حرية و بس 6 : أداة الجريمة

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شد الحزام - سيد درويش

One of my favourite songs by Sayed Darwish. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

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The President's Speech

Well he finally made an appearance. Looking every bit like a president, and this time giving a speech at Damascus University, Bashar al Assad addressed his nation of adoring fans. Those that are today spilling out into the centre of Damascus to show their undying loyalty and affection to the man they never elected to rule them. Yesterday he spoke solemnly about the deaths of the martyrs, about how it had affected him personally too. But in addition he mentioned the 'dark period' of Syria's recent history. That's the time his uncle led the Defence Companies to obliterate parts of Hama, killing about ten thousand people on the most conservative estimate. So that's a dark period, there are salafists, terrorists, and other bad people who are out to destroy the delicate flower petal that is Syria's cultural mosaic, and that 'team Syria' or the منحبكجية as they are referred to, can now join hands and face this insidious plot.

Interestingly, he's started to speak more and more directly about 'the problem' that Syria is facing. That's such a typically Syrian way of burying your head in the sand. It's a bit like "the events" of Hama, never referred to by its name. But overall this was more of the same. This was a speech aiming to rally the troops and boost their morale, not one aimed at national healing. It will be a brave soul who believes Bashar al Assad's assurances and goes back to their home in Jisr al Shughour or wherever else they used to live.

So the "Minhibakjia" people will now be delighted that their 'immortal' leader, son of the last 'immortal' leader, has cheered them on, told them about how very hard he and all the government are working for a better Syria, and how brilliant everything is. Here is some more Valium. Today, they unfurl the Syrian flag, now horribly cheapened, and present their 'valid' point of view as the so-called other side to the story. Bouthaina Shaaban comes onto al Jazeera English and onto BBC Radio 4 telling the foreign media that she would be 'delighted' to have them return to Syria. But, and like a stern parent, she tells the children they cannot have any more candy unless they 'promise' her to be good. I don't understand who she or her boss think they are fooling. But perhaps more worrying is the number of my friends who come to me and try to show me what they believe are reasonable doubts which serve as proof of a plot against Syria.

Questions such as why al Jazeera is not covering the, what I believe to be, government sponsored rallies. Sometimes these questions verge on the ridiculous, such as those asking me who is killing the army and police if the protestors are peaceful. I really don't know how to respond yet to such stupidity. I just shake my head quietly as people who had never been interested in politics, history or current affairs before, now sit there and try to convince me that there is a conspiracy against Syria. Well yes, there were always conspiracies against Syria, but no, this does not mean Bashar al Assad is Syria's best hope, or that the Syrian uprising is not genuine in its grievances. Ultimately, this regime lost its legitimacy, if ever it had it, the moment it began shooting unarmed people and incarcerating them by the thousands for protesting or voicing their opinion.

Yesterday I looked at the Syrian president and, for the first time ever, I could tell that the speech was coming from a regime that was frightened, shaken, and increasingly desperate. There is only so long that you can pull the wool over people's eyes.

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The 'Ottoman' Equation for Syria?

Interesting how Erdogan's calls were being ignored in the week prior to the AKP's election victory in Turkey. Then, all of a sudden, we hear that two high level Syrian officials, most notably Syria's foreign minister Walid al Mouallem, will be visiting Turkey to discuss the situation. Perhaps this is because there is a high level meeting of ambassadors who were summoned to discuss the situations in Libya and Syria. Frankly, it looks like Erdogan is now approaching the Syrian problem with renewed vigour after his election victory.

Turkey's 'Kissinger' Ahmet Davotoglu (who speaks fluent Arabic), visited Syrian refugees in Turkey today and went to the Turkish/Syrian border to see the situation for himself. It will be amusing to see Mouallem pulling the 'armed gangs' routine against somebody as high-profile as Davotoglu, who has now seen first-hand the situation and who has spoken directly to the people involved.

Call it a hunch, but I think the West is not going to intervene with Syria as they did in Libya, in spite of the panicked cries of some Twitter activists. Rather, I think Turkey is going to spear-head any future pressure against the Syrian regime. This will be mainly because Turkey is a Muslim country, and secondly because the popularity of Erdogan and Turkey in Syria (as in the Arab world) is extremely high. This will make any Turkish involvement less inflammatory, and will explain the reason why Damascus is now very worried about its relationship with Turkey.

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More 'Surprises' In Store...

