I need to write like I need to breathe...

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Summer in Damascus

In times like this I think about the long, lazy afternoons. Of a breeze gently pushing past the curtains of the balcony as I lay dozing on a sofa in our cool living room. Outside, the streets are gently being baked by the harsh sun and the cars lay still in the empty streets below, as if grateful for the brief respite given by their owners. If there is one time of the day that is revered universally in the Mediterranean, it is the afternoon. In this quiet time the parents sleep and the children can do as they wish. Now they can watch cartoons, play their games, and resolve the million crises and arguments that children can quietly have, and resolve, before the stern justice of their parents lays waste to both the aggressor and the aggrieved; far better to get over our difference now before father takes away all the toys, and not just the one we were arguing over. The kitchen would have lingering good smells of the lunch that we had. Perhaps the faint smell of frying oil, or the rice which is still in the cooking pot on the stove, the inside of the lid covered with droplets of humidity from the still warm food. There is the slight hum of the refrigerator to break the otherwise complete silence in that part of the house. Humanity, and all its mechanical servants, takes a break in this time, and rejuvenates itself for what remains of the day, and a large part of the night too.

As the sun's light starts to change from a harsh yellow to a mellow gold, the first stirrings of life and sounds make their way out of the street. The cats start to dart from car to car as they awaken from their heat induced stupor, and the first shops start to re-open as their owners get back to work and ready themselves for the evening shoppers. Indoors, the house holds stir to life in a riot of television noise, talking and stoves boiling a pot of that thick, strong coffee which the Turks, Greeks and the Arabs each refer to as their own. Balcony doors, for those who have them, begin to open, and in the days when it was plentiful, water would be hosed onto the floors of the balconies before people took out their plastic chairs to sit in the evening shade, cooling themselves in the evaporating freshness as they reach out to grab from a bowl of fruit that has appeared. Grapes, freshly cut slices of apples or pears, or perhaps even a dessert, would be enjoyed as people said hello to each other from the balconies and caught up with news. Thoughts would begin to turn to visiting the shops, friends, or perhaps just enjoying a walk in the market. Thoughts would turn, too, to dinner and the decision of whether to eat in or get something from the shops. In expectation, people would await whichever drama is dominating the airwaves to start on the evening television schedules. From afar, the glimmering lights of the city would start to come on, and amidst them, the emerald green towers of hundreds of mosques. The evening call to prayer would bring a deferential lowering of the volume from shopkeepers blaring out the latest pop hits, or young people's car stereos as they drive around aimlessly in circles through the city, jumping from one set of friends to another. Across the city, lovers would meet furtively in cafes and discuss their future. This couple worry about future finances, another couple are fighting for their love in the face of stubborn families, and yet another couple are just happy to be together in that moment, in that place, and think nothing of the future or the past.

Different parts of Damascus would serve as social hubs, where collections of coffee shops, restaurants and corn on the cob or sabara (prickly pear) sellers would be found. In the busy summer months the sabara sellers, in their brilliantly lit neon palaces, with the decoratively hung carpets and miniature stools, would stay at their stalls for days on end, perhaps even the whole summer, to catch up with business. Expertly they would carve out the sabara for you from its prickly exterior, giving you the chance to enjoy the fresh and juicy interior. Sometimes I think the whole Middle East is like that, a bit intimidating, but wonderful once you get past the exterior. At night, too, the shawarma is roasting slowly against the grills, to be wrapped in a thin bread wrap; garlic sauce for chicken and sticky sweet pomegranate sauce for lamb. Then there are the orders for assortments of baklawa, knafeh and or any of the hundreds of Arabic sweets that make the sweetshop owners frantic as they prepare them. Later in the evening these delights would be taken out of their boxes to be sampled by dinner guests, friends and family. I think now of all these gatherings of friends and loved ones celebrating, for the sheer sake of it, all that is - or perhaps I should now say was - wonderful about life and summer in Damascus.

