The Observers

I'm very sceptical about the Arab League observers and the difference they are or will be able to make. On one level I felt that this was a huge step forward, because finally somebody was being allowed into the country and that the regime will be forced to stop the killing and arrests. Instead, it looks like nothing has changed and far from being a last dash attempt at crushing the Syrian revolution, the spurt of deaths in the first few days of the observers' arrival seems to have been a spiteful and defiant crackdown to show the protesters that nobody can save them. I'd like to be wrong, but I don't think I am.

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On Jonathan Steele's Guardian CiF Piece

I question the certainty with which Jonathan Steele claims the Damascus bombings were made by al Qaeda sympathisers and also the way he portrays Russia as a side in this conflict which wishes to avoid civil war in Syria: He doesn't give the reasons for his certainty, and in his piece he simply states it as a self-evident fact, which it is not. When it comes to the Syrian revolution, nothing is certain and nothing is self-evident apart from the dead.

A Russian naval base in Tartous, and Russia's only foothold in the Middle East, are the reasons why Russia is supporting Assad to the hilt and giving his regime the diplomatic cover that has helped it remain in power. Lavrov is a great political animal, and I have a lot of respect for his abilities, but saying that the credit goes to the "tireless" Russian foreign minister for "working hard to forestall a civil war in Syria", smacks of naivety and ignores the real reasons for Russia's involvement. In the same way that some in the opposition refuse to accept that the West and Saudi Arabia support the Syrian revolution for their own reasons, there are some who continue to see Russia as some kind of misunderstood and maligned superpower. It is one thing to be sceptical of one side in this great game, quite another thing to think that it is the only one with bad intentions in this "conspiracy".

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Berating the Arab "Resistance" Crowd

There really has to be a study done on the behaviour of some individuals towards the Syrian revolution. Although they had placed themselves at the forefront of the Palestinian cause, and were the first to cry foul whenever an injustice was done, they have, in spite of their best efforts at maintaining an appearance of impartiality, appeared to be the ugliest of supporters of the Syrian regime.

Whether there is a conspiracy against the Syrian regime or not, you are supporting the murder of innocent Syrians when you refuse, not only to condemn the Syrian regime, but to leave the Syrian people to the vagaries and butchery of Assad's security services in order to be "fair to both sides". There is only one side here, a side that is butchering people, and a side that is being butchered.

I find there is a lack of consistency between those who, for example, insist on the highest levels of journalistic integrity when it comes to Syria, and yet feel free to distribute YouTube videos of Bahrain, or the Qatif protests in Eastern Saudi Arabia, without subjecting activists there to the same level of scrutiny. Furthermore, mistakes by Syrian activists are unforgivable, but mistakes by activists from countries run by "sell-out" regimes, are ignored and sometimes even excused. The story of the baby incubators is now cited as an unforgivable example that Syrian activists cannot be trusted, but thousands of videos documenting Assad's brutality are conveniently ignored. If those same videos were surfacing from Bahrain, or Yemen, or Egypt, these same "pro-resistance" activists would be screaming bloody murder.

Then we are told that the Syrian revolution is run by the Muslim Brotherhood, and that they are lousy and not to be trusted, but the Muslim Brotherhood were also active in Egypt and yet the Egyptian revolution is placed on an altar of sanctity with retweets on Twitter, or quotes on Facebook, which are consistently against the currently ruling SCAF, and completely with the protests - even though the protest movements in Egypt are a multitude of leftist, secularist, salafist and Muslim Brotherhood members. Yet in Syria the fact that there are also salafists who are outspoken about the regime's repression means there is a de facto condemnation that Syria's revolution has been hijacked, or that it is run by the 'Wahhabi' Saudis.They miss - or ignore - the point that there is not a single revolution in history that was a monolithic mass with one ideology, and there has never been a revolution that was not free from foreign interference and scheming. But to them the Syrian revolution must be killed before it was ever born, and when it has already been born, it must be shunned and left to die because it is the wrong kind of revolution and does not live up to their ideals.

