards to Syria’s revolution.
This article is helpful to my research because it gives a pretty good analysis of the uprising in Syria. This article was the only one that I have read so far that looks at different contributing factors outside of the historic backgrounds. It is not a conventional analysis as it talks about social media. I think it is important to find out about many different actors sand his article provided me with a new outlook. The author not only talks about Syria’s revolution but other uprising. He also goes on to talk about other regions under a similar government and the difficulty of starting an uprising. This helped me to further understand the parameters of my conflict and why some things happened how they did.
Salih, K. (2013). The roots and causes of the 2011 Arab uprisings. Arab Studies Quarterly. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9d792db5-ef36-4031-99f0-c6b4ea080bf6%40sessionmgr10&vid=11&hid=16
This article talks about what the Arab uprising were and the causes of the wave of uprisings. The Arab uprising relates to the conflict in Syria because the conflict is one major demonstration of the uprising in the Middle Eastern Islamic regions. The author talks about the peaceful protest of Tunisia as a triggering factor to the uprisings. Salih talks about the uprising as a “restoration of dignity” to the Arab people. He also talks about how the uprisings opposed the political analyst assumption that a country is more successful under authoritarian governments.
I chose to read this article because I wanted to know how my topic related to the Arab uprisings. This article was helpful because it provided background information on the uprisings. Through this article I was able to see similarities and correlations between my conflict and different events that occurred in the Middle East and Arab communities. I was also able to see larger themes of these uprisings and underlying factors like bad economy, poverty, unfair distribution, etc.
Ismael, J. & Ismael, S. (2013). The Arab spring and the uncivil state. Arab Study Quarterly. http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=34f2228e-6e0e-421f-b955-35e9c3c42607%40sessionmgr113&vid=6&hid=107
This article also talks about the Arab uprisings but in a different, broader approach. This article talks about the similarities between Arab uprising and different revolutions around the world and in history (for example the French revolution). the authors discuss similarities between these events. By looking at the similarities they are able to generate possible outcomes of the Arab uprising both negative and positive.
I chose this article in order to not only learn about the uprisings but similar events. I believe that this will help me to better understand my conflict as I look at the events and outcomes of different revolutions around the world. This article helped me to start thinking about post revolution and possible solutions for my paper. I would have liked for this article to talk more about the history of the Arab uprisings dating further back than the Tunisia protest.
Information Literacy: Conflicts 