Folklore Dance "Dabke"

A photograph of Mr. Hicham Naoulo wearing traditional dress alongside fellow students, taken during a performance of the traditional dance Dabke. The performance was held as part of the celebration of the anniversary of the Ba'ath Party’s rise to power in Syria. In the background of the image, there are photos of Hafez al-Assad, the then president of Syria.

Dabke (also spelled dabka, dabkeh) is one of the most recognizable traditional dances of the eastern Mediterranean and an integral part of the cultural heritage of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and the northern Arabian Peninsula. Dancers usually form a semi-circle or a straight line, performing a distinct vocabulary of synchronized steps and movements accompanied by music and singing. Today, dabke is most often performed at weddings and other festive events.

The Ba'ath Party was founded in Syria in the 1940s (officially legalized in 1947) as an anti-colonial political movement, inspired by pan-Arab and avant-garde ideas of the time. Though some historians have noted ideological parallels with certain Western authoritarian movements, the party promoted broad social and economic reforms. In Iraq, it came to power through a military coup in 1968 led by Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, who was succeeded in 1979 by Saddam Hussein. The Ba'ath regime ruled Iraq until it was overthrown in 2003 by a U.S.-led coalition. In Syria, the Ba'ath Party has been in power since 1963, under Hafez al-Assad from the 1970s and, from 2000 onward, his son Bashar al-Assad. In 2024, the party was ousted when rebel forces took control of Damascus shortly after Bashar al-Assad fled the country.

The International Student Friendship Club (ISFC) was established in 1962 by the Croatian Student Union in Zagreb. It was one of four such clubs in the former Yugoslavia, alongside those in Sarajevo, Ljubljana, and Belgrade. The ISFC was created to support the extracurricular needs of international students and to organize cultural and leisure activities for young people in Zagreb. The club brought together youth from both abroad and Croatia, becoming a space for internationalist education, intercultural exchange, and the fostering and expansion of friendship and cooperation among nations. One of the many activities organized by the International Student Friendship Club (MSKP) was the celebration of national holidays and cultural days of the countries represented by foreign students.