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When did our streets and homes become a battlefield? At what point did we cross that boundary between normal life and abnormality? The streets of a country are already starting to look overgrown, weeds grow on the streets and piles of garbage are now turning into little hills. It is almost as if the earth has some kind of natural mechanism to heal the gaping wounds left by men, as it slowly covers the scenes of his crimes with dirt, plants and pebbles. In a thousand years people might come and picnic on those very places, and admire the scenic view. Somebody might dig up the bodies, note how this might have been the scene of an ancient massacre, and write it in a book one day. But nobody will remember the sounds, smells and sights of one horrific day that took place so long ago. That is a privilege accorded only to those who were there.

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El Tres de Mayo

The men are always faceless, the angles in which they are painted sharp, angular. A sword hangs in motionless from the side of one of the soldiers, a latent violence that is ready to murder should the rifle no longer suffice. In contrast, we see the ordained victims. Some are imploring, others cry to the sky whilst others remain defiant to the last, looking down the barrels that will spell their doom. It's a testimony to that final moment before we are sent, hurtling, down a void, into the unknown. We know that this is a journey we have to take at some point, but in those long days in the sun, walking amongst our friends, we felt confident enough to forget about such a day. Yet when it comes, it is the finality of it which shocks. There is no time to call those we love, that thing we wanted to do when we returned home will never be done, and those dreams we had will never be accomplished. It is over.

The manner in which each victim faces the void is also a testament to how they have lived their lives. The true 'stuff' of which people are made of shows in that final moment. There are the brave, the indifferent, and also the cowardly. Each would give up the persona, the facade that they had meticulously constructed throughout their lives. The philosopher-sage who thought they were ready for death and then found themselves on their knees, pleading for their lives, or the scoundrel who, in that final moment, bares his chest to the pointed rifle in a last act of defiance against a world that never cared for him; almost beseeching his murderer to get it done, daring him to cross that ancient dividing line after which a man is forever labelled a murderer. In a sense, those already dead are the lucky ones, for they have gotten it over with and are now safely beyond the reach of the fear, the horror and the violence. In those final moments, the strangest things are said to pass through the mind of the condemned. Condemned? Yes, for that is what they are, condemned by the cruel circumstance that has led them down this one-way road, condemned by the person who holds a rifle and, though putting it down is the easiest of physical acts to him, chooses to maintain a steady aim in those final moments before a flash of light and sound destroy a being that is like himself.

The murderer, if he retains a splatter of humanity in his heart, might remember the face of his victim for the rest of his life, or he might just turn around and walk down the road, thinking about what he will have for dinner tomorrow or to slow down somewhere to take off his boot and shake out that pebble which is annoying him. Did the victim and the murderer ever realise, years before, or even on the day that they were born, that somewhere, there was a person who was going to kill them one day? Or that they would end the life of such-and-such a person? The thought is a sobering one, like imagining that somewhere in the world there is a bullet with our name on it. Perhaps the man holding his hands to his face in disbelief, or is that denial, cannot grasp the enormity of such factors, and still cannot believe that in less than a minute he will no longer be able to feel the warmth of the sun, make love to a beautiful woman, or enjoy his favourite meal or drink. What would be the correct reaction to the horror that stares us in the face, cold and itself faceless?

The man with the two raised arms in the midst of all the darkness and terror might be trying to ask that same question. Perhaps it is not just defiance which makes him the only person staring directly at the executioners, but also a demand to know why? He is in the spotlight of the painting, so to speak, and his white shirt serves as the anchor or target to which our eyes focus. Everything happening there points as if to that one spot on his clean white shirt, soon to be stained bright red. The rest is all dark, but his outstretched arms and wide open eyes make him the only living creature in that picture that we can connect with and empathise. He is on his knees, but he is the same height as his murders, and his posture is upright. Even in his last moment, he remembers that he is a man, and more importantly, a human being. His raised palms and outstretched pictures are a question, a challenge and a defiance to the mechanical forces which seem to control our lives. The other people might cry in despair and grief, cry out to the heavens or hide their faces from the grim reality. But the nameless man in the white shirt is the only one who is looking at the reality, interacting with it, and existing in precisely the moment that he inhabits. Not even the men with guns have such power as he, such agency. They are merely faceless automatons, uniformed and featureless, and they are as much a backdrop to the painting as most of their victims. As far as the spectator is concerned, there is only one human being in that picture, and he is the man in the white shirt and khaki trousers.  It is as if in one moment, the mechanics of the world were halted, and out of the drab confusion arose a human being who does not accept that this was inevitable, that it was fate or some destiny which got us here. In choosing to look at his killer and face his death, he raises questions for us all, why must it be so?