Some deride the Syrian revolutions slogans, and make snide remarks about the cultural and linguistic lack of "merit" of the slogans in comparison with other revolutions - as if this is some kind of creativity contest (the Syrian slogans are in fact widely admired as the most creative and catchy of slogans in the Arab world so far). These same people then equate the politically fragmented and long repressed Syrian opposition as representative of the Syrian revolution, and wish to double the burden of the Syrian people by insisting that the revolution has to remain "pure" and that they must fight both the opposition's political figures, including the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the regime. I say that is cruel and stupid. In the face of overwhelming brutality, you are lecturing people on the niceties of revolutionary principles from across a sea and an ocean. It is like telling the protesters in Bahrain that, whilst there is a state policeman breaking your legs, you must insist on crying out against Iran as well as Saudi Arabia, otherwise your revolution is not pure enough and unworthy of their support.

There are many words I could tell such people, but I won't use such language. The Syrian revolution does not need you; the Syrian people don't need you; and the Palestinian cause you so dogmatically and ardently champion - for whatever reason - certainly does not need you.

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A Word On Turkey

 What I find remarkable is the number of people who remember that Turkey had committed genocide against the Armenians during the first world war, or that France carried out a genocide in Algeria. Now, of all times, when the issue of the Syrian revolution has split families and divided opinion throughout the world, somebody decides that Turkey's support of the Syrian revolution is a conspiracy, because at one time in its history the crackpots that overthrew a tyrannical Ottoman empire decided Armenians were not Turkish enough, and that they were conspiring with the European powers.

These same people never thought about mentioning this dark period of Turkey's history when Erdogan stood by the Palestinians of Gaza, nor did they have a problem with Turkey's genocide when it was Assad's best friend. Instead we are reminded that Turkey supported Algeria during the French oppression of the revolution there, conveniently forgetting that the Turkey before Erdogan was very, very, different from the Turkey that considered all Arabs as "dogs" and was desperate to be seen as a European power - in the same way that Turkey after the fall of the Ottomans was very different to what was there before it.

Once again, we are drawn into all manner of accusations, counter-accusations, and the spreading of the lies and dirty laundry of each side. It seems any and every kind of topic is up for discussion now, anything apart from discussing the one thing that is of crucial importance - Assad and his regime must go.

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The Boy Who Cried Wolf...

I think it is unwise to jump to any conclusions with regards to the bombings in Damascus. There are so many parties and interests involved, and no scenario is too outrageous to dismiss entirely. Yet something is deeply suspicious about the way the Syrian regime has handled the entire affair. Whenever bombs have gone off in Damascus in the past, and there have been many over the past few decades, the instant blame was put on the Mossad, and a media blackout is punctured only by a brief statement in the regime's official media. Nothing more is ever heard of the affair again.

This time things are different, the culprit was, within an hour of the bombings, labelled as "al Qaeda", and the state media have been allowed unprecedented access to the high security locations that were bombed. Gory images of the victims of the bombing have been broadcast, and state officials are pushing past each other to make statements denouncing the al Qaeda "plot" to destabilise the country, and clearly they are trying to discredit the pro-democracy protesters by blaming them for the situation in the country. This is all highly out of character for the regime, but then again, since the start of this revolution, they have paraded people on television to prove they are still alive, whilst earlier denying that the protests during which they were arrested had even happened in this country (note the case of Ahmad Baiasy and the Bayada people who were abused by Assad's shabiha and forces), and then they had also paraded the person believed to be behind the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, three years after the latter's assassination and only now, when the country was engulfed by protests that are the first serious threat to Assad's rule since 1982.

Also during this revolution, the regime, and for the first time, allowed protesters to try and breach the borders with Israel, and even provided them buses. It's armed forces neglected to protect the protesters on the second attempt, and Syrian and Palestinian civilians who tried to enter the occupied territories were shot by the Israelis. The area bordering the Golan cannot be approached by any civilians, and I have been told that anybody wishing to undertake such a trip requires clearance from four security apparatuses. So there was nothing 'spontaneous' about these trips, and cynical observers claimed this was yet another attempt by the regime to deflect criticism over its repressive handling of the protests.

