June 30, 2026

From love poems to saints whose love for one another was as profound as their faith, queerness is woven into the history of the Levant. In this post, we cover some of Syria’s hidden queer legacy.

How does a society collapse to the point where neighbors come to see each other as an existential threat and extermination as a reasonable solution?

But an equally important question to ask ourselves is how to bring a deeply traumatized and divided society from the brink of genocide to reconciliation?

In remembrance of the 1860 massacres of Damascus، we shed light on what led to them, how the authorities handled the aftermath, and how the conflict reshaped identities.
Although these events receive little to no attention, understanding their origins help us see sectarian hatred not as an inevitable force of Levantine history but a result of specific political and economic developments over time.