Achieving Inner Peace for a Day

For me, inner peace is hard to define. It is not something I consciously seek, but like many things in life, in the most unexpected moments, it happens and then you understand what it is all about.

It is not that I am an unhappy or dissatisfied man but my restless mind is churning continuously. I ponder, analyze and worry. As parent, I am concerned about my children's' future, as a husband about my wife's happiness, as a son, about my aging parents' health and as a brother about my siblings' well being. I worry about my work and the state of the world. I feel like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. You couldn't tell that by looking at me but it is all there, clouding the recesses of my mind.

Last Sunday morning, I called my father in Beirut to wish him a happy 80th birthday. We exchanged a few words; he was never very good at connecting emotionally with his sons, but we could talk for hours about politics. As he thanked me for the call and bid me goodbye before putting my mother on, his voice broke a little; he was happy I called. My mother sounded relaxed and satisfied; she did not complain about her health. My youngest brother had visited from Morocco where he lives and returned the day before. She was happy to have spent time with him and satisfied that he was doing well.

When I put down the phone on that warm, late summer day, the clouds in the recesses of my mind cleared. All the people I cared about, those around me and those far away, were content and happy and consequently so was I. All other worries and concerns were irrelevant and temporarily purged from my mind. I felt light, relaxed and at peace for the rest of the day.

Who knew it could be so simple?

(Photo: A.K., Rainbow on a stormy cloud)

Dr. Salem: Minister of Disinformation

I , like many Syrians, despite our belief that the Baathist regime is bankrupt and in dire need of change, accept the necessity for an incremental approach to reform. But how exactly is that to happen in an authoritarian regime, rife with corruption and run like a family fiefdom? One has to assume that the system is capable of change from within, a belief based more on illusion and wishful thinking than reality. It was a belief fostered by Bashar Al-Asad's pronouncements in 2000 and his subsequent appointments of few skillful technocrats to his government instead the same old recycled party bureaucrats. But will such technocrats be able to forge ahead independently and achieve substantive changes or will they be hemmed in and coopted by the system they are attempting to change?

In the case of information minister Amr Salem, it is, unfortunately, the latter. How else could one explain how this former Microsoft executive recruited with much fanfare back to Syria to propel it into the age of modern communication make such an absurd directive? In it, the minister makes it illegal for any website or blog to publish anonymous comments and makes the owners of those site liable for the comments left on their site. Moreover, it requires that all comments left on a site have a verifiable name and email address. In a scathing critique of this directive, Bassam Al Kady, from the نساء سورية (Syrian Women) site argues that not only are the requirements unenforceable, the minister has no legal footing to put out such a directive. Such a directive, if implemented, will have a chilling effect on the use of the Internet as a means of free exchange of ideas and opinions further limiting freedom of expression in Syria. I suspect that it will slow down the number of new Syrian blogs as new users become weary of the liability associated with expressing views online. The quality of site content will also decline as only mundane, non-controversial subjects are discussed.

Now, in truth, we don't really know if this directive was Dr. Salem's idea based on personal conviction or one dictated to him by "higher" authorities. I suspect though that it is his personal conviction as in 1999 he advocated a "cautious" approach to the internet:

"In order for President [Hafez] al-Asad to feel comfortable promoting a particular technology, it must meet the following criteria:
1. It should benefit the majority of the Syrian people. Technology geared toward the elite is not favored because such people have the resources and means to get what they want without government assistance.
2. It should not disrupt the social structure or adversely affect the middle class, and should be within the means of the masses.
3. It should have a direct impact on Syria’s overall social and economic development.
4. It should not jeopardize Syrian independence or security concerns."*

We all recognize what these apparently innocuous and vague statements really mean: The government decides what "adversely affects the middle class" or what constitutes a threat to "Syrian independence". So free access to the internet becomes limited to access to "Baathnet" where no news critical of the government can be seen and all comments are by Syrians performing virtual genuflections to a heroic president (virtual ass-kissing to put it more bluntly).

ANONYMOUS comments are WELCOME.

*Amr Salem, “Syria’s Cautious Embrace,” Middle East Insight, March-April 1999, pp. 49-50.

(Photo: A.K. + photoshop)

Syria and its Expatriates

Here is my take on the expatriate debate on Creative Syria as well as the opinions of others on the topic.

Also see a summary as reproduced on Global Voices.

Freedom of Speech Takes Another Hit

This is reposted from Yazan's blog. I applaud his continued activism and perseverance as many of us (myself included) are lulled into inactivity by a sense that nothing will ever change -for the Better- in the Middle East. In fact despite all the bad news below, when it comes to the free flow of information and ideas, things have changed for the better because of the elusive power of the internet. The continued attempts by the various governments to restrict freedom of expression are eventually bound to fail. In the meantime, we as a blogger community should continue to spread information about abuses of power in the Middle East as widely as possible.

Thank you Yazan.

Freedom of Speech, Massacred and dragged through the streets of the Middle East
What is happening in the Arab World is scary.Reading this, made me go into real melancholy.And the fact that there was absolutely no publicity about it makes it even more painful. Why do we have to be so selective in what we chose to fight for. Why was Kareem on almost every single blog, all through his trial, and sentence. While I struggled to find any mention of Mohamed Rashed al-Shohhi's case. And was it not for Amira slipping me a link to this small roundup from Sami Ben Gharbia on GlobalVoices I would not have even heard about it.While Egyptian bloggerKareem was on trial because of things he chose to write, Mohamed is sentenced to 1 year in prison and $13,600 fine for an anonymous comment on an online forum he happened to run. [You think there might be a connection with the decision to ban comments on Syrian sites earlier this month?! Hmmm...].Mohamed is in prison, and he literaly did not do ANYTHING.It is not a blow at freedom of speech. No, this a serious well-planned decision that can only be described as mental-terrorism. This is not aimed to keep him from practicing his right to express himself (Again, the guy did not do anything), rather this is a warning to anyone who might even think of raising a voice. Whether against totalitarianism, corruption or repression... all of them are a common characteristic of our Arab World.Again, in a very similar case, Kuwaiti blogger Bashar Al-Sayegh was arrested [He was released today] yesterday for an anonymous comment left on his forum.If you read this, please help spread the word. Let's not be selective in what we chose to rally for.The latest chunck of news coming from our Middle East does not look good.Blogspot is still banned in Syria, contrary to earlier reports about the ban being lifted.By decision from the Ministry of Communication, anonymous comments of Syrian sites are now illegal.Wordpress is banned in Turkey.UAE imprisons a webmaster and suspends the website over anonymous comments on his forum.Kuwait detains a blogger over anonymous comments on his forum.And, Egypt, Tunisia... Where to start exactly?!

