In Syria, civil disobedience and nonviolent mobilizations have been at the core of the popular uprising since its early moments. In a context of increasing militarization, several groups and grassroots initiatives continue to struggle to defend and promote the values that took Syrians to the street in March 2011. Among these groups, the Nabd Assembly of Civil Democratic Youth has played a crucial role.

The Beginning: The birthplace of Nabd

Homs, also known as the capital of the Syrian uprising, was the birthplace of Nabd ("Pulse", in Arabic). The movement was born out of the need to protect the remarkable diversity in the city from the intensifying violence and as a way to bind Syrians together to resist the regime’s relentless attempts to burn the country with sectarianism and militarization. These issues were debated daily between activists during gatherings at Hassan's cafe in Homs, and they eventually led to the establishment of Nabd.

On June 28, 2011, a group of 15 young people of varied religious and political backgrounds, assembled to discuss the birth of Nabd, which translates into “Pulse”. The name, rules of procedure and the objectives of the assembly were unanimously approved. An official page on Facebook was launched soon after the end of this meeting.

The poet Omar Yusuf Suleiman (read his profile on our Syrian Creators section), who participated in the first Nabd meetings, spoke to Syria Untold:

“We were a group of aspiring youth, seeking to frame the civil movement in Syria, and trying to prevent Syrians from succumbing to the sectarian war the regime was dragging us into.”

The first official activity of the assembly was organizing a demonstration in the neighborhood of Bab al-Sebaa. One of the activists said, “those who participated at first were very few, around 20 people chanting ‘with our hands we’ll build our homeland.. the people want to bring down the regime’, and little by little the group’s members were welcomed in more and more neighborhoods, and the number of protesters grew.”

Regarding the assembly’s first demonstrations, Suleiman said:

“The earliest protests achieved their desired effect. The participation of men and women of different religions and confessions and particularly the Alawite sect, in a demonstration in Khalidia, a neighborhood resided by a majority of Sunni population, was more like a vent of tension between different Muslim groups. The negative stereotypes that each group heard about the other, evaporated when they interacted with each other”

Presence of Syrian women

One of the features that most distinguishes the assembly from other movements is the prominent presence of Syrian women in its activities and statements. Female and male activists stand side by side, fighting against dictatorship through protests, campaigns, leaflet distributions and writing political statements. On Women’s Day, March 8, 2012, the assembly’s female activists issued a statement that read:

“We, the revolutionary women of Syria, address the regime on Women’s Day saying: Our revolution will continue until we have each and every single one of our usurped rights, like a woman’s right to nominate herself for presidency and to grant her nationality to her children”.

Nabd’s activities: creativity, innovation and fun

After the assembly’s participation in the demonstrations of Homs, the group began to expand its work, by organizing and inviting people to protest, and by launching and being part of several campaigns affirming patriotic unity and the rejection of sectarianism. One of these campaigns is “Week of patriotic unity: Homs fights against sectarianism”, that was organized between 20-30 December 2011. During these seven days, the assembly organized a number of activities, like composing songs, helping women from different confessions and backgrounds to visit other women and families that went through emotional trauma, to show solidarity and moral support.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6Zjd5oKUEQ

The assembly of Nabd also launched a campaign in the districts of Latakia city, where they handed out posters of president Assad, with the phrase “put your footstep here” written on his forehead. Another one of Nabd's campaigns, "Freedom Bumper Stickers", was launched in the heart of Damascus. The activists put bumper stickers demanding freedom and dignity on public transportation buses and private cars. Other activities included spraying graffiti in the city of Zabadani, in collaboration with the gathering of Zabadani Youth, on May 18, 2012 at dawn. Other campaigns included the “Freedom money” campaign, where the activists wrote anti-regime slogans on coins and paper money and threw them in the air, and the “We are the moral alternative to the regime” campaign, among others.

Despite the decline of peaceful resistance following the militarization of the uprising, the assembly has continued to be active and relevant. The flexibility of the assembly’s organizational structure and its lack of central leadership, were the key factors in its survival, despite the constant arrests in its cadres and activists. The most recent campaigns of Nabd include the “Stop living for a day” campaign on August 22, 2013, in collaboration with the Local Coordination Committees, and the “We sprayed graffiti on the walls, and the regime sprayed us with chemicals” campaign on August 27, 2013. Both campaigns were in response to the regime’s use of internationally prohibited chemical weapons in Ghouta. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXoUI7NAAwI