2011: How Arab Citizens Lost their Fear and Regained their Dignity

There is no adjective that can capture the enormity of what happened in the Arab world in 2011. Suffice it to say that the region will never be the same. It will be a infinitely better place; it already is.  The citizens of the Arab world have shed their mantle of fear and regained their dignity and with it they have reclaimed their freedom.  And with freedom comes hope.

A skeptic would say that despite the ongoing uprisings in the Arab world, little tangible change has in fact occurred. The big change is intangible, it is a  change the mindset of the people. Loss of fear is liberating, it allows people to think for themselves, to dream and to hope.  All one has to do is to look at the faces of the young and old in Tahrir square beaming with pride and confidence, to feel the energy and sense of elation emanating from the chanting crowds in Cairo or Homs or Sanaa.  This is a sea change for the region. The people are longer willing to play the role of docile, pliant sheep to local power elites and all the regional and world powers who conspire to keep them submissive, stagnant and predictable.  The regimes of the region should take note, the citizen has been empowered and it is no longer business as usual.  The most dramatic example is the recent response in Egypt to the videotaped beating of the female protester. Overnight, thousands of Egyptian women descended onto the streets of Cairo to protest.  It was a sight to behold, women of all ages and from across Egypt's cultural and social spectrum were out in the street in a spontaneous show of support for a fellow citizen. This type of a grassroots response to the plight of a single citizen would have been unheard not too long ago. The change in people's mindset is not only manifested in street activism but in what people dare to say and dare to think.  The previously stale fare served up on the web from the Middle East is now replaced by a flood of original ideas,  thoughts and creative expression. Emboldened TV anchors and journalists are no longer willing to tow the official line; they are asking hard questions and demanding answers. Politicians are no longer untouchable and unaccountable. Another dividend of the Arab Spring is that it has brought the people of the region closer together.  Activists exchange ideas and have helped each other in organizing acts of civil disobedience and banners in demonstrations in one country often offered support for the people demonstrating in another.

In the last decade a series of UN reports on human development in the Arab world painted an increasingly  grim picture of the region by whatever index of measurement used.  As the rest of the world moved forward, we seem to be moving back.  No longer; the Arab Spring has shaken the world.  Occupy movements across the world were inspired by the Arab Spring and the world's most populous country, China, clamped down hard on protesters fearing the contagion of the Middle East revolts would reach its shores.  The world stands in awe at the courage of the young men and women who stood their ground and sacrificed their lives for the good of their people.

The revolts in the Middle East are far from over and the clouds of instability and unrest will continue to plague the region for years to come. Change will take time; the corrupt autocracies will leave behind few if any viable civic institutions.  Make no mistake about it though, there is no turning back and the region will be a better place.  We owe it to the thousand of mostly young men and women, who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that the rest can live free.

The Arab League Observer Mission is a Farce

I don't know much about "observing" a slaughter as it is happening.  I think I would at the very least like to have a pen and a clip board with me; perhaps a camera might come in handy to document what I saw.  And, as a supposed impartial arbiter of what is happening,  I would tell my government minders to fuck off so I can "observe" what is happening from the other side.  Serious observers would be on the ground with helmets an flack jackets not ridiculous orange vests like construction workers.  That latter detail is perhaps telling; the regime knows with certainty that no one will shoot at the observers.  This is not a war zone they are entering, it is a one-sided massacre implemented by a murderous regime.  The observers in the second video, including  the head of the mission, the Sudanese general Mohammad al-Dabi seem unaffected by the heart-breaking pleas of a local man asking them to come into their neighborhood.  The government minder brushes off the man's pleas without any objection from the observers.  There might be a reason why general al-Dabi seemed unfazed by what he saw. He knows a thing or two about waging war against your  own people and the utility of thugs like the Shabbiha to do your dirty work.  Or perhaps it is that the AL observers, while being entertained by the government in Damascus for two days before they managed to make it to Homs, have fully imbibed the regime's narrative and have already made up their minds. I thought the AL had finally made itself relevant by agreeing to send observers to Syria.  I was wrong, it is the same shamefully incompetent and irrelevant body.

Tomorrow, the tanks will be back in Homs and the observers will have moved on to Hama for another few hours of useless observation.  If the observers continues to willingly play the cat and mouse game of the regime, their mission will not only be useless, their inaction will be tantamount to complicity in the ongoing murder of innocent, unarmed civilians.

The Syrian Regime's Cynical Game

When claims by activists that hundreds of  people are  mowed down by the regime around Idlib earlier this week, it created but a ripple in the world media because there were no "visuals" and the sources are "unverifiable". Conveniently, a day after the arrival of the Arab League advance team of observers, two explosions rock Damascus with the Syrian state media at hand to document the carnage.  Media outlets around the world publish the regime's version of events without questions, complete with visuals. Suicide bombers, they said, even though one of the "bombers" was picked up a couple of hours later.  The security forces, inept at everything except the torture and killing of  their own citizens, figured out within the hour that it was the work of Al Qaeda. SANA, publishes the accusation adding, without a hint of irony, that it was part of the "Zio-American conspiracy".  The AL observers are rushed to the scene to "observe"  and the regime spin masters are out in force to tell the world, "we told you so".  The Russian leadership, practically silent for nine months and over 6000 deaths, suddenly develops a conscience and deplores the bombing as heinous crimes. With Al Qaeda's name invoked, western media minds tend to freeze and lose all objectivity. This narrative also works to reinforce the regime's local support.  In a twist on the Youtube video of the soldier kicking a bound protester as he tells him, "you want freedom? I'll give you freedom", the minhebbakjis (regime ass-kissers) point at the carnage in Damascus and ask the opposition accusingly, "is this the freedom that you want?" Of course Syrians are not easily duped, except of course those who wear pictures of the eternal leader and choose to salute him -appropriately- with a Nazi-style salute (below).  The cynicism and Machiavellian machinations of the Assad dynasty are well known and there are no moral boundaries to their take on "the end justifies the means."

Quickly forgotten in the media are the hundreds killed in Idlib and the basic fact that, for the last several months, the daily death toll among Syrian citizens at the hands of the regime has equaled and often exceeded that of the Damascus bombings. All in all, this criminal act, was the perfect end of the year present for the embattled regime; or was it a present it gave itself?

Syria Loses its Doctor of the Revolution

Dr. Ibrahim Nahel Othman was born in 1985, the year I became a doctor. He was the youngest of several siblings and, according to his friends, his mother's favorite. Ibrahim obtained his medical degree in Damascus in 2009 and was in training to become an orthopedist when the Syrian uprising began on March 15th of this year.  A soft-spoken, popular young man who believed in non-violence, he was appalled by the loss of life and the injuries sustained by peaceful demonstrators at the hands of the Syrian security forces.  More outrageous was that many of the injured feared going to public hospitals as the security forces raided them periodically looking for and arresting the injured.  They even raided private clinics and arrested both the injured and the treating physicians.  By one account some 700 physicians have been arrested and several have died. True to his calling, Ibrahim could not stand by and watch.  He founded with other physicians the Damascus Phyisicans Coordinating Committee and became it spokesman using the pseudonym Khaled Al Hakeem.  He was instrumental in setting up dozens of secret field clinics to deal with the flood of injured at the hands of the security forces. Risking life and limb, Ibrahim ventured to other restive cities like Hama and Homs, to help set up and run field clinics. He had become the Doctor of the Revolution and his laudable humanitarian work landed him on the most wanted list of this most inhumane of regimes. Sensing his life in danger, he was making his way to the Turkish border yesterday when he was cut down, in the prime of a promising life, by the regime's henchmen outside the village of Kirbet El Joz.

