Syria’s Conflict Told Through a Caustic Wit

A video produced by the Kafranbel Media Center uses three groups of cavemen to depict the conflict in Syria: anti-government protesters, regime fighters who attack the protesters, and the international community that watches the violence without getting involved.

Raed Fares and Razan Ghazzawi are well-known Syrian activists who are wrapping up a speaking tour of North America. Ms. Ghazzawi, a prominent blogger who fled Damascus after facing government persecution and arrest, has traveled across Syria and the Middle East to raise awareness about the human cost of the Syria conflict. Mr. Fares runs an activist media center in the northern village of Kafranbel, which has gained a measure of international attention because of the witty banners and posters, many of them designed by Mr. Fares and his team, that protesters have displayed there.

During a recent visit to New York, Mr. Fares and Ms. Ghazzawi sat down with The Lede to discuss the creative protest movement in Kafranbel, the clashes between rebel groups in northern Syria, and how they manage to maintain a sense of humor as the country’s conflict grinds into its third year. Following are excerpts from the interview:

Kafranbel Media Center President Obama was portrayed to be a superhero whose inflatable muscles were easily popped by a pin, at a protest in Kafranbel. Many Syrian activists are critical of the United States for what they describe as its lackluster support for the country’s rebel groups.

Q.

Can you tell us a little bit about the situation on the ground in Kafranbel?

Raed Fares: There are still shelling and rocket attacks on a daily basis. There are refugees who have left Kafranbel and other refugees who have come to the town from somewhere else. I am not sure if people have heard this, but ISIS attacked a television center, a radio station and a children’s program in the town. [ISIS is the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.]

They came at 11 o’clock at night. They took two activists who were in the building and stole all the laptops and computers. Whatever they couldn’t take with them, they destroyed. Then they went to the basement where the community radio station is based and detained four people there. They did the same thing there - they stole whatever they could carry away and they smashed the rest. Then they went upstairs to the children’s program and ransacked it. They took whatever they could.

The next day they detained the editor of a magazine in the town. Then the next day they arrested another media activist and a fighter from the Free Syrian Army.

Raed Fares, Kafranbel Media Center A poster at a protest in Kafranbel showed a woman, symbolizing Syria, reassembling a statue of the Virgin Mary that members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria were said to have destroyed.

Q.

What happened to the people that ISIS detained?

Raed Fares: The ones who were detained on the first day were released after six hours, and the media activist taken on the third day was held overnight but then released. They took the magazine editor to their base outside of town, but he was freed a week later when the FSA went to get him. The FSA soldier who was taken was found later in a kind of mass grave. It had three bodies in it. One belonged to an 18-year-old boy named Mohamed Mohamed, and another was a 14-year-old boy called Ahmed Mohamed. The FSA soldier was named Mansour Saloum. He was just 17 years old. He had been in the army but defected to join the FSA.

Q.

Why were these people arrested?

Raed Fares: ISIS was against the media center in general because we specifically targeted them for criticism in our protests with our posters and banners. We made a poster in July that showed an FSA member fighting the regime and standing behind him was an ISIS fighter stabbing him in the back. We made one recently that was modeled on the film “Aliens,” and showed ISIS as a monster. We made a banner that said, “To all those who are not Syrian, please leave our country.”

Raed Fares, Kafranbel Media Center Activists in Kafranbel have gained a measure of international attention through their creative banners and posters. At a recent protest, demonstrators held a sign comparing a Qaeda-linked rebel group to the monster from the film “Aliens.”

Raed Fares, Kafranbel Media Center A banner used at a protest last summer depicted a soldier from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army being stabbed in the back by a member of the Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

On Jan. 3 there was a protest in town against ISIS and there were a lot of banners and posters against them. I think this put pressure on the FSA to get organized to liberate the town from their influence. Kafranbel now has been liberated from the regime and from ISIS, and from the terrorism of both of them. But we are still facing the regime’s terrorist tactics, and its rocket attacks against us.

Kafranbel Media Center President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is depicted as a contestant on a television show called “Terror’s Got Talent,” with the international community serving as a panel of judges, during a protest in Kafranbel.

Razan Ghazzawi: We were in Houston when we heard that the office was raided. We heard they wanted Raed because he is secular, because he is against an Islamic state and because they did not like the banners. At that time I thought, ‘This is just like with the regime.’ If we wanted to do our work we would have to use fake names, we would have to hide and always move around. It is the regime all over again.

Raed Fares: One thing that did change, I think, or that improved is that we can see now that people really are more confident, if they can reject ISIS like that. They won’t accept any kind of tyranny and they will push back against it, whether it is the tyranny of the regime or the tyranny of ISIS. But the regime is definitely the bigger enemy. In the end, we got ISIS out of the town in two minutes. The regime is harder.

Raed Fares, Kafranbel Media Center Activists in Kafranbel dressed as grim reapers during a protest on Sept. 11, the birthday of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Q.

Your frame of reference is so broad. Where do you get your ideas for your banners?

Raed Fares: For us, the cause of Syria is the most important thing. We keep track of everything happening in the news, all over the world, and if we find something that can help our cause, then we will use it. Appealing to a global audience is very important to us. Our revolution is a people’s revolution, so it is only natural that we seek out the support of people around the world.

Raed Fares, Kafranbel Media Center Activists in the Syrian town of Kafranbel displaying a banner that drew a parallel between the Boston Marathon bombing and the daily violence in Syria. Raed Fares, director of an activist media center in Kafranbel, said he believed it was important to draw connections between suffering in Syria and tragedies elsewhere in the world.

Raed Fares, Kafranbel Media Center After the teenager Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida, protesters in Kafranbel tried to draw a connection between his death and the violence in Syria. Raed Fares, director of the town’s activist media center, said he tries to build “solidarity” with people around the world.

We want to do anything that will catch people’s eye. We do not want to just be sad and depressing all the time. I think that people outside our country see Syria and the people who have been killed as just numbers now. If we don’t find a way to catch someone’s eye, then how can we change that? Making people laugh a little bit is a way to get them to pay attention.

Kafranbel Media Center President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria are compared to the romantic leads in “Gone With the Wind” in a poster held by protesters in Kafranbel.

Razan Ghazzawi: I have to add that Raed is a very funny person. When you go to the media center sometimes everyone is very serious, but not Raed. He is very charismatic. In the village you might meet people who feel despair, like the revolution is going so slowly or taking us nowhere. But when Raed sits with them, he just eases things.

All of the media center guys are very funny, actually. They’re all very fun. And you know, I became that way too after I went to Kafranbel. I was not like that before. You know, when you live with shelling all the time, you just let everything go. You have to laugh. If you take everything so seriously, you will go crazy.

Kafranbel Media Center Protesters in Kafranbel, with a poster that referenced the Pink Floyd album “The Dark Side of the Moon.”