London: First Impressions

When we decided that Lebanon was not the right destination for a family vacation this summer, we had to decide quickly on an alternative. We settled on London. Despite a lifetime of travel and innumerable transits through the city, I had never visited London. Each of us had a reason why they wanted to go to London. My parents first met there; so in a sense, I owe my existence to London. My wife, as a teenager, attended summer camps there and had not been back since. My daughter wanted to see the Monty Python show Spamalot and my son, a Chelsea fan, was promised a visit to Stamford Bridge stadium by friends of ours who are Chelsea fanatics. But the most compelling reason is the need, felt by myself and my wife, to leave the United States at least every twelve months. The source of this feeling is complex but it boils down to the need to periodically clear one's head from the fortress America mentality that seems to permeate many aspects of life in the United States since 9/11. I suspect that most Arab-Americans know exactly what I mean.

From a tourist's point of view, London did not disappoint. What's not to like: a lively city choke full of history, people from everywhere, big pompous old buildings, castles galore and ridiculously attired guards performing anachronistic rituals. We stayed in the Kensington area, a couple of underground stops from the Marble Arch, my parents' rendezvous spot several decades ago. We roamed the city by foot and the Underground and occasionally by bus. Despite its size, London feels cozy with few steel-and-glass skyscrapers and numerous pedestrian friendly and lively neighborhoods. Given the sizes of the crowds we saw everywhere, the Glasgow incident and the rigged London cars did not seem to have dented the city's tourist appeal. In a week's time we crammed as many of London's attractions as we could.

Clearly a week spent gawking at tourist attractions hardly qualifies me as a London or a UK expert. Nonetheless, a few things I saw made me stop and think a little beyond what was in the tourist brochure.

Windsor castle was one such place. I was astounded by the accumulated wealth contained within the walls of the castle, from the paintings to the arms lining the walls and the loot of war including Napoleon's Egyptian-made burnos. But more astounding was the fact that the castle and its contents were the property of the Royal family. I inquired with a friend in London about who pays for the upkeep of the castle. That set off my friend, a British republican, on a tirade about how the Royals live off the sweat of the people.

The British Museum was another place that both impressed me but also troubled me. Much of the content of the Museum was "taken" -to put it politely- from lands without the consent of the people of those lands. My daughter, a thoughtful fourteen year-old, had a similar reaction. She kept on whispering to me "it is not fair!" as we passed statues, parts of temple walls and other massive artifacts from Egypt, Greece and ancient Iraq among other places. When you see the size of some the artifacts and realize that they were dismantled and transported without modern machinery, you cannot but be amazed at the gall of those British colonialists from days past.

One final observation is the shocking contrast I observed between the glitzy center of London and some of the decrepit and neglected residential areas on the outskirts of London that I glimpsed on train rides in and out of the city. On our final day in London, the cab driver taking us to Victoria station to catch a train to Gatwick expressed frustration at the economic situation in the country. He was a Moroccan immigrant in the UK for ten years, but was making plans to resettle in Australia. He says that London has become too expensive for the average wage earner.

Clearly a week is not enough to understand this sprawling metropolis. We enjoyed our time in London and vowed to come back for more. My only regret is not being able to visit with my friend SB.

Gemayel Defeat: Beginning of the End of Lebanese Sectarian Politics?

I never was a fan of Hizbullah’s overall strategy for Lebanon or of FPM’s leader with his Napoleonic complex. However, I think that the defeat of Amin Gemayel to a relatively unknown FPM candidate Camille Khoury signals a seismic shift in Lebanese politics. Just think of the setting: an aggrieved father, the scion of one of the most powerful political dynasties in Lebanon, Amin Gemayel, running for the parliamentary seat of his assassinated son in the Maronite heartland of the Metn. In the hereditary politics of the Middle East, the results should have been a forgone conclusion. What went wrong is succinctly summarized in the words of one of the Metn voters. Referring to the Lebanese Forces, he said that they took us for granted.

As my previous postings show, I was in favor of the broad outlines of Lebanon’s Cedar revolution. I was however disturbed by the hijacking of these ideals by the unholy alliance that came together to form the March 14 group. On local politics, they advocated the status quo; that is preserving the power and economic privilege of the well-heeled and the well-connected and did nothing to curb the influence of traditional feudal families. Most destructive, however, has been their single-minded, obsessive and very public anti-Syrian stance. That is not to say that the Syrian regime in not culpable for some if not many of what they are accused of, but having your whole political platform be consumed by a vendetta against Syria does nothing for the problems your constituents are facing.

As the gap between rich and poor grew in the post civil war years, the Lebanese middle class was eviscerated. The previously privileged Maronite middle class perhaps lost most of all. I was shocked in recent years, on seeing how decrepit some of the inner neighborhoods of the Northern Christian suburbs of Beirut have become. In fact they came to resemble some of the areas of the Dahiyeh. Is it any wonder, that the underprivileged among the Christians came to identify more with the populist politics of FPM and Hizbullah than with the tired rhetoric of the Lebanese Forces. It is very telling that the voters of the Metn were willing to break with a party that had been seen as the traditional defenders of the sect.

