Omar Aziz (fondly known by friends as Abu Kamel)
He was born in Damascus, where he returned from exile in the early days of the Syrian revolution. An intellectual, economist, anarchist, husband and father. At the age of 63 committed himself to the revolutionary struggle. He worked together with local activists to collect humanitarian aid and distribute it to suburbs of Damascus that were under attack by the regime.
Through his writing and activity he promoted local self-governance, horizontal organization, cooperation, solidarity and mutual aid as the means by which people could emancipate themselves from the tyranny of the state. Together with comrades, Aziz founded the first local committee in Barzeh, Damascus. The example spread across Syria and with it some of the most promising and lasting examples of non-hierarchical self organization to have emerged from the countries of the Arab Spring.
Aziz was encouraged by the revolutionary wave gripping the country and believed that “ongoing demonstrations were able to break the dominance of absolute power”. But he saw a lack of synergy between revolutionary activity and people’s daily lives. For Aziz it didn’t make sense to participate in demonstrations demanding the overthrow of the regime whilst still living within strict hierarchical and authoritarian structures imposed by the state.
He described such division as Syria being subject to the overlapping of two times “the time of authority” which “still manages the life activities”, and “the time of Revolution” belonging to the activists working to overthrow the regime. Aziz believed that for the continuity and victory of the revolution, revolutionary activity needed to permeate all aspects of people’s lives.
His important work about the formation of local councils was originally written in arabic in a facebook post. It was translated to french in 2013 and translated to english in 2017. Recently it has also been translated into Spanish.
It was published as a printable brochure some years ago, and it is also the chapter 13 of the reader about the Syrian revolution published in this website. The chapter 1 is written by his daughter, Jawana Aziz.
Download the PDF:
To learn more about him you can read this article about his life and impact on the Syrian revolution. It was published in 2013 by Leila al Shami, author of the chapter 2, 14 and 19 of this reader, as well as co-author of the book “Burning country”.