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Portrait of a Liar

"Let me tell you my friend, you do not...ahhh...how should I put this?"

The tall, burly man, who was doing the talking had a handsome face, but there was a hardness in his eyes that did not diminish even when he tried to appear friendly and casual. There was a calculated gaze which remained even when he smiled, something that made conversation with him very uncomfortable. He is slightly out of place with his expensive suit as he sits with the young man in a small, dingy cafe. F. was the kind of man who was 'going places' as some people might say. He had played the right cards, said the right things, and displayed just the attitude that had proven him suitable to get on the bottom rung of a ladder that would lead him to even greater wealth, power and fame. The State that employed F. demanded utter obedience, and rewarded it. On the man's computer in his office, even his desktop was set to a picture of the Great Leader, with the state's flag transposed behind him. F had learned to love the State and the Great Leader, and in proving his loyalty, he was utterly devoted to playing the role assigned to him in the fullest. His job was to promote the State, to correct those who had erred unwittingly from what it deemed 'common-sense', and to inform outsiders about what the State is 'really' trying to do. Other people would call him a professional liar, but we won't go into that yet. Today he was sitting with a young man he had met recently. It isn't important to go into too much depth about how or why their paths had somehow crossed, and at such a tense and dangerous time, but they had met. In that strange cosmic coincidence which both means nothing and yet proves quite fateful much later on, their paths were set to be crossed at precisely this time.

There were riots and protests in 'the homeland' and there were some who began questioning whether the State had a right to lead them. For F this was utter blasphemy. He knew that he was always scrutinised whilst working, but he never let that worry. Had he not utterly, in both body and soul, given himself to the Great Leader? He had nothing to fear. When he spoke on 'controversial' (but allowed) subjects, he quoted the Great Leaders comments as if they were dogma, giving himself the necessary cover should somebody question his motives much later. At first it was probably quite difficult, but eventually F (and with some pride) noticed that he now managed it effortlessly. He was like the priest of a strict church, now walking comfortably and confidently through its subtle rituals. Of course he would never let himself question the absurdity of what he was doing. He did know that some had 'fallen from favour' and he realised what might happen to him if he ever expressed, well, we shan't say himself, as there was now not a single part of his personality that had not been utterly subsumed into loyalty for the State. Let us say, if he 'allowed himself to go astray'. That is much better, and it then fits in with his job as the person who would correct the 'misconceptions' that people had about the state.

But that is all about F, for at the present, sitting in that quite common cafe, F had asked to meet this young man, fully intending to 'hint' to the chap that his recent actions had not gone unnoticed. The young man had committed what had until recently been the unforgivable crime of joining a demonstration against the State. Not only that, but present at this demonstration had been the 'ex-communicated', people of whom the state had despaired. These days, the State and the Great Leader had decided to become 'lenient' to those who are led astray by such types, owing to how widespread and resilient the recent unrest has grown. But of course there were limits to such leniency. He looked up at the man from the unfinished sandwich on his plate, 'Ahh...look, I saw you at the protest R, and I was happy. Yes, happy! I thought to myself here is a young man who cares about his country, about the challenges that we are facing. But...uh...well joining that demonstration was not advisable.'

R felt a slight worry, “Do you mean that I am now in trouble?”

“Oh don't be silly”, said F, “I know you're a good guy and that you have nothing to do with the rif-raff who were only there to exploit the..ah...difficulties that our country is going through. But you are OK, didn't the Great Leader himself say that there is corruption? That we have deep rooted problems that we must urgently address? No, you are fine this time. You just need to be careful, because next time somebody might put your name down as an accomplice to those saboteurs, and then nobody can help you.”