This is an unspeakable personal tragedy for his family and friends, one that is unfortunately repeated dozens of time a day in Syria. The greater tragedy with the loss of young men and women like Ibrahim, intelligent, passionate and driven individuals,  is that Syria is deprived of its future leaders.

Rest in peace, Ibrahim. I  am awed and humbled by your courage and compassion. You are an inspiration to our profession and to our country.

Syria: Bashar's 4360 "Mistakes" ... and Counting

Bashar Al Assad's interview was one of the most inarticulate, discombobulated, contradictory and mendacious performances by any head of state I had ever seen.  It is even worse when you read the full transcript rather than just watch the sanitized video that was broadcast. 

One of the most outrageous claims is that there was no official policy to shoot or maltreat peaceful demonstrators.  Those who died were the result of "mistakes" committed by individuals.  How many mistakes should be committed  before we can declare it a policy?  Even more troubling is his total lack of remorse. Even if every last civilian victim of the last 9 months were killed by his fictitious terrorist gangs, he should feel remorseful because he failed miserably to protect his own people. 

For those doubters, those who still cling to the notion that there is an ounce of decency in this man, here is the  list of 4360 of  Bashar's "mistakes" as of December 6th.  

Syrian Blogger, Activist Razan Ghazzawi Arrested

The Local Co-ordination Committees activist network say Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi was arrested on Sunday at the Syrian-Jordanian border as she was on her way to attend a workshop for defenders of freedom of the press in the Arab world in Amman as the representative of the Syrian Centre for Media and Free Expression (Source: Al-Jazeera English)

In August of this year Razan left a brief comment on a blogpost I had just written after a multiweek hiatus.  "Welcome back!" she wrote. " Thanks Razan" I wrote back, "stay safe".  Indeed, I always worried about her safety seeing how boldly she criticized the Syrian regime's action while living in Syria. She spoke without the shield of anonymity or the comfort of being beyond the reach of the regime's thuggish tactics.

When I started my blog in 2006, I quickly got to know of Razan, one of a handful of Syrian bloggers writing in English.  She was studying in Lebanon at the time.  I was a regular reader of her posts that alternated between being intensely personal to broadly political.  One got a sense of someone with evolving ideas, yet ideas solidly anchored in the belief of fairness, justice and equality.  She was the champion of the poor, the downtrodden and the disenfranchised.  She championed the Palestinian people at every turn.  And because of that, she also sided, at the time, with Hizbollah's "resistance".  On that we disagreed; I saw Hizbollah as an extension of the divisive sectarian politics of Lebanon; their focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I felt, was not genuine but  more a means to an end.

Razan earned my respect because she was never trapped by ideology.  She did not tolerate hypocrisy and was not shy to speak the truth as she saw it, even if it meant changing course. She never backed away from a confrontations taking on religious conservatives and others even it mean enduring vicious verbal attacks.  She has championed migrant workers' rights, women's right as well as  gay and lesbian rights int he Middle East.  Razan, in short, is an original, a trailblazer.  She is among a generation of brave, remarkable young Syrians whose collective, peaceful, efforts will eventually undo one of the most repressive regimes anywhere. 

I hope and pray for her quick and safe return. 

Fadwa Suleiman's Recent Videotaped Statement

Another compelling statement by Syrian actress Fadwa Suleiman addressing the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations.

Foretelling Syria's Future from Libya's Present

You reap what you sow, it is said, and many Libyans would argue that Ghaddafi's horrific end pales in comparison to the horrors he inflicted on thousands of Libyans during his ignominious rule.  I understand the feeling and have no sympathy for Ghaddafi and yet the way he was killed and the macabre display of his body leaves me uneasy.  As the Libyans rejoice in their liberation, they may think that the circumstances of  Ghaddafi's death is only of concern for Western human rights organizations, but I disagree.  Libya is supposed to be turning a new page not borrowing a page from the defunct Jamahiriya.  If you let one extrajudicial killing slide, how many more will be ignored before it is too late, before the country slides into an orgy of revenge killings. The NTC should have owned up to what happened to Ghaddafi, quickly contained the fallout, imposed some discipline on the fighters in the field and moved on to the difficult tasks ahead.

The juxtaposition of the frantic, blood-soaked final days of the Libyan uprising to images of 90% of Tunisians going to the polls for their first free elections, couldn't have been more jarring and informative.  Tunisia's ousting of their autocratic ruler was relatively peaceful and quick and their transition to democracy seems to be on track. Libya's road to freedom was long, violent and destructive and their road back to some semblance of normalcy will be even longer and more complicated. 

These events leave me wondering about the future of the Syrian uprising. Without a critical mass openly joining the opposition or outside military intervention, it looks like we are in for a long simmering war of attrition between the government and the opposition.  This  will lead not only to more violence and loss of life but will also start to erode the social and economic fabric of Syrian society and disrupt normal day to day functioning of state and educational institutions.  The longer this drags on the more difficult and fraught with danger the post-Bashar transition will be.  So what is the solution if military intervention is not a palatable option to the majority of Syrians who oppose the regime? 

Whereas Ghaddafi clearly would not have succumbed to political pressure, I believe that Bashar, despite his grandstanding, and with the appropriate screws tightened, would succumb to such pressure.  This may be an especially opportune time to do so with the recent toppling of a similarly obstinate dictator.  The trouble is that I do not see such political pressure forthcoming.  The Arab League, with its predictable impotence, is unable to pressure the Syrian regime and the Western countries, not wanting to confront Russia and China are not pushing hard enough and are anyway distracted with their own economic crisis. 

Morpheus, the Damascene Architect, Fails to Charm

Morpheus, the Damascene architect, unlike his mythological namesake, has utterly failed to charm with the mendacious lyrics of his tired old song.  His article posted on Syria Comment is a complete whitewash of the Assad dynastic rule couched to appear objective and balanced.  The author's bottom line is that Syrians face two options: secular bliss under the Assad fiefdom or Islamist hell without it.  He also blames the protesters for pushing too hard for reform, inciting violence and ruining "all that was achieved" by seeking to overthrow rather than work within the established state system.

Where to start with a piece so full of fallacies and misinformation. First, to label the dynastic, overtly sectarian Assad regime as secular is laughable.  Second, that Bashar has instituted any significant reform during his tenure as president is equally ludicrous.  At the beginning of his tenure, Bashar started on what appeared to be a reforming path but quickly reverted to the old Assad mode of governing.  He turned out to be as thin-skinned as his father and soon dissenters were rotating in and out of jail. He built a cult of personality -witness its nauseating manifestations among the "minhibbak" crowd- largely based on the charisma, intelligence and looks of Asma.    True, some economic reforms were implemented but benefited mostly the well connected cronies of the regime. I have never seen evidence of genuine, even if gradual, democratic reform. And despite Bashar's utter failure to produce real reform, the majority of Syrians were still, in the name of stability, willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  Even after the start of the uprising, the peaceful demonstrators were calling for justice and reform not for toppling of the regime even as his thugs were slaughtering unarmed protesters .  It was clearly not the demonstrators who refused negotiate or work within the system, it was the regime that was utterly incapable of dealing with dissent expect by crushing it.