Whether the net outcome of this election will be positive or not is impossible for me to say. However, the fact that voters broke with their sectarian impulse to vote for Gemayel just because he was a Gemayel, is an important and positive development.

Mobile Phones: More than Just Catchy Ringtones

This is an interesting article from the Economist about the impact of mobile phones on relief during natural and man-made disasters. Another example of the unpreditable transforming power of certain technologies. In fact in Lebanon, ignoring for now the extortionist prices charged by the telecom companies, mobile phones played a crucial role during last summer's war in helping civilians connect with dispersed relatives and friends.


Flood, famine and mobile phones
July 26th 2007, From The Economist print edition

Technology is transforming humanitarian relief—and shifting the balance of power between donors and recipients

“MY NAME is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you from Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab. Dear Sir, there is an alarming issue here. People are given too few kilograms of food. You must help.”
A crumpled note, delivered to a passing rock star-turned-philanthropist? No, Mr Sokor is a much sharper communicator than that. He texted this appeal from his own mobile phone to the mobiles of two United Nations officials, in London and Nairobi. He got the numbers by surfing at an internet café at the north Kenyan camp.

As Mr Sokor's bemused London recipient points out, two worlds were colliding. The age-old scourge of famine in the Horn of Africa had found a 21st-century response; and a familiar flow of authority, from rich donor to grateful recipient, had been reversed. It was also a sign that technology need not create a “digital divide”: it can work wonders in some of the world's remotest, most wretched places.
“Technology completely alters the way humanitarian work is done,” says Caroline Hurford of the World Food Programme (WFP), a United Nations body that is the single largest distributor of food aid. Once upon a time, when disaster struck, big agencies would roll up with grain, blankets and medicine and start handing them out. Victims would struggle to the relief camps, if they could. For aid workers (let alone recipients) there was no easy way to talk to head office.
Now, when an emergency occurs, the first people on the ground are often computer geeks, setting up telephone networks so other aid agencies can do their stuff. Donors keep track of supplies on spreadsheets and send each other SMS messages: this road has been attacked by bandits, that village cut off by floods. Transport agencies announce helicopter flights by e-mail. Aid providers can find out where exactly on an incoming ship their medical supplies are, saving hours hanging round the docks. Aid donors find it easier to locate the victims of disaster; and victims queue as eagerly for mobile-phone access as they do for food.
As a result, the organisation of aid is changing. On the ground, all big relief operations have communications centres where aid workers go to send e-mails, read the latest security updates and study satellite maps of the affected area. The UN's humanitarian-affairs office runs a portal called ReliefWeb, containing every map and document that might help aid donors; it got 3m hits a day after the Asian tsunami.
And aid agencies are reorganising themselves around the technology. Two UN agencies are in charge of ensuring communications work in disaster zones: UNICEF (the children's fund) does basic data transmission; the WFP does communications in insecure areas. Télécoms sans Frontières (TSF), a French voluntary agency (total staff: a dozen), goes in with the UN team that does the first needs-assessment in the hours after disaster strikes.
Even in the short life of TSF (which grew out of the Kosovo conflict in 1999) the technological landscape has been transformed. Satellite phones—often the only ones working right after a disaster—used to be clunky contraptions that could only transmit speech. In the past five years, transmission speeds have more than doubled, so that electronic data can flow easily. The traffic grows heavier all the time, in part because the ultimate backers of the aid agencies—be they governments or individuals—want efficiency and accountability, and think they can get both.
Disaster relief is basically a giant logistical operation. Today's emergency responders can no more dispense with mobile phones or electronically transmitted spreadsheets than a global courier company can. But unlike most couriers, aid donors operate amid chaos, with rapidly changing constraints (surges of people, outbreaks of disease, attacks by warlords). Mobile phones increase the flow of information, and the speed at which it can be processed, in a world where information used to be confused or absent. The chaos remains, but coping with it gets easier.
Better communications also favour information-sharing and co-ordination between agencies. In recent years, the problems of co-ordination have grown with the size and complexity of operations. The Asian tsunami hit 14 countries in Asia and Africa. At one point, 400 organisations were working in Aceh alone—“possibly 200 too many”, remarked Jan Egeland, then the UN's emergency-relief co-ordinator. Things like e-mail service and satellite links help to herd the cats. Donors drop into telecoms centres to send e-mails, but also to swap stories and gossip. This creates a new version of the office water-cooler. Toby Porter, emergencies director of Save the Children, adds that mobile phones can facilitate relations between aid agencies and local governments; this, in turn, makes it easier for charities to gain access to remote war zones.
The benefits of technology are not quite a one-way street. Equipment is expensive. It creates co-ordination problems of its own (because of different technical standards); to address them, a score of big NGOs set up a consortium called NetHope, which spreads the cost of satellite communications and internet links. And as Hugo Slim of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue points out, technology increases the flow of information not just to workers in the field, but to offices in New York or London; this may tempt bosses to micro-manage from afar—which can be disastrous.
Oisin Walton of Télécoms sans Frontières has a different worry: e-mail may supplant aid workers' conflict-avoidance skills; they may come to rely too much on e-mailed security warnings, and not enough on their instincts. And the Red Cross's Florian Westphal fears satellite or mobile phones will make warlords even more suspicious of aid workers; it is now harder to eavesdrop than it was when aid workers used open radio frequencies.
On balance, of course, technology is more of a boon than a problem, though the gains are uneven. Small NGOs will benefit most, since big NGOs and UN bodies already have decent information systems. Some sorts of technology have developed more than others: one big growth area is surveillance, broadly defined to include software that tracks supplies.
The benefits of easier surveillance are manifold. Take two cases: since the tsunami, Sri Lanka's largest telephone company has started an early-warning system which would send SMS messages to every mobile phone in an area at risk of flooding. And Amnesty International, the human-rights agency, is paying satellite-imaging firms to take aerial shots of Darfur and of parts of Zimbabwe. Amnesty used pictures of burned villages in the Sudanese region to prove that massacres had occurred, despite government denials. Images of Zimbabwe provided evidence for a lawsuit against President Robert Mugabe.
Surveillance technology also blurs the distinction between emergency and routine operations. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation draws vast detailed maps showing who is vulnerable to food shortages (“poverty mapping”). This same information can be used to map the areas affected in a more acute way by drought or famine. Similarly, the software that aid agencies use to track emergency medical supplies can help public-health officials gather routine information.
Télécoms sans Frontières took the data transmitter and laptops it had used to track food aid during a famine in Niger in 2005 and adapted them to store facts about disease prevalence afterwards. Vodafone (a telecoms firm) and the UN Foundation (an American charity) run programmes in Kenya and Zambia that put information about disease and medicine on data banks for use by health ministries. In short, public-health information improves disaster response, and disaster response boosts public health. Surveillance technology is especially useful for spotting early-warning signals (by tracking the paths of locusts or hurricanes); so it helps more with “predictable” disasters than it does in cases (like earthquakes or tsunamis) where warning times are brief or non-existent.
Those ingenious victims
While the joys of gadgetry may seem obvious to aid workers, how much has it really done to help victims? The full answer to that question has yet to emerge, and it is aid recipients who will give it. The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, a group of agencies bent on learning from past mistakes, notes that “local people themselves provided almost all immediate life-saving action and the early-emergency support, as is commonly the case in disasters.”
As the example of Mr Sokor shows, people affected by catastrophe are not necessarily helpless or hapless. Their ingenuity is likely to change disaster response by rich-world donors in unexpected ways.
Already, mobile telephony is transforming the landscape. The World Bank says the number of mobile-phone subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa increased sevenfold between 2000 and 2006. India nearly doubled its mobile-phone subscriptions last year to 150m and the government expects 500m (mobile and land lines) by 2010. Natural and man-made disasters do not only strike rural areas; nearly a billion city dwellers (who use mobiles more) are vulnerable to disaster.
In several recent disaster zones, victims surprised their benefactors by asking not for food or medicine but money. Save the Children, at least, has responded: it has been handing out cash in addition to food in the Horn of Africa and South Asia, and it says UN agencies should do the same.
Aid agencies are also using technology to meet the victims' other key demand: contact with relatives. People in safe places who are worried about missing cousins, and victims who are in desperate need of support from the extended family, can make use of websites whose purpose is to reunite friends and relatives. A Red Cross website (familylinks.icrc.org) has details of 125,000 families.
More broadly, technology increases the role of extended families, migrants and diasporas in dealing with disaster. To take a small example, members of Zimbabwe's diaspora living in Britain can go to a website called mukuru.com, order and pay for goods such as petrol online—and have them delivered to family members back home. The operation depends not only on the internet but also on mobile phones, because when an order is made the recipient gets a code texted to his mobile, which he must show to the petrol station when he collects the goods. Other websites enable members of the diaspora to provide loved ones with a range of goods and services from food to mobile-phone credits.
As yet, such operations have made only a small dent in Zimbabwe's unfolding crisis. Mukuru, run from a flat in Clapham in south London, has about 10,000 clients. A drop in the ocean: the WFP reckons it will have to feed as many as 4m Zimbabweans by next April.
But the websites are expanding fast; mukuru plans to open in half a dozen African countries this year. And the possibilities for using mobile telecoms to help relatives are enormous. Family remittances are already a bigger source of transfers to poor countries than government aid. Mobile telephony and mobile-phone banking are spreading. As these trends converge, diasporas will move even closer to centre stage in the delivery of succour to the needy.
In any case, technology's effect on humanitarian relief is only starting to be felt. “In the humanitarian operation of the future,” says Save the Children's Mr Porter, “beneficiaries of emergency aid will use technology to tell us what they need—cash, food, or education—find out from us what to expect, and track its arrival, just as we can track an order from Amazon.com now.”
And it may all happen sooner than aid agencies expect. As Mr Sokor's case shows, victims' thinking often moves faster than their benefactors' does. Following his appeal, the WFP did boost rations in the Dagahaley refugee camp, albeit citing other reasons. That blunt text message may be a harbinger of things to come.