One must also not forget the many lurid tales of drug addled protesters who were being egged on to carry out protests, riots and vandalism, the stories of the drug laced sandwiches that turned harmless Syrians into bloodthirsty monsters, and the al Jazeera branded "hallucination pills". All of these stories are baseless, and can be seen as pure propaganda to terrify the undecided segments of Syria's population, who wished for security and stability far more than for freedom and the right to protest. There was also the denial, at first, that any Syrians were protesting, then there was the claim that people who were said to be protesting had actually been celebrating the arrival of the rains, and then, perhaps most stupidly, was Reem Haddad's claim to the international media that the thousands of Syrian refugees who had escaped the from the Syrian army's campaign in the Idlib province of Syria were really just visiting their relatives in Turkey. The absurdity beggars belief.

So now, we are expected to believe that al Qaeda has carried out such an attack in the most heavily guarded district in Damascus, just when the Arab League observers have arrived to monitor the status in the country, and on the day when the country is expected to have widespread protests calling for an end to the Assad family dictatorship. It's all a bit too strange to believe, and in light of how many times this regime has lied, manipulated, and insulted the intelligence of the world, it could be a case of the boy who cried wolf too many times if it really is al Qaeda that carried out this attack. Such a tragic time for this beautiful country...

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al Qaeda in Damascus

Rather than New York, London or Paris, al Qaeda has decided to pick - of all the metropolitan centres of human civilization - Assad's Damascus, on the first Friday after Arab League observers come to the country. This story is according to the Syrian regime, which made this claim in a record forty minutes after Damascus residents heard the explosions. I think that's nonsense, and there are only two possibilities. Either it is a bogus attack carried out by Assad's incompetent secret police, or it is a genuine attack carried out by the opposition's incompetent armed wing. I say the opposition's incompetence, because I can find nothing sillier than blowing up bombs in Damascus just when the Arab League observers have arrived to figure out just what the hell is happening in Syria. If they have carried out such an act, then they will have given the regime further fuel for its claims that it is fighting a terrorist insurgency, rather than repressing the Syrian people. Expect more claims and counter-claims, accusations and lies, as this story progresses.

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Assad's Hapless Heroes

I've heard that the Syrian army has carried out more live fire exercises to test their readiness against any external aggressors. Of course we all remember how ready the Syrian army was in 1967, when it lost the Golan Heights without putting up a fight, or when the Syrian Air force lost eighty planes over Lebanon in one day because their planes are rubbish, or, more recently, when the Israelis bombed a suspected nuclear installation in 2007, or when Israeli planes breached Syrian airspace shortly afterwards, or when the American special forces carried out a helicopter raid from Iraq and killed Syrian citizens on Syrian soil, or when the Mossad assassinated a Syrian general in Lattakia, and Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus - all without a single response from the Syrian regime, which says it has the right to respond at a time and place of its choosing, ie never.

To be honest with you, the first time I realised that Syria even had a navy was when I heard that it was being used to shell parts of Lattakia. Of course, when we say Navy in Syria, what we really mean is a bunch of hill-billy yokels on some rusty fishing boats equipped with missile launchers and some big guns. We're not exactly talking about a Syrian carrier group or something.

Who are we kidding? The Syrian army consists of a rag-tag bunch of undertrained, non-motivated, ill-equipped conscripts, along with a hardcore of heavily armed, fanatically loyal thugs who are concerned only with protecting a dictatorship and who have not hesitated once to use their weapons against Syrians. But this is not a novel invention of Assad's Baath. Back when the Baath party was a party of crackpots who were oppressed and banned, the first Syrian president to use the Syrian army as an instrument of butchery, rather than for the defence of the realm, was the fascist Adib al Shishakli against the Druze community. Since then, the Syrian army's greatest triumphs have been against Syrian civilians, or in repressing and extorting Lebanese people at checkpoints.

So the next time you hear about the brave and noble Syrian 'army' carrying out live fire exercises, just remember to put this bunch of incompetent and ineffective thugs in perspective. Here are some examples of how brave the Syrian army is in the face of ferociously unarmed, half-naked, Syrian civilians with their arms tied behind their backs.

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A low low number of thirty eight casualties for today in Syria. After the two hundred and fifty deaths that took place over the previous two days, today's body count appears to be a blessing. This is what we have been reduced to after ten months of revolution: the murder of thirty eight Syrians by their own government is seen as a relief...

