“This is where the revolution happens first,” say Leila Al-Shami and Robin Yassin-Kassab in their book, Burning Country (Pluto Press 2016), “before the guns and the political calculations, before even the demonstrations—in individual hearts, in the form of new thoughts and newly unfettered words.” The tragedy of the so-called “civil war” in Syria has become so unspeakably monumental and monstrous that, for the public at large worldwide, it has distilled into merely a set of grim statistics, a current titleholder for World’s Worst Conflict, the source of the bulk of Europe’s migration crisis, but unimaginable and, sadder still, unthinkable for the majority in terms of the horror taking place there on a daily basis. It is a country where the superpower-imposed family of dictators who have ruled for over four decades had, until 2011, stilled all opposition and autocratically governed generations brought up resigned to living mute. According to Al-Shami and Yassin-Kassab, “Syria
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Author Roberto Vivo comments on wars past and present, on the world’s great peacemakers and on the pathway to global peace. His basic philosophy: In a world where 9 out of every 10 victims of armed conflict are civilians, war is no longer a viable political alternative. Indeed, it is the ultimate crime against humanity. If rising generations are to have a future, the key will lie in world peace. War is the pathway to oblivion.