What the demonstrations quickly laid bare is that talk of democratic reform was just that. A regime that is preparing for a transition to democracy would be slowly allowing an opening in civil society and working to develop independent civil institutions, lift the state of emergency and allow the election of a representative parliament rather than a bunch of ass-kissing sycophants. An autocratic regime preparing for reform would not be spending a good part of the treasury to equip a division of the army specially trained not to defend the country but to defend the regime. Even worse, the regime has trained and equipped non-uniformed civilians as a private militia, not constrained by the rules of  law, to do whatever they deem necessary to protect the regime. So it is the regime whose "apres moi, le deluge" attitude is dragging Syria to the brink of civil strife and an uncertain future, not the demonstrators.

The Young Ones Laugh: A Syrian Parable

                                            (Photo from: Paxmachina)

The Young Ones Laugh:

    One day the king saw a number of children playing in the field and laughing merrily. 

"Why are you laughing?" he asked.

"I am laughing," one of them replied "because the sky is blue."

"I am laughing," a second replied "because the trees are green."

"I am laughing," a third replied "because the birds are flying through the air."

    The king looked at the sky, the birds, and the trees and found that they were not laughing.  He came to the conclusion that the children were only laughing to poke fun a the king's majesty.  So he went back to his palace and issued an order forbidding the people of his kingdom to laugh. All the old people obeyed the ruling and stopped laughing, but the young children paid no attention to the king's edict and carried on laughing because the sky is blue, the trees are green and the birds kept on flying.

From: The Enemies, by Zakariyya Tamer

The Syrian National Council is Formed: A Hopeful Day for Syria

The formation of the Syrian National Council is a milestone in the Syrian uprising.  That it took six months to put together may have frustrated many Syrians but it is understandable given that the regime has never allowed any opposition activity within Syrian and imprisoned many of the most influential dissidents. The Council's formation is critical in many respects other than the obvious one: that it represents one united effort to change the regime.  Since the beginning of the uprising and with the media blackout imposed by the regime, there was never a defined face of the opposition. The regime stuck to its narrative of armed gangs, jihadists and outsiders fomenting the uprising.  If the outside world did not buy these fabrications, many Syrians, fearing chaos  instability or worse, never questioned this narrative.  This is especially true of Syrian Christians, who were, to a degree, justifiably fearful having seen the fate of their co-religionists in Iraq.  With the formation of a Council whose motto is "One people, one nation, one council",  and composed of people representing the Syrian ideological, religious and ethnic spectrum, the regime will have a harder time peddling their lies.  I am hoping that as a consequence, many Syrians who have sided with the regime will start seeing the light.

Call me sentimental, but I am completely taken by the symbolism of the Council's poster. I am too old to be naive but still hope that the members of the council stay true to their motto and work on behalf of all Syrians. In fact every Syrian must hold them to that. But truly what this poster conveys in ideas, as simple as they might appear, is a radical departure not only  for Syria but for the whole Middle East. Since the countries of the Middle East gained their independence now some sixty to seventy years ago, two political ideologies dominated: pan-Arabism and to a lesser extent pan-Islamism.  Both ideologies sought to homogenize and forcibly conform the diverse countries of the region into a single mold; one ignored the rich ethnic diversity of the region and the other, its rich religious diversity. Both ignored the cultural and historical differences between Arab countries spanning the Arabian gulf to the Atlantic coast of Africa. In this paradigm, the interests of the citizens of a particular country and even those of the country itself were always superseded by the interests of a somewhat mythical whole.  That is why the notion of  inclusiveness, "one people, one nation", the notion that each citizen counts, seems so radical, even if it is long overdue.  

What is Imad Mustapha Smoking?

On today's CNN interview of Syrian ambassador to the U.S. Imad Mustapha, the lover of art and philosophy, he essentially states that everyone in Syria except the regime is lying.  If he is not smoking some funky weed, he must be in possession of the hallucinogenic pills that government propaganda says Al Jazeera supplied the gangs of protesters.  He must also think that activist Giyath Matar's body was a prop in Qatar along with the elaborate sets that have been manufactured to stage and videotape fake demonstrations.  It is a sad state of affairs when otherwise intelligent people, rather than mustering the courage to take the moral high ground  choose to fully embrace the paranoid delusions of dictatorial regime.

A Word to Syrians Who Refuse to Take a Stand

Came across this fitting poem for those Syrians who are sitting, silent on the sidelines:

Whoever keeps you and me
from being we,
let his house cave in.
If I don't become we, I'm alone.
If you don't become we,
you are just you.
Why not make The East
arise again?
Why not force open
the hands of the vile?
If I rise,
if you arise,
everyone will be roused.
If I sit,
if you take a seat,
who will take a stand?
Who will fight the foe,
grapple the foul enemy hand to hand


From: Blue, Grey, Black (1969) by the Iranian poet Hamid Mosadegh

Ali Ferzat's Pen is Mightier than Bashar's Sword

It was like a bad flashback.  In the 1980s Selim Al-Lawzy, editor of Al Hawadeth, a weekly critical of the Assad (senior) regime was found murdered and thrown on the roadside on the outskirts of Beirut.  One remarkable detail stuck with me to this day.  Both his hands were severely mutilated before he was killed.  That detail stuck with me because of what it says of the viciousness of the people who committed the crime.  It was not enough to kill the man, the tools of his trade, his mode of free expression, his hands had to be destroyed first.  The message was clear to all those who would dare speak ill of the despot; even he knows that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Today, Ali Ferzat, the brilliant Syrian political cartoonist, was abducted by masked men in Damascus, savagely beaten and left at a roadside with both hands broken. Why? Because he dared express himself freely and speak his conscious openly and courageously; a recent cartoon apparently compared Bashar to Ghaddafi.

Latakia Under Fire

Latakia is not the first Syrian city to suffer the wrath of a regime spiraling out of control and it will not be the last, but with Latakia, the city of my birth, it has become personal.

I recognized the vantage point from which the shaky YouTube video of the al Ramel district in Latakia was captured.  It was from Tabiat, the hilly neighborhood on the Southern tip of the Latakia peninsula looking East.  As children, we frequently visited a family friend who lived near the very top of Tabiat.  I remember the view of the Palestinian refugee camp, then a hamlet at the outskirts of the city just off a sandy coast,  now engulfed by urban sprawl.  Little did I know that one day, the Syrian regime that fancies itself champion of the Palestinian cause, of steadfastness and resistance against Israeli hegemony, would send its army  (حمات الديار: defenders of the homeland) to fire, indiscriminately, salvos of heavy machine gun fire into an area teeming with Palestinian refugees and impoverished Syrians.  Many who have escaped the fire are now herded like cattle in the city stadium, built by Assad father, to host, with great fanfare, the 1987 Mediterranean games. The only sport now practiced in that stadium is gratuitous violence and humiliation of innocent civilians, a sport for which the regime's thugs deserve the title of world champions. Of course other neighborhoods in Latakia suffered a similar fate including Slaibeh where I was born and where my aunt and cousins still live in building, sandwiched between a  church and mosque. We have yet to hear any news from them.

