In this difficult context, through different mechanisms, the artists engage with the consequences of war to restore social cohesion, stimulate imagination and revive hope.
A U.S.-backed Syrian soldier reacts as an airstrike hits territory held by Islamic State militants outside Baghouz, Syria, in February 2019. The Islamic State group has been reduced from its self-proclaimed caliphate that once spread across much of Syria and Iraq at its height in 2014 to a speck of land on the countries’ shared border.
(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Its defeat in Syria may now give way to new dangers.
In Khan Sheikhoun, Idlib province, on February 26, 2019: a man holds the body of his daughter, killed in a bombardment by pro-Assad forces.
Anas Al-Dyab/AFP
Giving up means giving the Assad regime and Russia both a strategic and intellectual victory with incalculable consequences for global security.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, left, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, right, in the Israeli-held Golan Heights on March 11, 2019.
Ronen Zvulun/Pool via AP
The US president’s tweet declaring the US would recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian territory was unexpected and will do nothing for regional stability.
The revolution begun by Syrians exactly eight years ago has been won – by the murderous leader they rebelled against. But the struggle for freedom, dignity and justice Syrians launched is not over.
Syrian anti-government protesters march as part of an uprising against the country’s authoritarian regime, in Banias, Syria, April 17, 2011. The Arabic banner at center reads: ‘All of us would die for our country.’
AP/Anonymous
On the eighth anniversary of the Syrian uprising, scholar Wendy Pearlman writes about the people who risked their lives and raised their voices to fight the oppressive rule of Bashar al-Assad.
Iraqi federal police at a site during the battle at Dawasa district in Mosul city, Iraq, May 24 2017. Mosul was hit by bombing raids against IS.
AHMED JALIL/EPA
The Ministry of Defence says the RAF killed or injured 4,315 enemy fighters in Iraq and Syria over a period with only one civilian casualty. Why do other organisations have very different numbers?
Aid from UNICEF being distributed to Syrian refugees at a flooded camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Jan. 10, 2019.
AP/Bilal Hussein
The Syrian civil war has ended, but there are millions of Syrian refugees living in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. With danger from a hostile regime back in Syria, what will happen to them now?
Three British teenagers, including Shamima Begum, center, left the U.K. to join the Islamic State in 2015. Begum wants to return home now.
AP/Metropolitan Police
David Malet, American University School of Public Affairs
Many of the men and women who left homes in the West to join ISIS or similar terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq as fighters or supporters now want to come home. Should they be allowed back?
Women and children, reportedly the family of Islamic State fighters, at the Roj refugee camp in Hasakah, Syria in late February.
Murtaja Lateef/EPA
Iraq beat the Islamic State. Now, its Shia government is jailing and even executing all suspected terrorists – most of them Sunni Muslims. The clampdown may inflame a centuries-old sectarian divide.
A handout photo of Shamima Begum, who left London in 2015 to join Islamic State.
Metropolitan Police/PA Wire
Keeping the water and power on, managing sewers and collecting garbage will help communities shattered by the Syrian civil war rebuild – and keep out the Islamic State, says a former aid official.
President Donald Trump speaks at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq.
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Associate Professor in Islamic Studies, Director of The Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation and Executive Member of Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University