Here is an essay I wrote last year for my "Power, Privilege, and Oppression" class at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. I think it's worth sharing, so have a look and see what you think.
Intersectionality
and Injustice in the Wartime Economy of Aleppo
by Sean O’Keefe, May 10, 2013
Introduction
The countryside is the heartland of the Syrian Revolution.
Between the first protests in Dar‘aa in March 2011 and the beginning of the armed
anti-regime insurgency in October 2011, the uprising’s primary mode of
resistance was mass protest and civil disobedience in rural areas and outlying
suburbs. By the time the insurgency began, according to the UN, President
Bashar al-Asad’s regime had killed over 3,000 Syrian civilians (BBC, 2011). Yet
only two of Syria’s seven largest cities, Hama and Homs, experienced sustained
popular resistance in 2011. By May 2012, when the Houla Massacre and the
breakdown of a UN-sponsored truce signaled the beginning of full-scale civil
war, there were already 10,000 civilian dead and 60,000 refugees in neighboring
countries. In the past year, about 60,000 Syrian civilians have died, according
to UN estimates (Khera, 2012). Today, 1.4 million Syrians are refugees and even
more are internally displaced inside Syria itself. By the end of 2013, the UN
projects, three million Syrians will be refugees and 4.5 million will be
displaced inside Syria itself (UNCHR, 2013). The result has been one of the
greatest human tragedies of the twenty-first century.
