Sima Abd Rabo (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

: سمة عبدربه‎; born 1976 in

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, alt. Abd Rabbo, Abedrabboh) is a Syrian civil society activist and advisor to the government of the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

on public policies and innovation in public administration.

Career

Sima Abd Rabo studied

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

at the

University of Damascus The University of Damascus ( ar, جَامِعَةُ دِمَشْقَ, ''Jāmi‘atu Dimashq'') is the largest and oldest university in Syria, located in the capital Damascus and has campuses in other Syrian cities. It was founded in 1923 through ...

and literature and translation at the

Lumière University Lyon 2 Lumière University Lyon 2 (french: Université Lumière Lyon 2) is one of the three universities that comprise the current University of Lyon, having splintered from an older university of the same name, and is primarily based on two campuses in ...

(France). She worked as an interpreter and translator of Arabic,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

for international organisations such as the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

. She translated several international non-fictional books and novels into Arabic, notably " Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror" by

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

veteran and security analyst

Michael Scheuer Michael F. Scheuer (pronounced "SHOY-er"), (born 1952) is an American former intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, blogger, author, commentator and former adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Sec ...

and the thriller novel "

The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon: the first was his 2000 novel ''Angels & Demons''. ''The Da Vinci Code'' follows symbologist Robert Langdon ...

" by

Dan Brown Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his Thriller (genre), thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels ''Angels & Demons'' (2000), ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), ''The Lost Symbol'' (2009), ''In ...

. In an interview with the newspaper

Emarat Al Youm ''Emarat Al Youm'' (Arabic: الإمارات اليوم, ''al-Imārāt al-yawm'' - meaning ''The Emirates Today'') is an Arabic newspaper published by Dubai Media Incorporated. The paper is published in Dubai. The newspaper content focuses on do ...

in 2008 she expressed concerns about a "major setback" in translation of international literature into Arabic and criticised the trend of Arab translators to use local or regional dialects instead of

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th ...

. Since 2010 she works as an advisor to the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers of the UAE, attached to the office of the Prime Minister, Sheikh Rashid bin Mohammed Al Maktoum. She returned to this position in 2015 after an intermezzo as a full-time political and Syrian

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.

Life as a political and civil society activist

After the beginning of the

Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...

and the eruption of protests and violent crackdowns in

that resulted in a

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, Sima Abd Rabo, who was based in the UAE at that time, joined the networks of the

Syrian opposition The Syrian opposition ( ar, المعارضة السورية ', ) is the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated Syrian anti-Assad groups with certain territorial control as an alternative Syrian gover ...

and started working with several international institutions on supporting local communities. In 2013 she joined the civil society initiative "Network of Democrats in the Arab World" which figured among the international partners of the

International Republican Institute The International Republican Institute (IRI) is an American nonprofit organization. Most of its board is drawn from the Republican Party. It is committed to advancing freedom and democracy worldwide by helping political parties to become more iss ...

in Washington D.C. Due to her government relations and international contacts she has been described as an "agenda-setting person" of civil society during the Arab Spring, whereas her country of residence, the UAE, is generally seen as antagonistic to the series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions started in late 2010 and early 2011 in the

MENA region MENA, an acronym in the English language, refers to a grouping of countries situated in and around the Middle East and North Africa. It is also known as WANA, SWANA, or NAWA, which alternatively refers to the Middle East as Western Asia (or a ...

. Sima Abd Rabo is also a founding member of a circle of Middle East experts called the "Baghdad Policy Club". She occasionally comments on Syrian affairs in Arabic news media. In an appeal to the UN special representative for Syria Sima Abd Rabo called for an active role for Syrian women in ceasefire negotiations and ceasefire monitoring. In 2014 she co-sponsored an open letter of condemnation against Norwegian filmmaker Lars Klevberg for presenting fictional film clips about children in the Syrian war as authentic footage. The production funded by the

Norwegian Film Institute The Norwegian Film Institute ( no, Norsk filminstitutt) was founded in 1955 to support and develop the Norwegian film industry. On 1 April 2008, it was merged with Norwegian Film Fund, Norwegian Film Development, and Norwegian Film Commission to ...

was severely criticised by journalists and film-makers covering military conflict in the Middle East and investigated by the open-source intelligence network

Bellingcat Bellingcat (stylised as bellngcat) is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014 ...

. According to news media reports Sima Abd Rabo, a descendant of "an influential Sunni family" is a member of

the Council of the Syrian Charter The Council of the Syrian Charter ( مجلس المدونة السورية; ''Majlis al-mudawana al-suriyya'') is a Syrian civil society body which officially announced its establishment in spring 2019 to bring together representatives from diffe ...

, a Syrian civil society body that aims at bringing together representatives from different families, regions, clans, tribes and religious communities. The initiative has secretly negotiated a Code of Conduct for Syrian Co-Existence between social leaders in government-controlled Syria and the Diaspora and had elected Sima Abd Rabo as a spokesperson. Her name also figures in a response from the

German government The Federal Cabinet or Federal Government (german: link=no, Bundeskabinett or ') is the chief executive body of the Federal Republic of Germany. It consists of the Federal Chancellor and cabinet ministers. The fundamentals of the cabinet's or ...

to a 2019 Parliamentary inquiry on the Council of the Syrian Charter's activities in Germany. Together with several Muslim

interfaith dialogue Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is ...

representatives, Sima Abd Rabo co-signed a declaration of solidarity against xenophobia,

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

, and for international remembrance of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

in 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abd Rabo, Sima 1976 births Living people Politicians from Damascus People of the Syrian civil war Syrian women activists Damascus University alumni