In the recent past, Syria was a stable authoritarian state, with a long history of quiet repression of citizens and incredibly rich heritage, but not a country familiar with violence or chaos in the streets.
At this point in the conflict, Syria is turning into a world-class humanitarian crisis, with refugees crossing the borders into neighboring countries- particularly Turkey and Lebanon.
For a quick overview of the main actors and issues, see this summary by the CBC.It covers Bashar al-Assad and the Assad family, the opposition and FSA, key governments such as the USA, Russia, Iraq and Turkey, and key international organizations such as the United Nations.
The book we are reading is from time in the conflict when it turned increasingly violent. Yazbek, a well known novelist in Syria, and a member of the Alawite minority in Syria, was already something of a rebellious woman at the time of the uprisings. She was divorced, and a professional woman who had made a life for herself and her daughter. While she bravely resisted the regime's atempts to control and then silence her voice, and she finally escaped Syria with her life, she did not escape unscathed, and her experience of the rising tide of repression, rebellion, and violence is shaped by the fact that she is a woman, a mother, a daughter. It is not a pretty story and it is not in a gentle voice that we hear her story, but it is a perspective and a voice that we need to hear in order to really understand the images we see in the news, the numbers we see reported, the political wrangling we hear.
