Photo: Cathy Manso
Over fifty people gathered on May 12 in the World Room of Columbia University’s Pulitzer Hall to listen to journalist Loubna Mrie and OPC governor Azmat Khan, director of the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism, discuss Mrie’s newly released memoir, Defiance. The event, co-sponsored by the Overseas Press Club of America, chronicled Mrie’s journey from the Alawite community in Syria to her eventual exile in New York City.
The discussion traced Mrie’s transformation from a young woman raised inside Syria’s pro-Assad Alawite community to an activist, war reporter and memoirist confronting both dictatorship and deeply personal grief.
Mrie opened by describing the atmosphere of conspiracy theories and propaganda that shaped her upbringing under the Assad regime.
“There was a conspiracy theory that if you pick up the phone and it’s an unknown number, it could be the United States sending brainwaves, and it could give you a seizure. All that to say that my community was very open to all these weird conspiracy theories.”
Reflecting on the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011, she said many in her community dismissed early reports of protests and killings as fabrications orchestrated by Arab news networks.
“If you went to your neighbor’s house and you see that they are watching Al Jazeera, you could easily go to the Mukhaberat and report a neighbor (and claim) he’s a traitor,” Mrie said. “It was very hard to admit that I believed that and I was primed to believe those conspiracy theories.”
She recounted the moment her worldview began to fracture after attending her first protest in Damascus at age 20. Initially treating the trip casually, worrying more about lunch and smoking hookah afterward, Mrie said she quickly confronted the brutal realities of the Syrian government’s crackdown.
“I started seeing people running back in my direction, it clicked: oh my God, we’re being shot at,” she said. “And that was really, I feel, the day that marked my life before and after.”
Azmat Khan guided the discussion with careful attention to both the political and emotional dimensions of Mrie’s story. At one point, she acknowledged the sensitivity required in discussing trauma publicly.
“You’re so detailed,” Khan said while discussing the memoir-writing process. “You really get extremely honest.”
Much of the conversation centered on Mrie’s complicated relationship with her father, whom she later learned had worked as an assassin for the Syrian government. Mrie described growing up in a household shaped by fear, abuse and patriarchal control, while also confronting the uncomfortable reality that she once admired the power and privilege attached to her father’s reputation.
“As a daughter, I despise him,” she expressed. “But as a writer, as a memoirist, I felt I had the responsibility towards him and towards my childhood to be as honest as possible and to admit that yes I admired my father growing up and that’s normal for a child.”
Mrie connected the dynamics of family abuse and dictatorship, arguing that both systems justify oppression under the guise of protection.
“I’m protecting, I’m oppressing you for your own safety,” she described the logic of both patriarchy and authoritarianism. “Yes, I’m very cruel and I’m very oppressive. However, the alternative is going to be way worse.”
As the uprising intensified, Mrie became increasingly active among Syrian activists and artists in Damascus, where she said she had to “learn and unlearn” much of what she had been taught about her country. She emphasized that revolutions are inherently imperfect and shaped by people struggling to undo years of propaganda and fear.
“Our oppressors really wait on us to give up,” she warned. “And even if the fruit of an uprising or a movement is not there yet, know that not engaging in any activism is exactly what your oppressors want.”
The discussion also explored the personal costs of dissent. After publicly identifying herself as an Alawite activist, Mrie fled Syria through the mountains bordering Turkey. She later learned her mother had been detained by Syrian authorities in an attempt to force her surrender.
“Writing that was really one of the most difficult things I had to go through,” Mrie shared. “For so many years I just tried to push that aside and just to push the guilt that I felt through that period and how I blamed myself for her death.”
Toward the end of the conversation, Mrie reflected on the painful process of writing Defiance, which she began years after leaving Syria. She said the memoir became both a personal reckoning and a political responsibility at a time when much of the world appeared ready to move on from Syria’s devastation.
“It felt at that moment that, yes, although me not looking at my life and pushing everything aside was protecting me, but also it was protecting the system that made my losses possible,” Mrie claimed.
Mrie took a moment to praise Khan’s careful approach to her story. “I truly appreciate how sensitive you are about this topic,” Mrie said, noting that journalists often “hit me with the block of trauma just to get a reaction out of me.” Khan responded by acknowledging the weight of the narrative, stating, “I’m sensitive because I know how much you put into this book.”
The event concluded with a small Q&A session, as Khan opened the floor to audience members at a microphone in the back of the room. Copies of Defiance were available and signed by the author, after the event.