The Ordinary People of Nahr El Bared

Please listen carefully to what the people in this New York Times video have to say.It is sad and heart wrenching and if it doesn't bring a tear to your eyes then your heart is made of stone.

This is not about Fateh el Islam or Hamas or Fatah or the twisted Machiavellian politics of Lebanon and our forlorn region as a whole. It is not about delusional, destructive ideologies that leave nothing but ruin in their wake. It is not about Syrian complicity, Saudi duplicity or American stupidity.

It is about ordinary people, trying to live dignified lives under impossible circumstances. Although the cirumstances are particularly tragic for these second and third generation refugees, it is unfortunately not unique in our region. Ordinary civilians seem to be a dispensable commodity to be used -abused- both by sworn enemies and by those who have sworn to protect them.

Syria: What Would I Change if I Could

The current topic of blogger discussion on Creative Syria is:

Explain how you would implement this process of change, how you would minimize the risks involved, how long it should take to achieve desired results, and how you would deal with resistance to change.

Here are my thoughts.

(Photo: AK, Lillies in our Garden)

From the Prince of Physicians to the Doctors of Destruction

The news that at least six of the eight persons arrested for the failed London and Glasgow attempts were physicians has angered and disgusted me. In all fairness, some of those arrested may be innocent acquaintances of the perpetrators. The two physicians who drove the Jeep Cherokee into the terminal at Glasgow, on the other hand, are clearly guilty.

As a physician, especially as a Middle Eastern, Muslim physician, I consider this incident a personal affront. Ours is the heritage of Ibn Sina, the prince of physicians, the author of al-Qanun fi al-tibb (The Canon of Medicine) and kitab el-shifa (The Book of Healing) and one of the greatest physicians and thinkers of all time. We are first and foremost healers. This is an immutable tenet of our profession; no sense of persecution, no bogus fatwa, no warped understanding of the meaning of jihad can ever justify healers becoming killers.

