Some recollections may vary
Syrian Memory platform causes a stir

In his novel The Little Drummer Girl John le Carré opined that for Arabs, “the future is not something that is foreseen but what is conceived by their prophets.” That Arabs view history through the lens of ideological or religious beliefs, rather than objective events, has the whiff of Orientalism, but it nevertheless captures a certain truth about Syrians today. Well-entrenched and mutually irreconcilable narratives of what happened (or rather what should have happened) over the past thirteen years exist among loyalists and oppositionists alike, and they are getting ever more ingrained with time. The Syrian Memory platform is the opposition’s latest escalation in this ‘narratives war.’ 

Who controls the past.. 
Syrian Memory is a free-to-access digital archive platform documenting persons and events related to the 2011 uprising and the subsequent armed conflict. It was launched last month in Doha, and is funded by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, a Qatari think tank headed by Emiri adviser Azmi Bishara that has close ties to the liberal wing of the Syrian opposition. The goal is stated as “preserving national memory through a scientific research methodology to confront the possible falsification of history by various centres of power and the erasure of facts.”

The platform is run out of Istanbul by a 30-strong team of researchers headed by academic and opposition activist Abdulrahman Al-Haj. The archive they created contains 6,000 biographical entries, 10,000 entries on military and civilian bodies, 50,000 documents, 900,000 video clips, and 2,500 hours of recorded oral testimonies. The project also contains a day-by-day “diary” of events from March 2011 until October 2015. This is the opposition’s direct riposte to the regime’s National Document Institute, a GONGO established by presidential adviser Buthaina Shaban that also claims to “preserve national memory from loss, distortion or forgery.” 

A highly-relevant project on this scale and this level of ambition should have served to unite the opposition movement. Instead, harsh words were exchanged between various factions over the platform and the accuracy of its information. Initially, criticism was motivated largely by hurt egos: oppositionists who deemed their biographical entries to be too short, or containing information that did not align with their recollections. Matters took an ideological turn when Islamists and secularists entered the fray, each accusing the other of having “hijacked” the platform for their own ends. Hasan Hachimi, a ranking member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, accused the project of “falling into tittle tattle” and of “settling narrow personal and ideological scores” - a thinly disguised attack on Bishara, who is no fan of Islamists. Meanwhile, writing in Aljumhuriya, a liberal newspaper, commentators like Aws al-Mubarak claimed that the platform was “undermining the role of the secular civil democratic movement within the revolution,” and “falling into a mixture of omission, deception, and altering facts.”

.. controls the future 
Al-Haj does not claim that Syrian Memory is a complete or definitive record of persons and events. The archive is still a work in progress, with the day-by-day diary only 60 per cent complete and a further 7,000 biographical entries still requiring verification. Notably absent are entries relating to Syrian diaspora communities, whose activities (media, lobbying, fundraising) were critical to the success of the protest movement in its early days. Also absent is the role played by behind-the-scenes actors whose interventions were critical but are now  long-forgotten. The Sanqar brothers, for instance, sponsored the first post-uprising Syrian opposition conference in Antalya in May 2011 but are not mentioned at all in the archive.

Apart from its role confronting the regime narrative, the Syrian Memory platform has potential significance for future elections, as and when democracy comes to Syria. A close association by a group or person with the struggle against the Assad regime will likely be seen favourably by a majority of the electorate. The platform will be the go-to encyclopaedia on the revolutionary credentials of candidates. 

Al-Haj says that what he and his team have done is not to write history but to give future historians the tools to do so. The volume of documented information means that the Syrian Memory platform will be a major reference when the time comes to write a national history of Syria that reconciles opposing views around a story that is as unifying (and historically accurate) as possible. That makes the platform a potential tool for transitional justice and reconciliation efforts. As Ratib Sha’bo, a Syrian columnist, noted recently, “in their diverse ethnic and national origins and their varied religious and political sects, Syrians realise that their salvation is either mutual or not at all.” 

The Syrian Memory archive can be accessed at syrianmemory.org