One gets the distinct sense that this a regime in free fall. There are few if any public appearances or statements by high level government officials.  They don't answer the phone when world figures call, they alienate the few allies they have and make no coherent statements about what the plan for the country is. Their absence cannot inspire confidence.   In fact the only part of this regime that exudes confidence are members of the security forces who, after more than five months, have not lost any of their swagger, their viciousness or their brutality.  It is, in fact, the only thing that this regime knows how to do well; after forty one years of the Assad dynasty, this is the only skill they have truly mastered.

Beirut Demonstrations in Support of the Syrian People

It is nice to see the large turnout in Beirut in support of the Syrian people.  I cannot vouch for the motives of all who were present but I think most had their heart in the right place. Perhaps most prominent was the presence of the musician and singer Marcel Khalife, who is popular across the Middle East.  His principled and reasoned stance in support of the Syrian people defied the idiotic thinking that you cannot both support the Palestinian people and resistance against Israel and at the same time condemn the criminality of the Syrian regime.

This Lebanese show of support is payback of sorts for the generosity of the Syrian people who sheltered displaced Lebanese families during the war of 2006.  Despite the disdain with which some Lebanese view Syrians, it is an undeniable fact of history and geography that the two people are inextricably linked.  Both people need each other's support.  To me the support of the demonstrators in Beirut means much more than the hypocritical support of the Saudi monarch and the government of Bahrain who somehow overlooked their own complicit criminality several months in crushing the peaceful protests in Bahrain.

Syrian Revolt Five Months On: Decrees, Deception and Death

There is perversity in Bashar Al Assad's pronouncements that borders on the obscene.  After starting, on the eve of Ramadan,  the bloodiest crackdown in the five months of the Syrian uprising, he has the gall to pass a decree, like a benevolent father bestowing a favor on to his children, allowing the creation of political parties.  All the while the state's security apparatus, when they are not bombing a town into submission to rid it of "armed gangs", tracks down, imprisons and tortures anyone who so much as thinks of dissent. The hand of the regime even extends outside Syria with their goons belting peaceful protesters outside of the Syrian embassy in Beirut.

Yet despite the fact that the regime's actions defy all logic and reason, many, in and out of Syria continue to drink the Kool-Aid dished out by the regime as I noticed on a recent trip to Lebanon.  There, the defenders of the Assad regime make for some strange bedfellows.  A not insignificant number of Christian Lebanese, the same people who cheered the loudest when the Syrian army left Lebanon in 2005,  have bought into Bashar's narrative as the defender of minorities.  There is of course the Hezbollah supporters, the party of the poor and disenfranchised, that celebrated the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen but demurred when it came to the Syrian revolt.  Suddenly, the revolt of the Arab people is a Saudi-American-Israeli plot.  Even my own brother seems to have sipped the regime's Kool-Aid.  The truth about what is going in Syria is somewhere in the middle, he told me as I raged at the brutality of the regime.  This from a man whose father -our father- was one of the early victims of the emergency laws having been thrown in Mezze prison for three months in 1963.  My brother's contorted reasoning is that Assad is the defender of the "resistance" against Israel and that the Syrian revolt is manufactured by outsiders.  Somehow, this reasoning makes it acceptable for Assad to kill, maim, imprison and torture thousands of his citizens for the simple act of expressing their opinion. 

The other prop trotted out by the regime supporters is the elusive "armed gangs" of terrorists and salafists, an obsession of several of Josh Landis' posts.  After nearly five months of government brutality, it is not surprising that some the citizenry have retaliated in kind; what is surprising actually is the amount of restraint shown by most citizens. I have yet to see evidence of an organized armed resistance let alone salafist terrorists who are typically not shy in boasting about their exploits.  Having said that, if the regime keeps up the violence, their wish will come true.  Armed resistance will emerge in various forms including the salafist whose appetite for violence will match that of the regime and then some. 

The outlook for Syria is gloomy.  Assad shows no signs of wanting to negotiate a settlement and with Syria having no independent civic institutions, a transition similar to that in Tunisia or Egypt is not possible.  Moreover, direct outside intervention will not happen and will anyway be counter productive. The present impasse will continue with a ratcheting up of the violence on the part of security leading inevitably to increasingly violent push back from those on the receiving end.

If this vicious cycle continues to snow ball,  Syria  will degenerate into an Iraqi style civil war.  I this happens, let there be no doubt that the regime bears full responsibility.  Bashar could have chosen the high road back in March and he would have been celebrated as hero in all corners of Syria.  Instead he has chosen the path laid down by his father in 1982.  

A Must Read

A beautifully written, heart wrenching post by Juxtaposer.

The Lion's Speech

There is a lot I could have said about the lion's speech but nothing could have summed it up better and more succinctly than what I saw on bumper sticker while driving to work today. 

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

A Man of Principle: Malek Jandali vs ADC

The Arab American Anti-discrimination Committee (ADC) is an organization created to safeguard the civil and human rights of Arab-Americans. This weekend is their yearly convention.  Malek Jandali, the noted composer and pianist of Homsi origin was to perform at the convention.  He was to perform his new song Watani Ana (my homeland is me), a universal call for freedom and dignity.  Although Syria is not explicitly mentioned in the lyrics, given his background, it is clear what Watan he is referring to; and yet the lyrics are gentle and non-confrontational. The ADC asked him to choose another piece to perform at the convention. He refused and when the ADC would not give in, he walked away.

The ADC's explanation for its action just does not hold any water.  They are an organization that strongly promotes the human and civil rights of Arab Americans.  They cannot claim to be apolitical and feign neutrality when it comes to human rights abuses in the Middle East because they take a clear stance in on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  What they did with Jandali is hypocritical and outrageous.

I have been a card carrying ADC member for several years now but will reconsider my membership if the ADC does not change course.  They can either limit their mission to civil rights issues in the US, or be an independent voice for human rights for all Arabs.  To achieve the latter, they will have to assert their independence from Arab regimes.

As for Malek Jandali, I salute him as a man of principle and a Syrian patriot.  In his gentle, civil way, he continues to advocate for the Syrian people at every chance that he gets.

Ministry of Disinformation: Reem Haddad Lives in an Alternative Universe

But I don't think she is delusional; she is lying and she knows it.  It is the same with every Syrian government official I have seen being interviewed.  As soon as they are asked a simple of question, they immediately become defensive, combative and then indignant. You don't need a polygraph, just watch their body language and their facial expression and the tremor in their voice; they are lying through their teeth.

منحبك : Who are these People?