What were they thinking? How could intelligent, educated men buy into this al-Qaeda ideology of purposeless violent jihad. And purposeless it is despite claims that they are defending their faith. What have they done for their coreligionists except for spreading hatred, fear and death. What have they done for the poor and destitute, for the sick and the infirm among their own people? All they seem to be good at is figuring out new ways of causing wanton destruction. further dragging the reputation of Islam through the mud. The use of physicians as a conduit for their terror represents a new low.

I don't claim to be particularly learned in my religion, but this much I know, theirs is not a true jihad. On the other hand, Ibn Sina's vast contributions in medicine, philosophy, theology, physics and mathematics, the striving for knowledge which benefits Muslims as well as all of humanity, that is what true jihad is all about.

Lattakia: Ramitha, Laodicea, ألاذقية

The Syrian blogosphere is replete with Damascenes, Halabis, Homsis and even an irrepressible Tartousi extolling the virtues of their respective towns; but what about the third major city, the principal seaport? What about Lattakia? I know there are some Ladkani bloggers out there but where is their civic pride? Here is my, long distance, attempt to rectify matters with the hope that current Ladkanis will add a more up to date view of the city.

Lattakia is the city of my birth but to me it is but fragments of memory like an old grainy film with long stretches completely faded. Despite that, Lattakia has always maintained a powerful pull on my consciousness. Certainly, the early imprinted memories of childhood, sanitized as they are by time and distance, play a powerful role in this attraction. But it has more to with the fact that in my many adoptive homelands, I have either felt or was made to feel not quite fully at home: I looked different, did not speak the language, spoke with an accent, was not a citizen or was not native born. No one can dispute my "belonging" in Lattakia. It is where I was born, delivered by my own father in my grandfather's old house. To any doubter I can walk up to that old house and show them the room where my mother suffered through twenty four hours of labor before I had the decency to come into this world. The house, thankfully, has recently been designated a historical landmark, not because I was born there it goes without saying, but for its period architecture. This means that we no longer have to pushback relatives lobbying to raze it to the ground to replace it with a apartment block devoid of character or history.

I always remember Lattakia as being a pleasant, laid back and quiet place especially when we would come back to visit from the chaos that is Beirut. Lattakia's history, at least for the past millennium, has been equally quiet and nondescript although its more ancient history is more illustrious. It started out as the Canaanite port of Ramitha, part of the kingdom of Ugarit (photo of Ugaritic prince, left), the famous city about 10 Km up the coast in Ras Shamra. As Ugarit declined Ramitha gained prominence because of its deep natural harbor. It was renamed Laodicea, shortly after Alexander the Great's conquest, in honor of the mother of Seleucus I Nicator, a Macedonian officer of Alexander's army and the founder of the Seleucid empire. Laodicea thrived under the Romans and was famous for its wine produced from grapes grown on the slopes east of the city. Herod built an aqueduct and Septimus Severus built colonnaded streets. Its influence declined after the Byzantine period as it was ruled a sucession of empires, a history shared by most of the Levantine coast: Persian, Arab, Crusader, Seljuks, Mamluks and Ottomans. Lattakia was also unfortunately repeatedly devastated by numerous earthquakes in the 5th, 6th, 12th, 13th, 18th and 19th Centuries which explains why so few ancient structures have survived -another reason that my grandfather's house should not be destroyed.

Lattakia's population in most references is listed at about 550,000 although the official Lattakia website lists the population at 900,000. It is famous for its beaches, where I and my brothers had our first taste of the sea. An even more picturesque stretch of the coast is Ras Basit, north of Lattakia where the mountains abutt the seashore. Lattakia was also once famous for its scented tobacco, which is now apparently grown in Cyprus. The city is also within short driving distance from several important medieval castles dotting the Syrian coast and the mountains just to the East. Slunfeh is where the people of Lattakia move in the hot summer months. I still remember the drive up to Slunfeh, the lush green field, Salahedin's castle in the distance and the invigorating cool morning air of the mountains.

A short drive up the coast, is its sister city in antiquity, Ugarit. Discovered by accident by a farmer in 1928, excavations at Ugarit have since shown it to be an important metropolis and a cradle of urban culture. Ugarit also developed its own 30 letter alphabet and there is some dispute as to whether Ugaritian or Phoenician alphabets came first (surely no such controversy exists in the minds of die hard Libano-Pheonicians).

Despite the multiple earthquakes that repeatedly destroyed the city, some remnants of its ancient past can still be seen. Perhaps the most famous is the four sided arch built by Septemus Severus (photo top right). Here and there are also remnants of the colonnaded streets, one such column, al-Amoud, stood at the end of the road where we lived. There are also buildings of more recent vintage with ottoman style buildings and a 17th century khan that has been turned into a museum. As with in many Levantine towns, excavations for new buildings continue to reveal, layers of the city's past.

Of course the attraction of the city for me is more personal and sentimental. It is the memory of the kindness of my grandmother and the comfort of the embrace of the extended family. It is where we came back periodically to shed the sense of being strangers; it was and is home.

Majhool's Excellent Reform Agenda

A certain Majhool left this comment on my last two posts. I swear Majhool was reading my mind. Now this is one agenda I could stand firmly behind.