R felt slightly worried, joining the demonstrations had been the first time he had said what he thought; that he had thrown fear to the wind and shouted at the top of his lungs without worrying who would listen. The feeling had been so utterly intoxicating, so beautiful, that he had spent the rest of the day walking with a spring in his step, if it could even be called that, for he had almost been striding that day. The next morning, however, his stomach felt tight as he recalled what he did. After the initial rush, the realisation that he might get himself in trouble made him feel nauseous with worry. What would his family think? His old father? After all, he had always been told to stay away from politics. Was his life over? The fear had eventually subsided, and he had even begun regaining some of the fearlessness of the previous day. That was until he had received a telephone call from F.

“I need to meet you urgently”, the voice on the line said.

“Is everything alright?”, asked R.

“Yes, yes, it's just that there is something very important I need to discuss with you.”

“Shall we meet at Jimmy's Cafe then?” asked R. He did not want to go meet F at his workplace and he had a mental picture of himself being set upon by the swarthy men in suits, with the big handlebar moustaches, as they drag him down to a basement in the building never to be seen again. Jimmy's Cafe was a public place, with plenty of people around and where it would not be possible to create a scene. Yet now that F was giving him a warning so starkly, and so clearly, the state of uncertainty was over. Rather than a wailing and gnashing of the teeth, R was surprised to find that he felt quite relaxed about the whole affair. He smiled back at F, “Well, thanks for the warning. I guess...”

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What Can the Average Syrian Do?

I really don't know what game the Syrian oppositions are playing at. After much initial fanfare and hullaballoo, they are still unable to organise themselves. I don't think Haitham Manaa or Burhan Ghalioun are the ones to fault, as much as those who deride the Syrian revolution at every opportunity would love to. Far from it, there is only so much that these men can do. I remember an agreement between the two men that was almost immediately howled down by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and that they both had to distance themselves from, last year. Whether with the regime or the decrepit political oppositions, a hero is clearly lacking for Syria. But at a time when there are no heroes, and with so many insurmountable obstacles, what can we do on an individual level?

I sometimes wonder in amazement at how difficult it is to hold a rational conversation with many of my countrymen and women. It is rare to find somebody who gives you their genuine opinion, based on their own evaluation of a situation, rather than the party, religious, or popular dogma that they might hide behind. Casual racism and anti-semitism can be rife, while sexism prevails at almost every level. In Syria the universities are awful and the teaching is sub-standard. Students at the baccalaureate level have to memorise vast swathes of text for their exams, during which the slightest deviation is heavily penalised. Even in mathematics, a simple response to a question is not enough. Instead there is an educational dogma and ritual that must surround the response to an exam question, and marks will be taken even if mathematically the response is sound.

We have still not dealt with institutional corruption in the educational system. It is not unheard of for students to spend years trying to graduate for university, if they have not greased the palms of the right university lecturer. That is, if the student is lucky to get into university. If a student has not managed to gain enough grades in the insanely difficult pantomime called the baccalaureate, they will be drafted into a military service during which they would be forced to become the foot servants of whichever officer they have the misfortune of serving under. For two years, and maybe more with penalties, a conscript is a slave labourer. Should he wish to obtain leave, he must pay a bribe. If he complains, he is given a penalty and his time as a conscript is increased.

So there you have it, and that is by no means an exhaustive description of what is wrong with Syrian society at every level. If there ever was an argument for small government, then this country surely cries out for it. Yet, in spite of an absence of any form of government accountability, state regulations or an effective infrastructure, Syrians still manage to organise their affairs and lives with astonishing adaptability. Families and friends help each other out, or barter and do each other small favours - at enormous risk of personal friction of course. The informal economy, ignored and unstudied, operates as a nebulous, breathing and living entity. It responds to market supply and demand and seems, to the shock of many, to self-regulate itself. Reputation is everything, and your perception by peers and by the public are far more valuable than any government certificate of approval. Builders, engineers, shop owners, dentists and doctors, all build and cultivate their business through a meticulously cultivated network of customers. Word of mouth appears to have replaced a free media, and is a remarkable way to hear about what is happening. Naturally this national game of Chinese whispers is far from perfect, but coupled with mobile phones and internet connectivity it has proven to be the backbone of the Syrian uprising. Ironically, the regime's firm control of the state's media and news outlets have helped create this situation.