Who are these people with their well manicured looks, their matching white hats and flags and requisite Bashar posters as statesman, warrior and man for all seasons? Do they really believe that they represent the majority of Syrians and that the men women and children protesting peacefully for change are but the poor ignorant minority?  Even if it was so, why are they so heartless? Has the blood of their compatriots spilled so savagely by men who utter Bashar's name next to God's in their chants not repulsed them?

It is an irony of ironies that the heir to the Arab Baath Socialist party has carefully built and indoctrinated this privileged class of Syrians as the buffer between him and the unwashed masses. This منحبك (we love you) class was built to reflect an air of modernity and sophistication that Bashar has sought to project over the last decade.  Yet, clearly, this veneer of sophistication is thin and, as has become clear over the last twelve weeks, supported by a corrupt and repressive state infrastructure.

The منحبك crowd should be told that carrying posters of your leader as idol or big brother is so 20th century. They should also be told that if they want real sophistication, they should listen to their less privileged compatriots from the hinterland.  Those compatriots understand, much more than they do,  the importance of freedom and dignity.  They understand that without those very basic tenets, you cannot built a thriving successful country where citizens enjoy equal rights and opportunities.

Daydreams and Nightmares

House Call: My yearly visit to one of my homebound patients.

Patient: Are you taking a vacation this summer?

Me: Yes

Patient: Where are you going?

Me: To Lebanon

Patient: Is that where you are from?

Me: My wife is from there, I am Syrian.

Home attendant:  Where is that?

Me: In the Middle East (in my head: Aakh! If I had a penny for every time I heard that question I would be a millionaire!)

Patient: I would love to go there, but they hate Americans don’t they?

Me: No they don’t…So how is your back pain? 

Driving back to the hospital I listen to Lina Chamamyan Ala moj el bahr. I am transported for a moment by her beautiful voice until ugly Youtube images from Lattakia, Banyas, Bayda and elsewhere rudely intrude into my daydream. My throat tightens, I reach down for the off button then hesitate.  Screw them, the bastards will not spoil my daydream.

The Moral Dissonance of the Syrian Regime Apologists

The Syrian regime is claiming victory in its battle with its own people or rather, as they would say, the battle against the insurrection by armed terrorist gangs.  I hope they are wrong but I frankly don't know.  They have managed to choke off almost completely the trickle of images escaping from Syria, arrested thousand of activists and continued their brutal crackdown.  Does that mean that the protests have diminished and will stop?  I doubt it.

If the fragmentary information over the past eight weeks has left many in doubt about the course of the events,  there are certain things I have become certain of. The regime's ruling elite is brutal, incorrigible and  unreformable and willing to take the country down with it rather than surrender or share power. I always thought that some opponents of the regime engaged in hyperbole when describing the regime as a mafia. But how else can you describe a regime led by a leader who inherited the presidency and that is rife with nepotism. Brother Maher controls the most powerful division in the army, a cousin is the wealthiest monopolist businessman in Syria and various lesser Assads control a freelance militia, the so-called Shabiha, used to kill and intimidate unruly citizens.  In fact , the Corleones' behavior pales compared to the Assads.

The last eight weeks have also acutely heightened my distaste for those, who despite everything that has transpired, continue to provide cover for the president and his regime.  After several hundred unarmed protesters are killed, many more injured and thousands of activists and ordinary citizens incarcerated and tortured, there is no room for moral hand-wringing.  The regime has clearly shown  what it is capable and willing to do to its own people.  If the protests are suppressed, the apologists will say that it is because the president has many more supporters than detractors among the Syrian citizens, as if the blood of those who died was worth spilling if the protests represented only 20% of the Syrian people.

Surely the same regime apologists will think my moral arguments naive.  They will tell me that I don't understand the complex nature of the Machiavellian politics of the Middle East and how events are interconnected by nefarious conspiracies.  I am happy to be the naive one along with all the common people whose Arab Spring has debunked all the stupid assumptions and political theories. It turns out -surprise, surprise- Arabs are like everyone else and long first and foremost for dignity, respect and freedom.  Until individuals in our part of the world are given those basic rights they will continue to be expandable pawns in power games played by a few and we will never be able to build stable, progressive societies that achieve the potential of their people.

The Syrian regime might temporarily put out the fires but the embers of dissent will continue to burn.

How Many Syrian Demonstrators are Enough?

Since the beginning of the demonstrations in Syria, some, mostly regime sympathizers or apologists, have obsessed over the numbers of demonstrators. They were too few to make a difference, they said, a handful of disgruntled extremists from the countryside; everyone else loved the president. When the numbers went from dozens, to hundreds, to thousands and then to tens of thousands, these number crunchers then switched to estimating the number of protesters relative to the total population again trying to minimize their relevance.

This is a silly exercise at many levels.  First, no one knows what the numbers are since the government-run media is a propaganda puppet of the regime that spews bold-faced lies and no independent journalists are allowed into Syria. Second, in a country that has been in a state of lockdown since 1963, a dozen people publicly  demonstrating against the regime would have been front page news only  two months ago.  So, if some of the citizens have boldly tossed the yoke of fear off their necks, it is a safe bet that many are still too afraid to express their real views. This fear is reinforced by the regime and its security forces' -uniformed or not- penchant for shooting unarmed demonstrators and otherwise trying to extinguish any nascent demonstration with threats of violence, intimidation and arrests. Witnesses also describe how security forces surround mosques at prayer time letting people leave one a time to prevent the gathering of a crowd; this after the president declared that Syrians have the right to demonstrate peacefully.

In the end, however, the question as to whether the regime needs to change has nothing to do with the number of demonstrators but has all to do with the response of the regime to the demonstrations; and by that measure they have lost all legitimacy. Several hundred, unarmed, demonstrators have lost their lives; few would dispute that their deaths was at the hands of the security forces or the shabiha. That fact without any attempt on the part of the government to take responsibility for its act is reason enough for a change. No Syrian, myself included, wants to see the country descend into chaos.  That the options are down to the status quo or chaos is the choice of the regime not the demonstrators.  The power structure, built specifically to cement the power of a few, is rigid  with no room for  flexibility to adapt to change despite  having a self-declared reformer at the helm for a decade.  The emergency laws have been lifted in name only as hundreds of arbitrary arrest continue unabated.  Is there any shred of evidence that this regime is willing or capable of evolving, of reforming itself into something other than the repressive police state it has been for last 48 years?

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Playing the Sectarian Card in Syria

One of the most corrosive and disingenuous claims of the Syrian regime is that the protesters are crypto-salafists bent on instigating sectarian strife; this coming from a regime that is established and maintained on narrow sectarian loyalties.  Of course the implicit message to the Syrian people, as well as to Westerners (see the recent Vogue interview of the Assads), is that peaceful coexistence among the sects in Syria is made possible only by the grace of the Assads and was it not for them, Syria would be deep into a sectarian civil war. Interestingly, the argument the regime makes is identical to what Westerner commentators glibly make when talking about our region: loyalties sectarian and tribal and they only get along when coexistence is enforced.