Hesitant to support or go against the Syrian Regime, I tried to list major deliverables that I (merely a Syrian citizen) would like for the Syrian government to achieve to get my support:

1) The Palestinian Cause:
a. Support (politically and economically) consolidated, legitimate, accountable, and moderate leadership capable of negotiating a peace deal with Israel.
b. Take conservative approach towards Islamists groups by
i. Engaging these groups into the decision making process/
ii. Opposing their unilateral arm actions against Israel or other Palestinian groups.
2) Lebanon:
a. Support a consolidated pro-Syrian, accountable, & strong government in Lebanon
i. Improve relations with Sunni and Maronite communities
ii. Support the independence of the Lebanese government
iii. Replace the corrupt pro-Syria base of support in Lebanon by more accountable and legitimate (representative) base.
iv. Eliminate all Syrian financial corruption in Lebanon
v. Work with the Lebanese government to gradually and systematically eliminate all armed militias including Hizbollah
vi. Support replacing the confessional system with accountable representative system that will strengthen the Lebanese state
3) Israel
a. Negotiate a comprehensive peace deal with Israel good enough that will help Syria’s alignment with the Arab block.
b. The return of the Golan Heights
4) Syria
a. Improve the legitimacy of the Syrian Government
i. Create a new more representative parliamentary law
ii. Come up with a more legitimate platform to replace the “national progressive front”
b. Improve the accountability of the Syrian Government
i. Eliminate emergency laws
ii. Enforce the rule of law and curb corruption
iii. Improve freedom of press.
c. Reconcile with segments of the society associated with the Muslim Brotherhood especially those who did no participate in acts of violence. Ease travel restrictions and put an end to acts of retribution towards their families.
d. Curb extremism by allowing civil community-run and driven secular institutions to operate freely. ( Tala2e3 and Shabibeh are not working)

How far do you guys think the Syrian government is from delivering the above?

It is so far it is not even funny ya Majhool!!!!

Lee Kaplan Sues a Fellow Blogger

I am reposting this from Yaman's amateur Ramblings:

Kaplan vs Salahi

As a student at UC Berkeley, the center for the Free Speech Movement, I never thought I’d find myself at the receiving end of a politically-motivated libel lawsuit. I am the creator of a blog called “Lee Kaplan Watch” which focuses on analyzing the integrity of Kaplan’s published articles. When he discovered the website, Kaplan began a campaign of intimidation, including e-mail threats of legal action and various online smears alleging that I was a Nazi, a Ba`athist, and a member of al-Qaeda. He threatened to harass me and members of my family, and even went so far as to contact the Dean of Student Life at the university. After asking me to stop writing about his work several times, he finally filed a lawsuit against me in small claims court for “tortious business interference,” libel, and slander.
Lee Kaplan, for those who are unaware, is a journalist for David Horowitz’ right-wing, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab publication, FrontPageMag.com. He is also associated with a number of regressive organizations like the Bruin Alumni Association, the United American Committee, StopTheISM, Dafka, and the Northeastern Intelligence Network. Kaplan chooses easy and weak targets and he chooses them well, focusing on students who mobilize on campuses throughout the country in opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. He is more relevant in the San Francisco area, where his extreme and annoying behavior has often come under scrutiny. He has widespread financial and organizational backing at his disposal, a privilege that others and myself, as college students, are sorely lacking.So it goes that Kaplan cleverly decided to sue me in small claims court, where standards for evidence are virtually non-existent, procedures occur at the discretion of the judge, and no record of court proceedings are kept. These low standards allowed Kaplan to present misleading and false material as “evidence” that I had defamed him and cost him a job offer writing for SportsBlogger.com, a website which does not even exist and has not for at least the past 2 years. Even more troubling, I had never written the very things he claimed were defamatory. One of the statements was taken from a spoof of my blog on a third-party website that I have no control over. The other simply does not exist. In addition to the lack of evidence, nearly arbitrary procedures meant that three witnesses, including a computer expert who could attest to the fact that my website did not contain those statements, were not able to testify during the 25 minute hearing, and my lawyer was asked not to present legal arguments in my defense.
Despite all of these problems with the evidence, the judge, for reasons I will never know, bought one of Kaplan’s many claims and ordered me to pay him $7,500. I will never know which ones or why because judges in small claims court do not release written opinions explaining their rulings. Furthermore, as far as I know, the decision is not appealable to a higher court. That means I have no recourse against a judgment given without justification despite the fact that it punishes me for exercising my first amendment rights to political speech.
Dave Johnson at SeeingTheForest was right to call this “a freedom of speech and right-to-blog issue.” Ann Althouse, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, commented on the lawsuit saying that “thinking small [as in, small claims court] looks like an effective way to squelch speech.” But she poses the more serious question regarding the fact that this suit was brought before a court that doesn’t write opinions: “if the court’s opinion doesn’t explain what you did wrong, how can you keep writing? You have to worry about the next small claims lawsuit.”
What does this mean? It means that this lawsuit is not only about me, and is not only about Lee Kaplan. It is about the real danger that underhanded legal tactics like these pose to all bloggers and those without the resources to protect themselves from abusive litigation that is aimed at silencing them. For now, it looks like small claims court is a convenient and reliable route for anybody who can dish out $75, the cost of filing a claim, to harass and intimidate those they disagree with. Real evidence and a credible story might not even be necessary to make a hefty return on that small investment. At least, that is what I have learned with this experience.
In the meantime I continue to investigate my legal options to see if there is any way to salvage my free speech rights. To that end I have established a fund to collect donations that will go either towards paying legal expenses in case of an appeal or paying off the lawsuit if there are no other options. But I will also continue to blog about this and other contentious issues, despite the enormous pressure that this abusive lawsuit has put my family, friends, and myself under.
For those who might be fearful to speak up due to cases like this, you have every right to be weary. Indeed, this case is very ominous in its implications. But the worst thing we could possibly do is shy away from continuing to publicly take firm, principled, and dedicated political stands. We should remain courageous enough to embrace and confront contentious political issues, especially those regarding the cause of the Palestinian people in particular and American involvement in the Middle East in general, despite what we have faced and, no doubt, what will continue to come our way.
I have written extensively about my reaction to the ruling and my thoughts on Kaplan’s claims on the blog here and here for those who would like more information about the case. You may also browse the court’s record of documents and filings by clicking here. If you would like further comment from me regarding this case, please feel free to contact me at ysalahi@gmail.com.
I would also like to make a small request that those who are in the least bit outraged by this story please do what they can to publicize it by e-mailing it to friends and listservs, writing about it on blogs, or sharing it on websites like Facebook and MySpace. People need to know about this new method of shutting down dissent so that steps can be taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Missing in Action: The Syrian Opposition