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The Idlib Massacre

A picture has emerged of a mass defection in Idlib on Tuesday that went badly wrong, with loyalist forces positioned to mow down large numbers of defectors as they fled a military base. Those who managed to escape were later hunted down in hideouts in nearby mountains, multiple sources have reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that "100 deserters were besieged, then killed, or wounded". "Regular troops allegedly also hunted down residents who had given shelter to the deserters," it said.

 Far from terrifying other soldiers into remaining loyal, this will only increase the dissatisfaction in the ranks. Today, tomorrow, in a week, it doesn't really matter; at some point the weight against the regime will prove too much and this disgusting house of cards will collapse. I don't expect what comes after it will be better, but it will be a start. This living death that the entire country has been subjected to for forty years is no longer acceptable. .

Syrian Revolution Chants Disappointing? I Beg to Differ

The Syrian revolution has had the best chants in all the Arab Spring countries, and I find people who say the opposite quite bizarre. Here is the famous chant led by the late Ibrahim Kachouch, who had his larynx cut out by Assad's thugs.

And in line with how popular these have become, here is a report by al Jazeera about the songs that have come out of Syria since the start of the revolution:

My favourite chant is in this video:

On a personal note, many Egyptian comrades constantly tell me how far more impressive the chants in Syria are compared to those in Egypt. Here is a video of the protest that I uploaded to this blog, incidentally one of my Egyptian friends had told me how much he loved Syria's chants on that very day. Here is another link, this one to the first anti-regime protest I had ever attended. Wait till the kid steps down and listen to the guy who picks up the microphone next, he was simply marvellous. To call these chants uninspiring or disappointing is grossly unfair. .

A Circus of the Grotesque

The excellent Channel 4 documentary that was aired last night gave a disturbing insight as to how bad things have become in Assad's kingdom, formerly known as Syria. Perhaps what was most novel to me was how desensitized I've become to watching the horrific YouTube clips of torture, murder and death that have emerged from my country. I could tell that because of the outraged comments that I could see on Twitter and Facebook of people who had never known the full extent of the repression in Syria, and had never seen anything this horrific shown on television before. In short, I've gotten used to seeing this stuff, and I'm not happy about that. Syria has turned into a circus for sadists to satisfy their sick fetishes.

In other news, the Syrian regime is going to execute soldiers that had defected from Assad's armies. Dubbed "traitors", this news comes shortly after the regime signed an agreement with the Arab League agreeing to let in a number of observers and after 100 to 110 people were reported killed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which, as we all know, is being bashed by so-called "leftist" sceptics who find the deaths of twenty, let alone one hundred, Syrians per day less outrageous than the "standards" of impartiality and fairness that they expect; fair play and all that. It begs the question why they think they are anti-imperialists in the first place when their outrage is only provoked by some injustices and not others.

Anyway, I digress. A fellow blogger, Razan Ghazzawi, was released recently after being arrested on her way to a conference in Amman, Jordan. She's been charged with the ridiculous crime of "weakening the national morale", as if Assad and his jolly band of desperadoes are not doing a fine job of that already. If I was her I wouldn't know what would make me angrier, the stupidity of the Assad regime, or that unflattering picture of her that is circulating widely - not her finest, bless her cotton socks.

This whole Russian interest in Syria's affairs shows just how important this tiny country is for what I like to refer to as the "anti-Western" camp. Not even Gaddafi's Libya was ever able to muster such international support from the bad boys of our present international system. In spite of all this, I am more certain that with each passing day, Assad's days are numbered. I only need to remember the rage I felt at watching Assad's thugs beating and humiliating Syrians for me to realise that the Syrians will never accept his regime again. Regardless of what some people say about involving NATO and getting some foreign power to intervene, I think that there is no such thing as a benevolent foreign intervention. Then again, I won't tell anybody that this is what should happen, because I haven't got a right to tell people who are risking their lives what I think they should do. I can only advise with whatever objective analysis that distance might offer.

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زلزل عرش الشبيحة الأعادي .. الله أكبر يابن بلادي

A great revolutionary song at one of the anti-government protests.

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Unity, Freedom, Socialism!

