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.