Sectarian chauvinism certainly exists and is present in all sects and is not limited to wild-eyed salafists.  However,  relations among the sects in Syria have been generally good, a situation that antedates the Assads.  Moreover, I strongly believe that the primacy of sectarian loyalties is diminishing with time.  At independence, it was difficult for people brought together within boundaries drawn by colonial powers to feel like citizens of a nation.  Loyalties were first and foremost regional, religious or tribal.  However, after sixty years of common history and common shared memory, even the citizens of the most artificially drawn up nation develop a sense of a shared identity. That is why the current generation of young Arabs identify themselves first as citizens of their respective countries. We saw that feeling clearly manifested in the demonstrations in Egypt and we see it now among the young Syrian protesters. Even in the country where sectarianism is institutionalized, Lebanon, young protesters have been out in the streets demanding an end to the sectarian sate.

The Syrian regime is currently pandering to the fears of minority communities.  They in turn, are understandably nervous.  However, the best way to insure the rights of minorities is to have those rights protected by a representative and responsive government and not dependent on the benevolence of an authoritarian ruler.

Youtube Video Worth a Million Words

It starts predictably with protesters marching and chanting. Soon, shots are heard, protesters scatter, the image turns sideways and upside down, too shaky for a clear image only to settle to a static street level view. The road is deserted, a young man lies prone in a pool of blood, a few feet away. He is staring straight at the camera with vacant, near lifeless eyes, slight movements of his head the only palpable sign of life . When the shooting stops, hoarse cries arise, in a mix or horror, fear and disbelief they shout repeatedly: "Allahu Akbar" and "Ambulance, we need an ambulance". The frenetic images return; as the camera pans back and forth over the chaotic scene, you see protesters scrambling to help the injured, several are carried hastily away from the open road, some with horrific wounds. We also get a quick final glimpse of the young man, still lying in the street, now face down, lifeless. Fear and horror turn to seething anger with shouts of "Bashar, you son of a bitch, this was peaceful!"

I must have watched dozens of these shaky pixilated Youtube protest videos taken by Syrian citizens. It is not that I have macabre voyeuristic urges, I just need to see, sitting in safety thousands of miles away, what the people of Syria are enduring. Many of these video clips were too difficult to watch but none have affected me as much as that of the recent demonstration in Izraa described above. I am not sure why, was it the haunting look of the dying young man who could have been my son's age or the sheer horror I heard in the voices of the survivors? No one, and I mean no one, protesting peacefully deserves such a fate. If for most readers, this last statement is self-evident, it is not apparently for some defenders of the regime who will come up with any number of reasons as to why these people deserve such treatment.

Of course, as the various news websites stipulate, the authenticity of these videos clips cannot be verified. However, it is the sheer number of these videos, their rawness, their redundancy and their consistency in telling the same horrific story across every demonstration in multiple towns that make them totally believable. What you clearly see is that the protesters consist of mostly young to middle-aged men, unarmed, representing a cross section of Syrian society, demonstrating peacefully. Has there been vandalism and some violence on the part of the protesters? Of course there has been. But again, to the regime apologists I say that neither tearing up posters of the president nor toppling statues constitute capital offenses in any self-respecting country. What is astounding, is that after enduring over five weeks of unprovoked mayhem at the hands of security forces, that the protesters have not resorted to an open, violent insurrection.

If an image is worth a thousand words, videos clips are worth a million and this massive archive of moving images, as imperfect as it is, is a damning indictment of the Syrian regime.

Malek Jandali: Watani Ana مالك جندلي، وطني أنا

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Watani Ana (I am my Homeland) Composed & Arranged by Malek Jandali - Piano - Vocals: Salma Habib & Ali Waad Cello: Martin Gueorguiev Directed by: Jibril Haynes

Syria: I Hoped for an Evolution but Got a Revolution

Like many Syrians I had hoped for a transformation in Syria over the last decade with the ascendancy of Bashar to the presidency.  There was not much logic behind my hope except for a Syrian's natural tendency to want to avoid conflict and wish the best for his beloved country.  This wishful thinking eroded gradually over the years, as other than applying a shiny veneer of wealth to the privileged -well connected- few in Damascus, the president achieved no real reform. However, as late as a couple of weeks ago, even after the outrage in Daraa, I was still, against all odds,  willing to give Bashar the chance to do the right thing.  He failed miserably.

The harsh reality, as clearly demonstrated in the last month, is that the Syrian regime of 2011 is no different than the Syrian Regime of 1990 or 1980.  Worse than the brute force with which the protests were put down, is the way some in the security forces (or is it the Shabiha) sadistically handle anyone taken into custody.  The most recent appalling example can be seen on Youtube video of armed security officers in the village of Baida, brutalizing the men they had taken into custody.  The behavior is meant to sow fear, dehumanize and debase the citizens.  It is as if the regime is in an abusive relationship with its own people. And as in abusive relationships, the abuser will intermittently feign concern and sympathy between bouts of abuse; hence the meeting of the president with delegates from Banyas to try "reduce tension".

The regime's clumsy propaganda has worked on no one but their most die hard supporters and many disillusioned apologists have given up on them all together.  If the regime of 2011 is no different than that of 1980, the Syrian citizens of 2011 are. The people have lost their fear of the regime and brute force will not work, as it did in the past, to quash the legitimate aspirations of the people.  The sooner the regime realizes that the better it is for Syria. Unfortunately, a system based on fear and intimidation is not equipped with the flexibility to adapt to new realities.

I fear that we are looking at many more months of strife and bloodshed.

The Syrian President's Ignominious Speech

As I was searching for words to express my outrage at the president's speech, I came across Hashashji's post that perfectly encapsulates the speech's message (below is my translation):

- ما رح يتغير شي…الاصلاح مبلش من عشر سنين بس عادة التغييرات بدها عشرين سنة لتظهر و يعم الرخاء…

- الحكومة كان مقرر تسريحها اساسا…يعني مو لانو حدا تظاهر…

- لن يتم التساهل مع اي تظاهرة او متظاهر…

- اما معي….او ضد سوريا

- انا سوريا و سوريا انا….

- انا ما فهمتكون و ما شكلي رح افهمكون…صحي شو بدكون؟

- الاعلام السوري هو المرجعية الاعلامية لا العقل و الكومن سينس او اليوتوب

- انو معتقلين سياسيين؟

- انا الامل

- شعب متلكون بيستاهل واحد متلي

مبروك علينا الوطن…

• I will not change anything... The reforms started ten years but the amendments will take another twenty years before they are applied and spread prosperity
• The government was slated to resign anyway... it was not because of the demonstrations
• There will be no compromise with any demonstration or demonstrator
• You are with me... or you are against Syria
• I am Syria and Syria is me...
• I do not understand you and it appears that I never will... what do you really want?
• Syria's government media is the primary reference, not critical thought or common sense or YouTube
• What political prisoners? 
• I am hope
• A people like you deserves someone like me

The speech was dripping with arrogance and hubris.  Even worse than the speech itself were the cheers of the sycophants in the parliament who, on cue, chanted their allegiance to the president.  How much longer do the Syrian people have to be subjected to such nauseating and humiliating spectacles. It was not the cabinet  of technocrats that should have resigned but rather this collection of useless ass-kissers.  The president's speech contained not a word of compassion or regret for those who died at the hands of his government's security forces and no recognition of any of the long list of legitimate demands put forth by the demonstrators. The statement that this was the work of conspirators intending to harm Syria, essentially delegitimizes every demonstration that started on March 15th and makes every demonstrator a traitor. The consequences for those who oppose his valiant effort to safeguard the patrimony didn't have to be spelled out; the Syrian people understood.  However, this is not Syria of 1982, 2000 or 2010, the people will not go gently into the night. Not only have they lost their fear of those in power, they have the moral backing of millions of other Arabs who have shed the albatross of fear from around their neck .

