Abstract
What is left today of the Obama's Cairo speech entitled "A New Beginning", as a large region of the Middle East became a field of battle, and entire new generations seeking social change were traumatised by misleading ideologies and years of combats? I will answer to this question by contesting the dominant views on the ongoing conflicts, in particular the Syrian civil war, as being grounded in unsuitable categories and unilateral perspectives. Having this in mind, my personal contribution consists in exposing the misunderstandings of the well-known Gramscian dilemma between being partisan or indifferent. I will discuss the “neutrality” claimed by the population of Yarmouk, the Palestinian Damascus district now gone to the ground, as a valid alternative to this dilemma. In the Middle East, and particularly in Syria, where global forces clash for their opposed geopolitical and economic interests, taking side often means becoming pawns in the game of others. If this is true, neutrality may offer a starting point for changing paradigm.