Sadallah Wannous (1941-1997), a leading Syrian playwright, was concerned in his political theater with preaching democracy and raising the awareness of the masses in order to have more involvement in the public arena. His drama was hurdled with censorship and he had to find indirect ways in his plays to instigate opposition. This article investigates whether the lack of freedom of expression curbs the creativity of the dramatist. My aim is to study and evaluate the dramatic techniques Wannous used in his attempt to circumvent censorship. This is mainly done through a critique of his plays in the light of my textual analysis, Wannous’s statements in his non dramatic writing and available literary criticism. Wannous’s polemical play An Evening for the fifth of June (1967-8) was banned after the first performance. Two later plays were chosen for this study; The King’s Elephant (1969) and The King is King (1977). In both plays, Wannous analyzed the nature of authoritarianism and the psyche of the repressed majority, and urged for dissent in far fetched plots that do not directly reflect the status quo. To do so, he made extensive use of fables, folk tales, allegory and symbolism. By exploring new theatrical modes, Wannous was able, not only to politicize the masses, but also to produce high quality art that is thought-provoking and entertaining at the same time. For the purpose of economy I limited my article to two plays. However The Adventure of the Slave Jaber’s Head (1970) is very pertinent to the main question herein and can be added later in a more extended book-length study.

With the ‘return of the state’ in Syria, Assad’s ‘resilience’ is a puzzle increasingly broached in both media and academic discourses. This article seeks to turn such an approach on its head, examining the resilience not of the state, but of bottom-up Syrian popular mobilization and organization. Persistent if changing Syrian civic modes and practices are thus mediated by conflict, but also part and parcel of ongoing resistance against the authoritarian state. A survey of Syrians’ ‘revolutionary’ media landscape reveals a set of shifting emphases. Appeals soliciting global support for an uprising seeking freedom and dignity give way to lamentations over disappointed yet tenacious Syrian aspirations. The article then explores Syrian ‘democratic learning’ through a mini-case study of opposition-controlled local councils. Drawing on original interview data, it argues that these councils exhibit ‘civic resilience’ as they navigate and adopt international norms discourses to protest and resist not just Assad but also international actors, and gradually take up democratic processes including elections. Despite uncertainty with respect to its institutional dividends in Syria, ‘democratic learning’ is a promising, understudied area for further exploration in the bloody politics of the country’s uprising.

Migrant communities’ homeland‐oriented political campaigns are always related to, but often different from, the activism in which local people engage in their homeland setting. In seeking to understand the observed disparities between migrant campaigns and homeland activism, several studies have demonstrated the influence of contextual factors like political opportunity structures on homeland‐oriented migrant politics. Complementing these studies are works that focus on changes to identity and belonging associated with migration and resettlement. In this article, I build on these debates by offering a combined analysis of the intersections between, and interplay of, contextual and identity‐based factors. I use this analytical approach to examine the case of Sudanese political activists resident in the UK. I demonstrate how forms of belonging emerge here as part of – and not in isolation from – the strategic navigations of multiple political contexts and opportunities. In doing so, I contribute to our understanding of how belonging can be contextualized to serve as an analytical lens for understanding homeland‐oriented migrant activism.

This article explores the impact of the 25 January protests in Egypt on a specific group of people who continue to struggle for social and political change: the UK-based Egyptian diaspora. Through an exploration of diaspora politics, the article sheds light on how UK activists challenge dominant approaches to democracy and democratization. The author argues that this case of diaspora politics calls for a continued inquiry into what democracy is and how it is imagined, particularly in transnational contexts.