If the president thinks that his hardline will somehow extricate him from the present impasse, he is wrong.  He has undoubtedly lost significant popular support for his handling of the demonstrations. Many of the ever optimistic "give Bashar a chance" crowd buoyed by the promise of some grand announcement of reforms, will finally abandon him as well.  Bashar Assad could have made history today as a real reformer, regained his people's trust and secured Syria's stability and security.  Instead, he has chosen confrontation and suppression of dissent insuring Syria's progressive instability and insecurity.

I fear what is coming next; God help the people of Syria.

Syria: Sorting Rumors from Willful Disinformation

The absence of independent journalists covering the events in Syria has made it impossible to get a clear sense of what is going on the ground. The official Syrian media is a mouthpiece of the regime and routinely engages in decietful and outright false reporting.  The most recent example is the implausible story of the Egyptian-American Tweed with a cellphone, paraded as proof of a foreign (American-Saudi-Wahhabi-Israeli) plot to destroy Syria.  On the other hand, trying to piece together the view from the other side by watching blurry youtube videos of uncertain provenance or tweets of second and third hand information is equally troubling. The events in Lattakia, my hometown, is a case in point.  Who shot at the civilians? a. security forces, b. regime goons in civilian clothes? or c. "foreign" elements trying to sow sectarian discord as the government claims.  Judging from recent history, the Arab autocrat's playbook would  suggest that the answer is a and b. Yet, it is impossible to verify my impression.

This lack of credible information puts the Syrian public in a tough spot and given the sectarian sensitivities, makes them more susceptible to sectarian fear mongering on the part of the regime.   Although there is little doubt that some opposing the regime have sectarian agendas, the vast majority do not.  And as to the uprising being the work of other meddling countries, there is absolutely no proof that I can see.  Neither the start of the trouble in Daraa nor any subsequent demonstration seemed to be other that hastily organized and largely leaderless protests. The organized opposition groups seemed to have little clout, not much of a popular base and seem believed like most everyone else that the Syrian people was not ready.

Having said that, the more the regime bungles the response to these demonstrations with more violence and deaths the more violent the response and the more protracted the conflict will be, allowing opportunistic groups with specific agendas come in and sow discord. 

Syrian Government's Proposed Reforms:Talk is Cheap

The Syrian regime had an epiphany after  massacring dozens of it own citizens in Daraa: keep it up and you may not be around too much longer. So, grudgingly, Bouthaina Shaaban is trotted out to declare sweeping reforms! maybe... or maybe they will just consider thinking about thinking about reforms. She admits that perhaps the people of Daraa have legitimate grievances but then goes on to immediately delegitimize them by saying that the demonstrations are the work of foreigners trying to destabilize Syria.  I guess no one in the regime watches the satellite channels.  Don't they realize that every other Arab autocrat in trouble has trotted out the same lame excuse and no one believed them?

There is a distinct smell of insincerity about the whole thing.  Why was it Shaaban who offered these concessions? Why not the president? Why are some of the offers of reform so ambivalent?  Is this just a stalling tactic to buy time and let the passions simmer down?  I remain skeptical.  This regime has had absolute power for  two generations, imposing its will on the people and tolerating absolutely no dissent.  This is their modus operandi, they know no other way of doing things. 

There has been enough bloodshed already. Talk is cheap; if the regime does not start implementing its declared reform agenda, it will loose the last shred of legitimacy it still has.   

Syrian Demonstrators in Cairo Attacked by Embassy Goons

Another example of the utter contempt for the citizens they are supposed to serve!

What the Chattering Class is Saying about the Demonstrations in Syria

A good place to gauge the mood of Syria's internet chattering  class is the comment sections of Joshua Landis' postings on Syria Comment. The chattering class is jittery, and for good reason.  Everyone was unanimous about the fear of a descent into violence and chaos, myself included.

This jitteriness seems to have also affected the reasoned judgement of many. It has also brought to the surface the biases and paranoia of the commentators, clearly colored by each person's sectarian and class affiliation.   Conspiracies abound.  A KSA-US-Beirut conspiracy to destabilize Syria is mentioned.  Beirut? with Lebanon politically dominated by Hizballah, does anyone seriously believe that the emasculated March 14th movement is capable of inciting rebellion in Syria?  Wahhabi plots are also raised as a cause of unrest by several commentators although no one has yet raised the possibility of hallucinogenic drugs being involved!  The Daraa demonstrations were attributed to a tribe in the region with Wahhabi tendencies not the arrest of fifteen schoolboys for scribbling anti government graffiti, inspired by the images they saw of the Egyptian demonstrations. It is ironic that some of the obsessions with Wahhabis sound very much like the stuff spouted regularly by fear-mongering right-wing American neocons.

Many of the comments seem to uncover sensitive sectarian and class divides.  Officially, we all get along in Syria, and officially, it is all because of the president's stewardship. Unofficially, we do, for the most part get along, certainly much better than our neighbors to the East and to the West; not because of the president's stewardship but because of the generally tolerant predisposition of Syrians. This does not mean that there are no sectarian sensitivities or concerns and airing such concerns without prejudice or demonization of other groups is a good thing in the long run . 

There certainly is at least a grain of truth in most of the fears expressed, but many are wildly exaggerated at the expense of de-legitimizing the real grievances of ordinary Syrian citizens.  What the demonstrators want here is what other demonstrators in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya and Bahrain are asking for. Most of the commentators, recognize the latter grievances and yet seem to want to hang on to the status quo because they cannot see a clear road to an orderly transition.  This is largely because there are no institutions independent of the president capable of assuring an orderly transition. This is not the fault of the Syrian people, it is the fault of a regime that has not, despite being in power for a decade, made the major reforms needed to allow for the evolution from a top-down, locked-down authoritarian government to a open, representative government.  Instead of giving KSA tacit approval for sending troops to Bahrain, the president should be talking to the Egyptians and Tunisians.  

Syria: The Genie is out of the Bottle?

As I reflect on the events in Syria today, I remember Bashar Assad's confident, if not smug, answers during the Wall Street Journal interview at the time of Mubarak's fall. He did not hide his pleasure at the fall of Mubarak and with him the Camp David accord.  He himself, however, was untouchable, he implied, because he listens to his people and backs the "resistance".  The various regime apologists later chimed in saying pretty much the thing: it will not happen in Syria.  Well, it has and  the brutal push back against the demonstrations in Yemen, Libya and Bahrain has not dampened the resolve of those seeking change.

