The wars in the Middle East and the African Sahel region primarily affect civilians and force millions to flee. Many media portray only the armed military and militias as actors, facing a supposedly passive population that is at their mercy. This image increasingly obscures the fact that military dictatorships were overthrown or shaken in a nonviolent manner during the Arab uprisings in 2011. The first part of the book documents the Syrian nonviolent mass movement from 2011 to 2013. The texts of Syrian nonviolent revolutionaries and grassroots journalists describe, among other things, the actions of women who played a significant role at the beginning of the mass protests. It describes the Free Women of Darayya, the Mazaya Women's Center, and a well-known actress in the Arab world.