So there will be a speech soon, and the supporters of the regime promise "shocking announcements". Perhaps these will be as surprising as the non-surprises we heard of in the last two speeches. In the first one he cracked jokes and listened to the sycophants in his rubber-stamp parliament praise him, asking him to lead not just the Arab world but the "entire world". In the second one, the beloved leader 'got to business' and gathered his team around with their notepads and pencils so that they can take notes as he gave them their homework.

Perhaps we should expect this surprise to be that he will announce another investigation of the investigations that were supposed to investigate why the school children in Daraa were arrested and tortured. Or perhaps to investigate why the demonstrators kept getting shot even though the president made it explicitly clear that nobody was to fire at civilians "even if they themselves came under fire". Or perhaps it is to tell us all  that the armed gangs/Salafists/Kurdish Peshmerga are all eradicated from Syrian soil. The five thousand refugees in Turkey will be watching his speech with bated breath, as they might be given the all clear to return home.

Somehow, I don't think there is anything that will really surprise me in the beloved leader's speech. Unless, perhaps, he announces his resignation and flies his whole family and political party out of Damascus International Airport, never to return. Now that would be a hell of a surprise.

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I wake up after a day of purposely avoiding any news coverage or twitter feeds. A beautiful day in the sun, a walk in the park, lunch with friends. It is as if, on some level, I wish to escape the horrible reality that is taking place in Syria, and wish to pretend for an instant like life is normal. I want to go listen to music, take someone out for dinner, just feel like I am human again. It works, if only for a few hours.

This morning I wake up and hear that there might be about five thousand Syrian refugees in Turkey with many more waiting to cross over the border. There are villages and fields burning, helicopters hovering overhead and shooting at some hidden enemies, and the Syrian army's tanks undertaking military operations against an elusive and mysterious 'enemy' that nobody has seen or heard of. Yet when Israel shot and killed some people on the Syrian side of the border with the Golan Heights, we did not see or hear a single retaliatory word, let alone bullet, from the courageous Syrian regime. Instead the secret police shoot soldiers who refuse to kill unarmed civilians. I suspect many of those 'marytrs' that the regime beautifies so obscenely on television are more often than not victims of such brutality.

It is disgusting to see many Syrians refusing to believe anything what the official media tells them. Where have I seen this before? Actually it is what we accuse the Israelis of doing every single day with the Palestinians. To undermine a national 'narrative' will cause people to ask uncomfortable questions, and to take responsibility for things that are done in their name.

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Verbal Emesis from my Soul

Lies, confusion and conspiracies. I sit here, thinking about expressing my feelings. I want to vomit my thoughts into words. But what is it that I feel? A numbness perhaps. Periods of boredom tinged with euphoria and sadness. I sit here and watch the world through a screen. Then I take a break and watch a bigger screen. When I'm tired, I go and watch a story on a huge screen in a cinema. Then I'm told that I'm living a lie, that I have false consciousness - no shit. But wait, the person telling me this is also watching screens, but his screens show a different picture. So somebody is pushing through two different stories to the same people - like this is some cruel joke. Just to see what will happen. Maybe we can drive these people against each other like mice in a laboratory.

Who is it that I'm railing against? I've studied philosophy goddamnit! I know about Plato and his allegory of the cave. I'm supposed to be f*cking enlightened. Or am I? Didn't I side with those that I thought were seeing the big picture? I did, and I was confident that things would work out. I just didn't realise that this big picture was crushing people until I started to recognise some of them. Did that mean I was wrong? I still don't think so, you can have a big picture, there's just no excuse to use it destroy lives. Who the hell knows? To the people who are watching different stories on their screens I ask you, whether it is real or not, how can you justify killing somebody? Well I already know the answer to that. I always knew the answer to that.

The videos I see of people who speak my language, with my accent, killing other people. They're human, not monsters. I could be just like them if I wanted to. You don't just tell a man off the street to kill other people. First you put him in a uniform or give him a gun. You tell him the other people are coming to kill him. You tell him they will rape your women and bayonet your children. You turn the other into a monster, into something inhuman. Then, when you've filled this man's head with your own stories, you set him loose. He will kill for you. You have to make it impossible for him to see humanity in the other. And if his actions force a reaction, all the better. You have now created war and strife. You are a corrupter of the earth - it is that easy.

