Episode 14 - Community Revolution

How do you organize a leaderless movement?   The Syrian Revolution was a decentralized movement of localized cells, but enterprising activists still managed to coordinate with each other and reach out to the outside world.   We examine how the Local Coordination Committees attempted to create a post-Assad government before speaking to a civil society activist who still resides in Syria. We also speak with Ahmad, an engineer and civil society activist who has spent the last ten years enduring horror after horror and tragedy after tragedy in order to establish a Free Syria.   Ahmad is the first guest to call us directly from Syria, where he is currently hiding from both the regime and jihadists. He doesn't have anything good to say about either one, for what it's worth.    Sources “How the Syrian Revolution was Organized - And How it Unraveled,” by Zaina Erhaim, New Lines Magazine Syria by Samer N. Abboud "U.S. Secretly backed Syrian opposition groups, cables released by WikiLeaks show," by Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-secretly-backed-syrian-opposition-groups-cables-released-by-wikileaks-show/2011/04/14/AF1p9hwD_story.html   Music Licensing Fragments by Nomyn https://soundcloud.com/nomyn Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/l-fragments Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/ndyyIhwojys   "Emotional Sad Piano Music" by Mattia Cupelli https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JYHk_D5A44   "Yalla Erhal Ya Bashar" by Ibrahim Qashoush   "Jannah, Jannah, Jannah," sung by Abdul-Baset al-Sarout