Economically, the black market price of the dollar fluctuates almost hourly, and yet there is no newspaper that will give you that price, no Bloomsburg or MSNBC-style news tickers to give you the latest price of Syria's currency. There is, of course, the official price, set by the government, but only an idiot really buys or sells at that price. All of this is undocumented, unstudied and ignored. Nobody comments on this state within a state, an undercurrent to Syria that the regime has never been able to penetrate fully or even to understand. In spite of the official sounding "Syrian Computer Society", such ridiculous government organisations are not behind the computer savvy local population that have been transmitting mobile phone videos out of the country. The country's massive DVD piracy networks, computer gaming, and music piracy markets have done what no national computer literacy drive could hope to achieve.

If you come to Syria and you have friends there, you will quickly be given a USB stick from which you can copy the latest proxy software to bypass internet censorship. And when one proxy is blocked and stops working, another becomes distributed via this informal network within days. Chat programs might be blocked, but for those wishing to meet a future spouse online, or simply to chat up girls, a million and one ways to communicate are devised. Forums, discussion groups, blogs, messenger programs, all can be utilised in the life-long quest to spread one's genes. The more you examine it, the less you see government control as all-pervasive, but rather as a thin shell which gives off the illusion of control.

All of this seems to counter-balance the deficit in political institutions, a free media, and decent educational establishments, but only just. Whether it was in 2011 or 2021, the country has too many internal contradictions to have survived in the way that Assad's regime preferred it too. It is just not possible to sustain a regime that exists on corruption with a growing, restless, unemployed and increasingly literate, if politically naive, young population. It is a recipe for disaster, and the explosion of political uncertainty, contradictory statements and bipolar politics that is emerging from Syria is the inevitable result we are seeing of over forty years of dictatorship.

If you ask me, the focus must be on strengthening the way this informal economy and state within a state interacts. More and more efforts to circumvent state control of information, knowledge and communication would help connect the population with the rest of the world, and help bring the people up to speed. One might say that the influence of extremist groups would help destabilise the country, but that is absurd. It is like saying drinking water should be banned because some people have choked to death. The benefits of a free and open society far outweigh the dangers, and preventing such a society is far more harmful than the danger this prevention aims protect society from.

If there is anything individual Syrians, frustrated with their helplessness, can do, it is to talk to other Syrians, and keep talking. The biggest focus of this regime for the past forty years, from laws which ban public gatherings without a permit, to censorship and state control of the media, is to stop Syrians talking to each other and exchanging ideas, or finding out what is happening. This is something that they can no longer do - all we have to do is start.

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I heard that Assad is warning countries that sow chaos in Syria that they will suffer. I can just imagine NATO, on hearing this news, convening an emergency meeting to discuss contingency plans should Assad's army wish to mobilise against them. After all, it was this same Syrian regime which warned Israel that it will respond to that country's aggression in "a time and place" of its choosing; and that was in 2007. Ever since then the nuclear powered Middle Eastern state has been in a state of panic and fear from its northern neighbour. In fact I hear that Israel was so frightened of Assad's warning that they were going to give him the Golan Heights back after having occupied it since 1967. Yes, just like that.

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Ever since the fall of Bab Amr in Homs there seems to have been a lull in Syria. A regime unable to control the country and a revolution that won't go away. Then you have a Syrian opposition abroad that can't organise itself to save its life, a Syrian opposition internally that can't make it's mind up whether it will denounce a 'foreign conspiracy' against Syria, or denounce itself for not organising itself effectively to replace a regime that it doesn't have the courage, and wouldn't dare to, attempt replacing. Then you have a Syrian regime that has turned the country into a black box, brutalised anybody who dares to oppose it, peacefully or not, and continues to maintain a grip on the institutions of the country whilst pretending to reform.

Internationally you have a West which is in the midst of political scandal, economic recession and elections and who are willing to remove Assad at any cost they don't have to pay for. In the East you have a Russia and China that are willing to back Assad at any cost. Iran and Hezbullah want to see Assad stay where he is because he is vital for whatever it is they are planning, Israel is keen to see Assad stay for whatever other reason it is planning. The Saudis hate Assad, and would really like him to go, but can't do anything about it. The Qataris have a news channel, and lots of cash, and would like to see Assad go but also can't seem to do anything about it. And everybody, everybody, feels really bad about all the people that have been killed so far, and they think that somebody should really do something about it.