That is a big thing, to be a corrupter. What does it mean? To corrupt something, to make it become utterly spoilt, ruined, the opposite of what it once was? There is something I find seductive about it, seductive and repulsive at the same time. Like a virgin whom you know will sleep with you after the first date. On the one level, there is that hunger in your belly which drives you down the path to ruin and sadness, yet at the same time you feel ill inside with where it is driving you. So instead you begin to project that illness elsewhere. The beginnings of some psychosis. Either you choose to erase your memories and that awful time. You blank it out. Or you constantly reinvent yourself, escaping from yourself. I don't know, I'm not a psychiatrist and I don't wish to go down that path. I'm just telling you that there is something wrong with you.

Wrong with you? Wrong with who? Who am I talking to? Never mind; during the 1991 Gulf War there was this French philosopher who point out how unreal everything seemed. We were watching a war on our television screens. As far as we are concerned the Gulf War never happened. Nothing has ever happened. We're just sitting here staring at screens, reacting and arguing. Some people I know overcompensate their guilt for not feeling outraged at the death of innocents by expressing hysterical outrage. Other's feel guilty for not having the balls to say no in the face of injustice, so they defend their outrageous positions with even more stubborn blindness. People I was enemies with in Part Une of this drama we are watching on screen are now siding with me, and people who were my friends when the show first started are now against me. At some point we started watching different screens. Or maybe somebody swapped the screens for some of us when we weren't looking? Who knows.

Life for me at the moment is a series (if we can even call it that) of existential episodes chained together by my existence only. There are people I know, but whose names I do not. There are names I know of, but I don't know the people. There is just a sea filled with disembodied names and nameless people. An orgy of riotous interaction and chaos that used to be shocking, but with which I am now used to. Like obscenity made familiar. A bit like watching The Last Tango in Paris today instead of when it was first released. I've always like the song for that film though. The guttural cries at the start, the jazziness of it. I never thought it was possible to express such vivid wild sensuality and sexual energy using just music. The film might not be shocking anymore for some, but the music is still true to the original feeling you were supposed to get. It is wanton, excessive and throws me into the warm soup of chaos which is existence. I exist, I've said what I said and I've written what I wrote. To hell with it if I am just a pile of dust tomorrow. The past is not mine, the future is not made. All we have is an ever present now. Because nothing really matters, nothing except for what I've done. That's the only thing that will stay of me. Like a drowning man's hat... .

الفيديو الكامل لمظاهرة الشعلان وقمعها 8 حزيران 2011

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Syrians stare into the Abyss

There have been over 1000 civilians killed by security services, according to human rights activists, and over 10,000 people imprisoned since March the 25th. I say the Syrian people are staring into the abyss because I do not think we have seen the worst that this regime is capable of yet. It is an uncomfortable thought, but we must brace for far worse news in the months to come.

A Zero-Sum Game

According to Patrick Seale, Rifaat al Assad once said that if the Bolshevik revolution was prepared to sacrifice ten million people to preserve itself, then Syria should be prepared to do likewise. Whilst Rifaat and his family are now living in luxury in Europe, the mentality he was speaking with remains with the regime and we are seeing the result of it today. Today the Syrian interior minister vowed to crush anybody who used arms against the state - speaking mainly about the alleged death of 120 security services personnel in Jisr al Shughour, near the Syrian coast. The regime seems to believe that it can ride out this storm if it can just apply more force, and kill more people. Two weeks into the uprising, I might have believed that possible, but eleven weeks on and the crushing of this uprising is far from a foregone conclusion and I am hearing a lot more people beginning to state the opposite, that the beginning of the end for the Syrian regime might be in sight soon. If the regime agrees to reforms then it is agreeing to its own destruction. It has no choice but to resist until the very last opportunity because it recognises that there is no place for it in a Syria governed by the rule of law.

Contrasts with 1982

If 1982 marked the beginning of the Syrian police state and the heavy handed repression which became the norm for Syrians, then one would shudder to think what would happen if the regime gains the upper hand today and suppresses the widespread protests. But there are important differences with the 1982 Hama uprising and these must be considered.