I'm exhausted. Not physically, although that is starting to get affected too, but mentally. I want to sleep for longer periods, and I have started to avoid anything which is too realistic whenever I turn the television on. It's almost as if, by watching even more and more ridiculous television I might be able to satisfy this urge for escapism that has grown inside me. The news from Syria is getting progressively worse, and my biggest concern is now for all those loved ones that I've left behind in that beautiful country. Only a few days ago, I asked a Syrian I knew, from the older generation, how come nobody was able to stand up to tyranny and the dictatorship that was forming when Hafez Assad took power in 1970. She told me it was because everybody was afraid, that after this "corrective movement", the Syrian people started to feel a particular type of fear for the first time in living memory.

At first there were only stories and rumours circulating, of people getting disappeared and, if lucky enough to be released, with horrific tales of torture and abuse to tell. The character of Damascus changed too in this time. Men from the rural areas started flooding into the city, and would behave as if they owned the place. In truth, they did. Every description I hear seems to reinforce my view that Syria has, for the past forty years, been under an occupation that was more sinister and oppressive than any Ottoman or French rule. Granted, Syria was undergoing a turbulent political scene, but the people could blissfully carry on their lives without caring much for the political machinations of aspiring generals and politicians. But if they thought this status quo could carry on indefinitely, then they were gravely mistaken. Not only did politics make itself felt on them, but it invaded their personal lives and even their thoughts. In the end, our complacence led the entire country to the slaughterhouse.

The Syrian revolution, in both its ugliest and its most beautiful, has made me rethink a lot of my previously held conceptions about a people's rights and their political freedoms. Political ideologies that are based on a "grand narrative" of some sort, whether Islamic or secular (Marxist) have only visited enormous destruction on the very people they were supposed to liberate. But even so, I am being unfair, for ideologies such as the Baath and the parties that espoused it had become hollow and artificial. There is nobody today, apart from a few die-hard believers, who can honestly believe in this ideology. In fact I have yet to meet anybody who has read the utterly boring works of Michel Aflaq and Salah al Din Bitar in their entirety. All that remains of their good intentions and attempts to create a pan-Arab ideology is the whittled down slogan of "Unity, Freedom, Socialism!". Yet Syria has, for the past forty years, shown none of these attributes. Far from unity, Assad's regime almost immediately entered into political intrigues and subterfuge with the equally ruthless but quite mad Saddam Hussein and his version of the Baath party. There is, of course, no freedom in the Assadian Syria, and Socialism was destroyed when Assad eliminated his rival to power, Salah Jadid, who was far more radical and leftist than the pragmatic future leader could ever tolerate. Today Syria is about as socialist as a Che Guevara t-shirt being sold in Camden market.

Yet what is even more absurd than tyranny is those who defend, and even rationalise, it. We are told that the alternative is chaos, that the country has enemies who would swoop down upon it in an instant if he allowed the peoples freedoms. We are told everything except the fact that the country has become the personal ranch for the tyrant and his family, or that Syrians have been subjected to the most horrific torture and abuse,  and suffered the burden of arbitrary and cruel laws that have crushed any form of free expression or dissent. We are told everything except the truth. Fear is used negatively when Assad's supporters warn everybody of the "grave dangers" that will befall them if he should go, and then it is used positively against those who are unwilling to head this advice, in the form of extra-judicial killings, arrests and detentions, and arbitrary court sentences based upon vague charges. This is the state of the country today.

I'm part of a generation of Syrians who don't want this to happen any more. Some Syrians are fighting, others are demonstrating day and night. I write, because that's the only avenue open to me. I vomit my frustrations onto a keyboard, and out comes this blog. They say that if a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, cyclones are unleashed in another. Today more than any other I hope that is true.

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According to her lawyer, her charges include “establishing an organization that aims to change the social and economical entity of the state” and “weakening the national sentiment, and trying to ignite sectarian strife" and "weakening national sentiment" -- all of which can lead to a penalty of three to 15 years in prison.

In the kingdom of the blind it is a crime to be able to see. .

Don't...

Don't tut quietly as we discuss "the situation".

Don't shake your head in false angst and "hope everything works out for the best"

Don't sit and tell me, "...and in our armed forces" when I lament the figure of five thousand Syrians who have been murdered

Don't tell me to "think of the family" or to "be careful"

What's happening now is a travesty and by covering it up you are accessories to the crime.

Shame on you...don't talk to me ever again.

