Until recently Syria was known as a state of openness for the many waves of forced migrants that came from the Balkans and other neighboring countries over the 19th and 20th century and took shelter in Syria. The mass influx of peoples into Syria over the last 150 years, including Circassians, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, Armenian, Assyrians, Albanians, Kosovars, Palestinians and Lebanese and Iraqis, created a modern nation of great cultural hybridity.

In 1981 the Israeli columnist and artist Amos Kenan wrote in his non-fiction essay book Your Land, Your Country:

On the 8th anniversary of the disappearance of the four Syrian human rights activists, Razan Zaitouneh, Wa'el Hamada, Nazem Hamadi and Samira Khalil, the Oxford Syria Society would organizes a panelist of scholars and activists to discuss the human rights movement within the Syrian revolution, derailed by more extremist factions within the Syrian opposition. The panel will discuss how this event has changed the trajectory of the Syrian revolution and the future of human rights work in Syria.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s largest economy, is populated by dynamic and talented citizens, but has faced steep challenges in development, leadership and governance.

Poverty is widespread. The country is currently embattled by terrorism, general insecurity, a depressed economy, and by challenges from separatist agitations to the existential legitimacy of the Nigerian state.

For more details, please visit https://www.oussg.uk/termcard

In her talk, The Honourable Dame Catherine Bingham DBE will discuss how the UK's response to COVID-19 has evolved from wartime to peacetime.

More information can be found here:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/The-University-Year/romanes-lecture

From the perspective of 1989 the 20th century in Europe seemed to be the story of a contested but ultimately successful triumph of liberal democracy over the ideologies of communism, fascism and virulent nationalism.

The outlook for climatic changes in the African Sahel is bleak: spectacular temperature increases and further rainfall variability will continue to challenge the livelihoods of millions of inhabitants - sedentary and nomadic - that live in this vast region. These environmental impacts are usually understood as complicating long-standing problems of weak statehood, economic marginalization and physical insecurity and risk rendering the Sahel more prone to jihadist violence and various forms of migration.