In his June 4th Syria Comment post Joshua Landis says that with the results of the presidential plebiscite,Bashar has now consolidated his power and established his legitimacy among the Syrian elite. There is more than a little bit of "I told you so" glee in the tone of his post as he appears to figuratively thumb his nose at his many detractors. Landis, to his many critics, was a Syrian regime apologist, a characterization that I found too simple-minded. While I found some of his analysis to be unpalatable relative to my political convictions it did not necessarily mean that he was wrong. I am afraid that this applies to the June 4th post. Although I did not particularly like the conclusions he arrived at, I believe that he was largely correct in his assessment of Bashar's current position and here is why:

• Bashar has weathered American political pressure which seems to have suddenly eased (but what did he give in return?)
• Internal Syrian opposition has been silenced -imprisoned- with little real protest from the international community.
• He continues to to exert influence in Lebanon through his Hizbullah ally (and perhaps through other means) despite the forced withdrawal of the Syrian army.
• He has played the two sides of the Sunni-Shia divide. He is simultaneously the spearhead of Iranian influence in the Arab world through Hizbullah all the while convincing the Saudis and Gulf Arabs, that, for a price, Syria could act as the gate at which Iranian-Shia influence can be contained.
• He has burnished his Arab nationalist credentials with his support of Hamas and Hizbullah in their fight against Israel.
• The American economic boycott has not worked. Instead excess oil revenue cash from the Gulf has made its way to Syria keeping the Damascene merchant class happy.
• The Syrian external opposition, riding the wave of international indignation after the Hariri assassination have become much less vocal and visible. Early on, we heard repeatedly of imminent changes in Syria but nothing has materialized. It is telling that one of the most vocal critics of Bashar, at least on this side of the Atlantic, Ammar Abdulhamid has left the NSF and opposition politics to concentrate on his work with the Tharwa project.

Could it be that Bashar, this soft spoken, but rather dull-appearing man, is as wily and shrewd a politician as his father or is it just dumb luck? Whichever it is, I have to agree with Landis that Bashar el Assad has come for now come out on top. Now fortunes may turn quickly with events seeming to unfold unpredictably and at a dizzying pace in the current Middle East. The Hariri tribunal stills castes a long shadow on the Syrian regime and the recent thuggish behavior of Hamas militants towards fellow Palestinians may make them a liability rather an asset to the regime.

So how did he pull it off? Externally, the Syrian regime has continued a long tradition of playing the role of the indispensable spoiler that no one likes but whose cooperation everyone seeks. Perhaps more important for the survival of the regime is that the Syrian people though ready for change and reform was not ready for a radical and potentially violent change.The mantra of "security and stability” (al-amn wal-istiqrar) was not just an empty slogan hammered into the heads of the citizenry on every state-controlled media outlet, it was a mantra that most citizens believed in. How could they feel otherwise with the surrounding states seemingly coming apart at the seams and a million Iraqi refugees streaming into the country? The choices were stark: peace versus chaos. So while the expatriate opposition community railed loudly -and rightfully- about the misdeeds of the regime, the average Syrian citizen could not afford to be as sanguine.

It is a depressing prospect that Syria might be in for another generation of an Assad-ruled mukhabartocracy. Early on, supporters of Bashar claimed that he meant what he said about reform but that he was hamstrung by the power yielded by his father's old guard. If his supporters are right and Landis is right about his consolidation of power then are we in for a pleasant surprise in the coming months? He would do well by first releasing the human rights activists from prison. Although I am an eternal optimist, I will not be holding my breath waiting for a hereditary Baathist to change his colors.

Black Wednesday: An Orgy of Violence

Less than three hundred yards from Madinat al-Malahi, across the street from the corniche where MP Eido, his son and eight other people were murdered in a car bomb today, is my brother's apartment. Fortunately, aside from shattered kitchen windows, he and his family are unharmed.

There is nothing like a personal connection to bring such an event into sharp focus in your mind's eye, to make you feel its impact. I will not pretend to understand the reasons behind this act or try to assign blame; there are plenty of pundits who have ready answers and theories.

What sickens, angers and depresses me even more than the immediate impact of this event is the wider context. The whole region seems to be unraveling in a crescendo of violence. Where shall I begin? On this very same day in Iraq, al-Qaida types, trying to inflame sectarian passions even more, saw fit to destroy the minarets of a Samarra Shia mosque that they had previously attacked. In Gaza, thirty Palestinians died at the hands of other Palestinians as Fatah and Hamas go at each other without mercy and without regard for lives of the civilians that they claim to represent and protect from Israel. In Nahr el-Bared, Fateh el-Islam, ensconced among innocent Palestinian civilians, vows to fight to the last man even it means destruction of the whole camp.

What is wrong with us? by us, I mean us Arabs, collectively. Why is it that violence seems to be the only alternative that we can come up with for conflict resolution. It would be half as bad if the violence was directed, purposeful rather than vindictive, senseless, and ultimately self destructive. Is is false pride and a distorted sense of honor that drives this behavior? Is it unthinking fanaticism? Is it all the other -isms (sectarianism, Arabism, nationalism) pushed to the extreme that have us mired in our self-made quicksand? Why haven't we learned to turn our swords into ploughshares? Are Western critics of Arab society right in their glib assessment that we don't do much that is right, that our warts by far outweigh our beauty spots?

All these are rhetorical questions; most don't have simple answers. All the contentions, however, contain a least a grain -some, a truckload- of truth. In this discourse, I am not discounting Western malfeasance, past and present, in molding our region. However, one has to draw the line somewhere and start taking responsibility for ones own failures. Neither colonialism, nor imperialism, nor, for that matter, Zionism, made Fatah and Hamas start behaving like thugs toward each other in an all out grab for power and influence.

