A society that organizes itself outside the state

Abstract

The humanitarian situation in Syria has reached catastrophic proportions, according to the United Nations. The number of refugees and displaced persons has exceeded six million, more than a quarter of the country's total population.
With no safe access to the interior of the country for their staff, foreign humanitarian organizations have not sought to identify local aid networks inside the country that distribute aid without discrimination, and have not sought to go through them. Yet these networks are numerous and very active. It is thanks to them that many regions receive the basic necessities to avoid real famine, but they are sorely lacking in resources, while they hear of hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on aid by various countries. Faced with the demand for transparency imposed on them, Syrians would be entitled to call the international community to account for the allocation and distribution of funds declared as being allocated to Syria.
Since the regime cut off state services in the early months of the uprising, the movement's coordinating groups on the ground have been ingeniously organizing themselves around committees, groups of wise men and local councils. It is visible in the so-called liberated regions, underground in areas where regime forces still have a presence. This is a society that is organizing itself against the state and trying to protect itself from it.

Bassma Kodmani

Bassma Kodmani is Director of the Arab Reform Initiative, a consortium of research institutes in the Arab world working in partnership with European and American institutes on issues of reform and democratic transition in the Arab world. At the start of the uprising in Syria, she took an active part in the founding of the Syrian National Council (SNC) in 2011, joining its executive committee, working notably as the organization's spokesperson and head of external relations. She has held the positions of chargé de mission at the CNRS international department (2007-2009), associate researcher at CERI - Sciences Po (2006-2007) and visiting researcher at the Collège de France (2005-2006). From 1999 to 2005, she directed the Governance and International Cooperation for the Middle East program at the Ford Foundation, based in Egypt, with the mission of supporting Arab research institutions in the Middle East and North Africa. She is a lecturer at the University of Paris I Sorbonne and Marne-La-Vallée, seconded to head the Arab Reform Initiative. In 1981, she created and directed the Middle East and Islam Studies Program at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales until 1998. She is the author and editor of several books and publications on Middle East conflicts, regional security, the political evolution of Arab societies and relations between political and religious powers. Her latest book, Abattre les murs, was published in 2008.