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Pity the tyrant, because he will forever be trying to stamp out the weeds of truth.
From the start he fights a losing battle, and hasn't even valour to aid him.

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The word Nakba means calamity in Arabic, and today, of all days, many people will write many things about what they think of it, and whether it is something that we should remind ourselves of on a daily basis and not just commemorate. I don't want to commemorate a nakba, I want to commemorate all the good things it brought out in all of us. When the earthquake struck Japan last year, it caused untold carnage and destruction, and it uprooted many people's lives. But with calamity something deep within our selves also awakens, and we find in the human not just a base instinct for deception and self-interest but also of something else; something different. For with calamity it is not just despair and sadness that is born, but out of the very deepest well in the soul, heroism.

It is heroism which portrays a desperate and hopeless situation as a glorious battle. It is heroism which can turn a victim into a martyr, and transforms the impulse that might only have been manic depression, at best, if not suicide, into something magnificent, into art. Through this art, and this romantic impulse to protect some part of our psyche, our souls, from utter defeat in an indifferent universe, we see the human being overcoming difficulties in ways that were inconceivable before. The calm after the storm, and the person who lives to see the sun rise once again; that is what a nakba should be remembered for. And instead of lamenting the fate which brought it to our door, we would do well to remember the words of an English bard:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them

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I'm not sure where to start with this spate of bombings that has struck Syria. On one level there is a regime that has no limit to the depths it will plunge to, and on the other hand there are is no shortage of stupid people who think that such tactics are a good thing. Ultimately we have to ask why we are here in the first place, and the moral burden of all of this rests on the shoulders of one person, the dictator. Anything else is just an exercise in sophistry.

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The Kaff

I was told a story once. It was about what happens to disgraced generals when they are arrested by the secret police. First they are dragged to the interrogation centre. There, they stand them up in a room, and the lowliest conscript walks up to him and tears off his lapels and insignia. They are thrown at his feet. Then the conscript raises his hand and with one fell swoop he slaps the officer on the face. I don't know how to express the slap in English with the same weight it is given in Arabic. To give somebody a kaff is, I think, a grave insult. It cuts to the core of you in a way that the lowly punch never could. Whether it hurts more or less is up for debate, but the kaff is the final crossing of the line. There is no going back from it. In Syrian drama, the climax of an altercation between a man and his wife is when he gives her the kaff. The music stops, the face is frozen in shock, and the man immediately regrets what he has done, because he knows his wife will never forgive him, and will never forget. There is never anything to say after the kaff.

Since the start of the Syrian uprising I've scene clip after clip of the Syrian policeman, soldier, or thug, slapping the prisoners. Maybe it's supposed to strike deep down at their masculinity and confidence. The Egyptians have a variation of it, it's when the same slap is given at the back of the neck. Each to their own I suppose. For the disgraced general, it's the first and only landmark he need take note of before being pushed into oblivion, into that place from which nobody emerges the same, if ever at all.

But the thug enjoys his power and he gets a kick out of it. He knows you can never be as barbarous as him, and he can't wait for you to slip into his hands. I don't care, he is all that he can ever be. My gripe is with the man, or men, who put him in a position of power over good people. I want to haul those men in their expensive suits out of their luxury imported cars and stand them before me. I want to look at them as they mentally rehearse their lies. Then, just when one of them opens his lips, I want to raise my arm with ever ounce of strength that I possess, mustering all the anger and defiance of every man, woman and child who has cried out because of this bastard, and bring a kaff down on his clean shaven face with all the force a weak, grieving and angry man can give. I want him to feel that sting and quiver with injustice, because then I will be sure that he knows what his victims have felt like. But that's never going to happen, is it?

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حالي حالي حال

I don't know who these guys are. A few years ago one particular song wouldn't leave my head and I searched on Youtube to find a version of it that I would like. I came across this clip of a bunch of guys from Syria who played a beautiful rendition of it and seemed to enjoy themselves so much. I've had this on my music player for all this time, and have enjoyed it countless times. Listening to it right now transports me to what seems like a lifetime ago, to another place. I can almost imagine myself sitting in a flat somewhere in Damascus with my friends, and we'd be singing and enjoying ourselves like these guys are.

