Before headlines, before labels, and before 2011, there was a country steeped in culture, memory, and humanity.

In this first episode of Confused About Syria, we leave behind the all-too-common conflict framing to talk about Syria as a place of beauty and diversity – its people, landscapes, identities, and daily life – and consider why understanding this is crucial to making sense of everything that played out in recent years.

Drawing on personal experiences, lived encounters, and years of working across the region, we reflect on first impressions of Syria, reconcile reality with outside narratives, and recall how fear, repression, beauty, humour, and survival have long coexisted. We talk about Syria’s social fabric and regional connectedness and the dangers of reducing people to simplified labels in moments of crisis.

This episode is an invitation to slow down, unpack assumptions, and engage with Syrian society prior to the contemporary conflict, the full understanding of which cannot be understood without such a foundation.

🎧 In this episode:

• Syria beyond war-time headlines
• Culture, identity, and diversity
• Geography and regional connections
• How fear and choice shape everyday life
• Why labels fail people living through conflict

This is the first of a five-episode series.
Next episode: how 2011 unfolded and why it didn’t start in a vacuum.

• Khaled Khalifa, No Knives in the Kitchens of This City
• Akram Fouad Khater, The Syrian People: A History

• Alia Malek, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria 
• Martha Neff Kessler, Syria: Fragile Mosaic of Power
• Jordi Tejel, Syria’s Kurds: History, Politics and Society