Campaign residen the P -litics - Princeton University
Campaign residen the P -litics - Princeton University
Campaign residen the P -litics - Princeton University
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P<br />
42<br />
IN AUGUST 2011, SYRIAN SECURITY<br />
AGENTS RAIDED A PRIVATE HOME<br />
IN ALEPPO, THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST<br />
CITY, AND ARRESTED ACTIVISTS WHO<br />
HAD BEEN USING FACEBOOK — POST-<br />
ING WITH FAKE NAMES — TO PLAN<br />
MEETINGS AND DEMONSTRATIONS IN<br />
THE ONGOING UPRISING AGAINST<br />
SYRIAN PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD.<br />
THE PROTESTERS WERE DETAINED<br />
FOR WEEKS.<br />
THEY<br />
HAD BEEN<br />
WORKING<br />
WITH<br />
PRINCETON<br />
DOCTORAL<br />
CANDIDATE<br />
AND SYRIAN<br />
NATIVE<br />
KARAM<br />
NACHAR,<br />
WHO — WHEN HE’S NOT WORKING ON<br />
HIS DISSERTATION — IS ONE OF THE<br />
UPRISING’S MOST PROMINENT CYBER-<br />
ACTIVISTS, SPENDING HOURS ON<br />
SKYPE TO VET PROTESTERS HOPING<br />
TO JOIN SEVERAL SECRET FACEBOOK<br />
GROUPS HE MANAGES AND WEEDING<br />
OUT POTENTIAL OPERATIVES OF<br />
ASSAD’S REGIME.<br />
A few months later, Nachar is recalling <strong>the</strong> horrible day<br />
from a far safer place: a Starbucks across from Columbia<br />
<strong>University</strong> in Manhattan. Around him, students line up to<br />
purchase lattes and cappuccinos; <strong>the</strong> shop has a pleasant,<br />
peaceful air. Nachar is not thinking of pleasantries, however.<br />
“One of my good friends got arrested and was savagely tortured.<br />
I felt awful,” he says. “This is something we activists<br />
abroad think about. There’s always this guilt we have that no<br />
matter how much we pay in our daily life — in terms of not<br />
getting our jobs or studies done — ultimately, we’re not<br />
May 16, 2012 <strong>Princeton</strong> Alumni Weekly • paw.princeton.edu<br />
going to be arrested, tortured, or killed. Whereas people<br />
inside Syria, <strong>the</strong>y are paying a huge price.”<br />
FOR MORE THAN A YEAR, Nachar, 29, has been living something<br />
of a double life. He is working on a dissertation, due<br />
in <strong>the</strong> spring of 2013, which investigates <strong>the</strong> extent to which<br />
Beirut from <strong>the</strong> 1920s to <strong>the</strong> 1950s served as <strong>the</strong> Middle<br />
East’s incubator of intellectualism and religious tolerance.<br />
He teaches a precept class to <strong>Princeton</strong> undergraduates on<br />
European history, and moonlights at The Cooper Union for<br />
<strong>the</strong> Advance ment of Science and Art in New York, teaching<br />
a class on <strong>the</strong> modern Middle East.<br />
But much of his time is focused on events that are less rarified<br />
and more dangerous than academia — <strong>the</strong> uprising<br />
that began in March 2011 in which more than 9,000 people<br />
are believed to have died. Nachar is part of a passionate community<br />
of ex-pat Syrians who are hoping that <strong>the</strong> Arab<br />
Spring that swept through Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya will<br />
bring <strong>the</strong> downfall of <strong>the</strong> Assad regime and its brutal military.<br />
Syrian-Americans have been raising money for <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
countrymen, providing aid directly to rebels on <strong>the</strong> ground,<br />
and rallying in March at <strong>the</strong> White House to exert pressure<br />
on <strong>the</strong> Obama administration to intervene militarily.<br />
Nachar and his circle of activists consider <strong>the</strong>mselves part<br />
of <strong>the</strong> opposition umbrella group <strong>the</strong> Syrian National<br />
Council. They do not align <strong>the</strong>mselves with any particular<br />
subgroup, though <strong>the</strong>y espouse more secular and liberal<br />
views than many o<strong>the</strong>rs who want to remove Assad from<br />
power. They argue for a multiparty, democratic government<br />
led by representatives chosen in general elections; separation<br />
of church and state; and equal rights for women and<br />
minorities.<br />
Nachar’s fa<strong>the</strong>r, Samir Nachar, is a former car-parts<br />
importer now living in Turkey, where he is helping to run<br />
<strong>the</strong> Syrian National Council — a role <strong>the</strong> son knows has<br />
placed <strong>the</strong> family on <strong>the</strong> radar of <strong>the</strong> Syrian government.<br />
The council has been praised by experts as <strong>the</strong> country’s best<br />
chance to unify <strong>the</strong> sectarian opposition groups, but also<br />
criticized for having weak relationships with some minority<br />
groups and <strong>the</strong> Free Syrian Army, formed by exiled Syrian<br />
military members and defectors.<br />
Nachar admires his fa<strong>the</strong>r’s work, but has chosen a<br />
different role for himself — in social media. He uses <strong>the</strong><br />
secret Facebook groups to plan rallies, screen new members,<br />
and determine what activists in Syria need. In March, for<br />
example, Nachar was trying to raise money for a bloodclotting<br />
medicine made in <strong>the</strong> United States to ship to<br />
Syrian rebels. He also acts as a kind of U.S.-based media<br />
spokesman for <strong>the</strong> insurgency movement, speaking on<br />
MSNBC, Al-Jazeera, and <strong>the</strong> independent news program<br />
Democracy Now!, and to The Huffington Post and o<strong>the</strong>r outlets.<br />
He helps translate and write subtitles for activists’<br />
YouTube videos for <strong>the</strong> BBC.<br />
Every Sunday, he conducts meetings via Skype with<br />
activists around <strong>the</strong> world from his New York apartment. He<br />
often wakes up before dawn to read <strong>the</strong> latest media dispatches<br />
from <strong>the</strong> war zone. He scans Facebook and Twitter