Firstly, the 1982 Hama uprising and related incidents were inspired and led mainly by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and the nature of the struggle rapidly acquired a sectarian nature. This is simply not present in Syria today. Regardless of regime claptrap to the contrary, the information I have indicates that the protests are across the sectarian divide and have spread throughout the entire country. Although there are rumours that the Christian and Alawite population are largely behind the regime, that is simply not true. As the crackdown has acquired an increasingly brutal nature, more and more people are having doubts about the suitability of the regime to lead. Also, widespread protests in the Salamiyeh districts, which are predominantly Ismaili, shows that this is not just a "Sunni" insurrection inspired by Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Secondly, the sack of Hama in 1982 was largely limited to that city, whereas today we see the regime unable to contain the widespread discontent in spite of applying the same treatment to the town of Deraa and several others in rapid succession. A big reason for this is that Syria in 2011 is much more technically savvy, interconnected and populated than it was in 1982. Mobile phone footage travels rapidly throughout the various provinces and is easily uploaded to the internet where it is then disseminated across the entire world. As a result, what happens in Tal Kalakh in the morning is seen by Syrians throughout the world within hours. This is happening in spite of internet blackouts, media blackouts and a deliberate regime attempt at spreading misinformation and confusion through its state media. Even a clumsy attempt at faking a Facebook page for Syrian users was quickly spotted and was of limited effectiveness. In short, people are getting a picture of what is happening and are getting very angry. The regime realises this but cannot do anything about it.

A "Hama" option today?
I was speaking to an Arab gentleman working for BBC Arabic, and he was convinced that the regime was capable of using nerve gas or a scorched earth policy against a city, perhaps even Hama again, to set an example for the rest of the country. I do not believe that is an option and will not happen. If the regime does something like this then it is finished the moment the world finds out. Not even Gaddafi in Libya undertook such an option, and I did think he was capable of doing so at the start of the conflict there. If the "mad dog" of Libya couldn't do it we are not going to see the Syrian regime do so. The regime might be brutal, but it uses violence as a means to an end - and I mean this in the loosest sense possible if one can even make such a statement. Personally, I don't expect the Syrian regime to survive the way it is, but that does not mean we will see the end today. It will take a long time, and will sadly cost far more innocent Syrian lives, before the regime collapses. I'm not cheering for this result, merely stating my observation based on the facts.

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Arab world roundup

It is amazing how quickly things can move when the right time has come. Saleh is now in Saudi Arabia for treatment and that means the game is over there. He will never come back to Yemen as President, nor otherwise if he knows what is good for him. Of course this does not mean that Yemen is in the clear, and like Egypt and Tunisia, there is a mammoth task ahead of the people as they begin reconstructing their country and picking up the pieces. In a sense, getting rid of the tyrants is the easy bit because after decades of authoritarian rule, the roots of injustice go very deep and will need to be dug out individually.

Speaking of justice, the events in Syria last Friday only highlighted how brutal and incompetent the Syrian regime is becoming. The fact that they blocked internet access to the entire country is a sign that they are weak. Regardless, we were stilling hearing news and videos were continuing to trickle out. Unlike 1982, the world is watching Syria and will not tolerate a repeat of the Hama massacre. More importantly, the Syrian people are watching what the regime does, and I am noticing that the actions of the security services are becoming less defensible by apologists and people who are undecided yet. The apologists are becoming increasingly detached from reality, posting links to government websites for "Tasharokia" (cooperative) projects and initiatives. What does Tasharokia mean, anyway? This seems like another case of regime double-speak, similar to Libya's Jamahiriya project, which is some kind of collaborative utopian vision where dictatorship merges with populism.

Still, today Syria has continued the trend of allowing protestors to reach the Golan heights, 3 people have died today by Israeli fire. I am very cynical about this manouevre, and I believe it is a calculated attempt to divert attention for Syrians away from the widespread protests that have engulfed the country for the past 2 months towards external events. Regardless, Assad's regime is now very isolated even if its position remains quite strong. This situation will not be over anytime soon, but it will be over.

Regardless of the Syrian regime, the Golan episode today highlights something very worrying for Israel. The loss of the dictators in the Arab world and a wave of revolution that is sweeping the area will affect them too. The borders will no longer be policed by regime secret police, and more and more people will be tempted to come right up to the border with Israel and attempt to cross it. Israel is no longer a distant bogeyman to be frightened of but rather it is a 15 minute drive away.

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تعليق عزمي بشارة على قتل الطفل حمزة الخطيب

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20 5 Hama أوغاريت حماة الشهيد عمران دويك بعد تخليصه من أيدي الأمن يوم ...

There is no justification for this barbarism. Syria is no 'cradle of civilizations' today.

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