I feel a hope for the future, for a better Syria where we are all free from fear and oppression, and where friends can meet and have fun at the end of the day, and stay up till the early hours of the morning. I think that amidst all this bitterness and sorrow, remembering what we are struggling for helps a little bit. Let's watch this video and think about being with our friends and loved ones in better times, so that those times won't seem so far away.

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Dead Eyes

Soulless, dead eyes stare out of the screen unblinkingly. The man's suit is immaculate, and he is wearing glasses that sometimes, if the light shines at them in the right way reflect as shiny white orbs. Orwell wrote about that once in, "Nineteen Eighty Four", about party apparatchiks in a crowd whose glasses make them look soulless and dead. I'm seeing the same thing on my television screen. I once met the man being interviewed on the news channel, and I tried once to discuss the tragedy of a country with him.

At the time he was defending a new constitution which I believed to be a sham. He defended it but to my surprise I found out that he hadn't even read it. I walked away feeling angry and furious with myself. I felt cheated and angry after having spent hours poring over that drivel to point out the fallacies in it, and this man _hadn't_ even read it. He was assuring people that it represented stability and counted for reforms and yet he hadn't even read it!

But he assured me quite soberly that he was _very_ concerned; that he was on the same side as me; that he cared for the country just as much as me. I was using every intelligent argument a sane individual would accept or at least recognise, but those dead eyes just stared at me, stared at me and mocked. He was pleasant enough, friendly even, but to me he might as well have been dead. He was a walking corpse in a sharp, crisp suit, wearing expensive eye glasses. Then too, they would reflect in the light of the studio lights as shiny white discs, and for a brief moment I was talking to an eyeless automaton that was saying only what it was programmed to say.

I wanted to vomit. I felt so tired. I can't fight machines and things that are already dead. Tell me. How can you kill something which has no soul? I imagined having a magical lens which would show me the true nature of things. I half expected, if I passed it over the clean shaven, immaculate face of this man, to find sneering back at me a ghoul with a rotted visage. And the ghoul would look at me with those same dead soulless eyes.

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The Degeneration of a Nation

Haven't you heard? There are elections to be held soon and democracy is in the air my friend! The dictator is not a dictator, he is a friendly young man who is struggling hard to force Syrians to be free. You don't want to be free? Here is a booted foot to stamp on your head. Isn't it good to be free? Why can't you speak whilst my boot is in your mouth?

Ugh..such ungrateful people. You didn't think you were going to win because you were right? This isn't the world we live in, old boy. The world will believe whatever we tell it, and they will accept it and smile at us. Because we worship the Great Lie. We will tell you that victory has a cost, and that you must pay it and be happy. You don't want to see a big picture, you only need to see swirls of colour. Yes, lots of beautiful colours. Go back to your dramas and music. Smoke your sheeshas and enjoy yourselves. When we want you to hate we will tell you. We will show you a picture and we will tell you that this is your enemy. You will look at this picture because your heads are all fixed so you can't turn left or right, you can only look where we tell you. Look! and hate! That is your enemy. Isn't he vile? Don't you want to just put his eyes out? Froth your mouth, and if you don't feel angry then just pretend, and eventually you will be. We will also tell you when to love, and you will love. You will feel the joy coursing through your chest, and wonder what else on earth there could ever be.

Stop troubling your mind with questions about the present. The past is what we tell you and the future is, Oh so bright! But this middle, this present, the present that you inhabit, forget about all that. Forget that you even exist. You are not real, you are simply being made into something, something so fantastic that you wouldn't believe. We are going to do that to you, isn't that wonderful? Look at us and be grateful. We will make you so that is all you can be, but it is better if you give us your gratitude and acquiescence. We can make you kneel, but it is oh so much better if you do it for us. We will make you degenerate, but it is the degeneration of your soul that we are truly after. For when you would grasp your own filth up high and proclaim that to be your supreme truth, then we will have won, and you will be glad.

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