The Aleppo Project
A recent study published by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung examines how the Syrian conflict has transformed Aleppo, by deepening previous socio-economic divisions and setting-up preconditions for a new balance of power between the North and Damascus. Consulting with regional experts (like former Aleppo Project fellow Armenak Tokmajyan) and utilizing data collected from structured interviews conducted within Aleppo, Lebanon and Turkey, author Kheder Khaddour explores the fragile interdependence that existed between eastern and western Aleppo with the northern part of Syria. Khaddour further analyzes how the destruction of Aleppo goes far beyond destruction of the city to reshape domestic power structures. Ultimately, it has also changed the structure of Northern Syria, of which Aleppo was once the main economic, political and administrative hub, but now risks falling under the dominance of Damascus.
Deftly maneuvering through historical ties and allegiances, Khaddour exposes how the current ruins of Aleppo (the east depleted of the majority of its population and the west of its mechanisms by which it used to function as the administrative, economic and political hub for northern Syria) are in fact the “cleansing of an urban population unprecedented in the history of the modern Middle East”.
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