Marching Backwards into Battle: On the Use of Dignity /"كرامة" in the Syrian Revolution

Abstract

The concept of dignity takes on a strange complexion when thinking through its double use by both the regime and its opponents in Syria since 2011. Like Bashar al-Assad, dignity seems to have two bodies. One belongs to the period of the Arab revolutions, events that some scholars once hoped would herald the end of postcoloniality (Dabashi Hamid); the other to the anticolo[1]nial struggle for dignity enshrined in the postcolonial state (Harkin Juliette). Drawing on Quentin Skinner and Reinhard Koselleck, the essay proposes a method for analysing lexical continuity and semantic shift in the lexicon of the Syrian revolution. Through RG Collingwood’s method of arguing back from the solution to the problem, I analyse why dignity, and not another term such as democracy, became a central demand of the Syrian revolution.