If my approach seems on-sided, it is because I am responding with anger at today's events. I fully realize that there are many nuanced expalantions for the different conflicts. However, there are also disturbing similarities of purpose and methods across the region especially among fanatic fundamentalists that promises further senseless conflict.

Nahr El Bared: Helping the Innocent

This is a brief post to recognize the work of the five organizers of the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign including one of the Syrian blogosphere's own (Razan). What they have done and continue to do is exemplary; it is human compassion that is not sullied by the narrow-minded, paranoid sectarian calculations that seems to color most discourse and action in Lebanon.

I salute them all and hope that real and lasting peace returns to Lebanon soon.

Blessed Unrest: A Call to Global Activism

I picked up Paul Hawken's book, Blessed Unrest, because I was intrigued by the summary on the book jacket. It is ostensibly about environmentalism but it is really much more than that.

Hawken makes the argument that protection of the environment is inseparable from other social movements: "From the beginning, an environmental movement had to be an environmental justice movement and an environmental justice movement was de facto a social justice movement." He argues that "concerns about worker health, living wages, equity, education, and basic human rights are inseparable from concerns about water, climate, soil, and biodiversity". That all these human concerns are intricately linked is glaringly obvious but one that few have articulated as eloquently as Hawken. The poor, the disenfranchised and the oppressed are the ones that bare the brunt of environmental destruction be it at the hands of repressive, unrepresentative governments or unchecked corporate authority unleashed by the push towards globalization. Despite all the bad news though, Hawken is hopeful. He describes the emergence of a "movement", an amorphous collection really, of thousands of local grassroots organizations each fighting for change and winning. These groups are diverse bringing together environmentalists, and social activists of all stripes from groups fighting poverty, to groups working for the rights of indigenous people.

Paul Hawken is no tree-hugging ecofanatic. He is a reasoned, sensible individual who believes that humans and nature are inseparable and that what is good for one is good for the other. That this is so is not only a practical imperative but also a universal moral imperative. He argues his case passionately and with a great deal of erudition making numerous historical and literary references.

Anyone reading my post may be wondering by now how I will weave this into the theme of my blog. It is simple really; many of us seek change in Syria, not change for the sake of change but for the betterment and advancement of our nation, society and people. As many of us obsess about the need to change the political leadership, we forget that that there are many societal and environmental issues that need attention away from politics. The relationship between the environment and societal issues is all the more relevant in a developing country such as Syria and this inextricable relationship is present in both in rural as well as urban areas.

The Imperial Seat of Power: The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

The Bush administration's hubris does not cease to amaze. Just in case anyone still has any illusions about who will be calling the shots in Iraq for decades to come, just look at the plans for the future U.S. embassy in Baghdad due to open in September. It is a 104 acre complex or about the size 80 football fields. It will cost $592 million, with a staff of 1,000 people (4,000 with contractors and local employees) and operating costs totaling $1.2 billion a year. The complex "will include two office buildings, one of them designed for future use as a school, six apartment buildings, a gym, a pool, a food court and its own power generation and water-treatment plants. The ambassador's private residence will be 16,000 square feet in size.

Syria: Referendum by the Numbers

From SANA (via PhilipI):

Syria has 11,967,611 eligible voters of whom, according to the minister of interior:

• 95.86% participated in the referendum (11,472,157).
• 97.62 % said YES to Bashar's "reelection".
• 0.171% said NO to Bashar.
• 2.2% made invalid entries.

Very impressive were it not so absurd. They could have at least doctored the numbers to make them look a little more realistic. Do the self-congratulating Baathists really think anyone buys this?

Palestinian Camps in Lebanon: Time for a Change

When it comes to laying blame for the current violence in Lebanon, people on the two sides of the Hariri-Bashar divide seem to have lost all semblance of objectivity. Everyone is dead certain they know the motivations of these thugs. It is a pity to see what now passes for objective journalism at Naharnet as it is starting to look more like the trash that is dished out by the bucket on Champress. I will not pretend to know if Fatah el-Islam is creating trouble on behest of the Syrian regime or not. The timing is certainly suspicious. However, there is enough convoluted politics in Lebanon that I can’t rule anything out. All I know is that if Fatah el-Islam is getting its ass kicked, then good riddance. I am very concerned, however, that in the process, many innocent Palestinian civilians are unnecessarily getting hurt.

One thing that I am certain about it that it is time for Lebanon to change the way it deals with Palestinian refugee camps and their inhabitants. I blame both Palestinian and Arab leaders for the way the plight of three generations of Palestinian refugees was politicized. Everyone wanted them to remain refugees because, the logic went, if they settled (tawteen) in the land of their refuge, they would lose their right and their will to return to Palestine. So instead they languished in misery for 60 years. In Lebanon, their plight was complicated even further by fears that their presence was going to affect the sectarian mix. So the Lebanese state gave them few rights and restricted their ability to work. Most, consequently, remained stuck in abject poverty with no legal documents to allow them to go anywhere and not way to improve their lot. It is no wonder that the refugee camps, rife with despair, became breeding ground for extremism. Add to that the fact that the Lebanese authorities have no jurisdiction within the camps and you a have a recipe for repeated disasters. The refugee camps became "free zones" where the various regional mukhabarats, common criminals, and Bin Laden wannabes came to exploit the anger and despair to their benefit.

It is high time that the Lebanese authorities reestablish control of all refugee camps on their territories. It is also high time for the Lebanese to give Palestinian refugees some basic rights and an opportunity to live with dignity. Some Lebanese would bristle at this latter suggestion. They are the ones who would rather the Palestinian refugees remain invisible or just disappear. Frankly such reactions make me angry. The fact is the change I am suggesting would make Lebanon safer and more stable in addition to benefiting the Palestinian refugees. I am not talking about settling them in Lebanon just providing them with a modicum of respect and a way to earn a living.

We Arabs readily express our outrage at the way Israel treats the Palestinians but conveniently overlook how we have treated our fellow Arabs. It is shameful that Palestinian refugees get more rights as refugees in non-Arab countries than they do in the countries of their brethren.