Over the last three months, it has become perfectly clear for all to see that the autocratic rulers of the Arab world are all cut of the same cloth.  Whether they are American lackeys or chest thumping members of the "resistance", they view  their people with the same jaundiced eye and treat them with utter disdain.  The way they respond to demonstrations in the various countries might make you think that they are using the same playbook.  At the first sign of trouble, they bring out the riot police force, but also bring out the plain clothed goons to do the dirty work.   When people get hurt and killed, send the security forces to the hospitals to further intimidate the demonstrators and control the information coming out into the media. Of course, always blame outside agitators and infiltrators and ominously warn of chaos and disaster should they loose their grip on power.

The killing of demonstrators in Daraa today is a turning point for Syria.  If the regime retrenches and responds with more massive force to further demonstration -as I suspect it will, since it is the only way they know how to respond- I fear that Syria might descend onto a dangerous path.  What I would wish for  is a major public intervention on the part of the president to calm fears, the implementation of immediate reforms starting with lifting press and Internet censorship and the laying out of a serious and sincere plan for real reform.  Unfortunately, I am not hopeful anything that positive will ever occur.

In the end, the present regime, has no one but itself to blame.  In the decade since Bashar Assad has come to power, other than some economic reforms that have mostly benefited the rich; there has not been any  improvement in individual citizen's liberties and rights.  Had that been started a decade ago, the choices for Syria may not be as stark as they are now.

Syria and the Arab Revolt: The Clock is Ticking

After the Tunisian uprising, we were told that this was an anomaly.  After Egypt, they said that it is unlikely to go further because every country in the Middle East has a different history and circumstance.  After Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria, Libya and Oman, the pundits were left scratching their heads.  There is no pattern to this spreading revolt and thus no predictability. No one is immune. The only thing that seems to be certain now is that the Arab people no longer fear their rulers.

The short term outcome of the revolts will certainly differ from country to country and will  be largely dictated by the rulers.  Autocrats, especially those in power for decades, become alarmingly detached from reality and start believing the propaganda that they spew.  The false narrative on which their power structure is built becomes their alternative, delusional reality reinforced by the yes men that further insulate them from their people.  They are all invariably shocked, horrified at the intensity of the anger that their people manifest.  All blame outside forces, fellow Arabs, the media, Zionists or -every one's bogeyman- the Islamists.  Ghaddafi outdid everyone, as only he can, by claiming that the protesters were given hallucinogenic drugs. The reflexive response is deadly force as they know no other way of dealing with dissent. Some will eventually back off once reality pops their delusional bubble, they are talked down from an unsustainable position by more realistic advisers or they are pushed aside.  However, when, as in Libya, the delusion is a self-reinforcing family affair, the result is the unfolding tragedy we are now witnessing.

Where the Syrian regime falls within the spectrum of delusional autocratic regimes is a source of my concern.  While Bashar Assad publicly recognized the need for change, there have been no palpable moves in talking about or implementing reforms and the security forces seem to have been in heightened clamp-down mode.  A recent article featuring Asma al-Assad in the March issue of Vogue left me a little disconcerted. As always, Asma comes across as a vibrant, smart advocate of the Syrian people and the first couple appears down to earth and sincere. They also seem to make a conscious effort in showing the reporter that, despite living in a "rough neighborhood", they preside over a secure and diverse country with no sectarian strife.  The not so subliminal message is that we know how to make our citizens get along and if it was not for us, it will be an Islamist hell.  Here again is the autocrat's narrative - almost identical to that of Mubarak- on which power is built. 

To be clear, I don't a Tahrir, Pearl or Green square showdown in Damascus.  I don't want the blood of a single Syrian citizen spilled  and  would rather have an orderly evolution of the Syrian government rather than a revolution.   But the wave of anger is moving fast and unpredictably.There is a need for the Syrian regime to make bold and decisive moves towards a more democratic and transparent process of government.  Lifting the state of emergency, as Algeria recently did, would be a welcome first step and should be followed by  a program of reform attached to a timetable. 

The time to act is now; there is little time to waste.

Voice of Freedom هاني عادل : صوت الحرية

An uplifting music video about Tahrir square, a respite from the obscene images coming out of Bahrain as yet another Arab government demonstrates just how cheaply they value the lives of their citizens. 

Hypocrites East and West

The beauty of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia is that they belong to no one and to everyone; they are truly popular uprisings.  And yet everyone is falling over themselves to hypocritically claim them as their own.  When was the last time you saw the US government and Hizbullah agree on anything? Here is a partial parade of hypocrites:

• The US government, belatedly coming to the side of demonstrators after the man they propped up to the tune of 1.5 billion dollar a year crumbled
• American analysts and journalists who routinely added the adjective "moderate Arab leader" when referring to Mubarak; now they refer to him as "our SOB".  You see, they knew all along that he was an SOB, but because he was pliable and played nice with Israel, they turned a blind eye to his SOB qualities, the Egyptian people be damned. 
• Ahmedinejad claiming support for the uprising in Egypt and promptly quashing any popular demonstration in support of the uprising
• Hillary Clinton forcefully denouncing the "awful" Iranian regime's suppression of dissent and yet becoming mealy mouthed when it came to worse abuses by Bahrain and Yemen.  I wish she would just shut up.
• Bashar Assad claiming that the uprising will not spread to Syria because his people love his steadfast foreign policy; yet he promptly restores food subsidies and unlocks Facebook and Youtube. 
• Switzerland freezing the assets of the Mubarak clan.  Really?  I guess the Swiss bankers learned that it was tainted money after reading the signs carried by the protesters in the streets of Cairo.
• Muammar Gaddafi -every one's SOB- blaming everyone but himself for the anger on streets of Benghazi.

Remembering Egypt's Martyrs شهداء ثورة مصر

Remembering those who gave their lives for the freedom of the Egyptian people and inspired people everywhere.

Wael Ghonim on Dream TV وائل غنيم في مقابلة دريم

Wael Ghonim's TV interview, a day after his release by Egyptian security. What Wael has to say is compelling and important.  Just substitute any other Arab country's name for Egypt and what he is saying applies to every one of them.  (for video clips with English subtitles click here)

A Salute to the Young People of Tahrir Square

For the past two weeks, I have, as I suspect millions of other Arabs have, lived the Tahrir square revolution vicariously, deep emotions ebbing and flowing with every turn of event. We cheered the demonstrators on, cursed the thugs who attacked them and sat back and tried to absorb the immensity of what is happening. There was something infectious about the demonstrators' passion, their determination, their courage and their unfettered idealism.  What is more, it is the way they did it, just like the Tunisians, that has most astonished us.  Who would have ever thought that autocrats would fall to sheer people power? No guns, no bombs, no palace intrigues needed.  Just as we, as well as the rest of the world, were ready to write off the people of the Middle East as terminally downtrodden and hopeless, the young men and women of Tahrir square proved everyone wrong.

My admiration for the young people of Tahrir square is enourmous but is mixed with a sense of envy and regret that, at first, I could not understand.  "The young people are doing what our generation should have done!" explained a middle-aged woman interviewed in an upscale Cairo sporting club.  She is right, I envy the fact that I am not twenty five and manning a barricade in Tahrir and regret that my generation did not have the courage to achieve what this generation already has.  I could come up with legitimate excuses for my generation but the bottom line is that we failed.

I salute the young people of Tahrir and hope that your spirit will spread to every corner of the Arab world.