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"Getting rid of Assad is the easy part"

Something has been bothering me for the past few days. Nobody seems to be interested in the shape of a post-Assad Syria. Outraged comments about Bourhan Ghalioun's promises to break ties with Iran and Hezbullah, or to negotiate a return to the Golan Heights, have drowned out any questions about how the Syrian National Council would address Syria's grinding economic and social issues. There is some mythical word, freedom, which is bandied about as if it would fix everything once we attain it. But Syria has many problems that will need to be addressed urgently. These are: A deficient, if not highly damaging, judicial and political system; endemic corruption, environmental degradation and desertification; poverty; a potential for an enormous crime wave once the regime collapses; and how they intend to build bridges across the communities and tribes that make up Syria's patchwork society.

These are all very important questions, and even the current regime - with all its corruption and brutality - had to take time from its plundering in order to address. The longer these issues continue, the larger a snowball of problems they will make. Environmentally, Syria has regular water shortages and a creeping process of desertification. Nobody seems to care that the entire North-East of the country - formerly the breadbasket of Syria - has now turned into a dustbowl. This has had a knock on effect whereby entire villages have just vanished, as the inhabitants move to urban centres and thus put an increasing strain on cities with a terrible infrastructure that can barely support the original inhabitants. The result is slums, and then possibly crime, especially if people will not be able to make a living by finding decent and honest work. 

Syria's judiciary is corrupt, incompetent and politicised. Our laws are ambiguous and open to abuse. Furthermore, the worst thing anybody could do is resort to Syrian courts, so tortuously long and painful is the process of reaching a decision, and so expensive is the process, both in terms of bribes and in regular costs. The reason we have become like this is not because Syria lacks the legal expertise, finesse, and sophistication to formulate its own laws, far from it. The problem is that there is a system which seems by design to filter out any qualified candidates with potential and ability, and to only attract those who wish to abuse the system and gain benefits from it. The entire structure of the Syrian government, whether the executive, judicial or legislative, is completely and utterly corrupted. 

The solution to this problem should not be a mass cull of ex-Assad era employees. Instead, a future government should begin by establishing accountability in the form of key performance indicators, with penalties for failure or inconsistency. This should be combined with strategic replacements of personnel at key junctures in the machinery of the state Those who will be involved in the mammoth task of repairing Syria's decayed institutions will have to be remarkable individuals of exceptional stamina and fortitude, and with remarkable vision. Most importantly, they have to be people with a strong sense of self-belief in their abilities, and not the usual incompetent Arab official who looks to the West for solutions, or who simply wishes to protect themselves from taking any responsibility.

Perhaps I'm asking too much, but if we don't demand these standards in services and standards from our own government, then we have only ourselves to blame if the country descends further into failure after Assad goes.

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Grand narratives of liberation, conquest, return to some mythical holy land, or some golden era, have all resulted in the untold problems the Middle East is facing today. Not one of the demagogues, politicians and populists is calling for a Middle East of compassion, of humanity and respect. The sheer ugliness of everything has alienated everybody from their 'selves'. Such a sad state of affairs...

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Nonsense

There is no state on earth that will not use the misfortune of its neighbour for its own benefit. It's a fundamental tenet of international relations (at least in realism) that states are self-maximising agents that constantly scheme against each other. In the Middle East, Syria took advantage of the turmoil in both Lebanon and Iraq for its own advantage, as did Iran. So why is it such a surprise that the Gulf states would seek to capitalise on the turmoil in Syria? And what on earth does that have to do with forcing the Syrian regime to stop killing its citizens?

There are some intellectuals, activists and writers who, blinded with their hatred for the West, are incapable of uttering a single word of condemnation against the Assad regime in Syria, that has killed over 4,000 of its own citizens, all because they fear this would weaken the "resistance" project against the Israeli state. I simply don't understand what could be more important than stopping this senseless bloodshed, taking place solely to maintain a police state that has treated its own people far more ruthlessly than the "Zionist enemy", which has bombed the country freely and without retaliation over the past number of years. It is this hypocrisy which is far more blatant than the obvious Gulf Arab bias towards the Syrian revolution at the expense of the crushed Bahraini one.

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For After Prison, There is Only the Glory of a Rising Dawn

Here is a beautiful poem written in 1922 by Najib al Rayess. I've never been able to find a rendition that does it justice, and so I will just put down the poem, and try to translate it in English as best as I can. When I hear that more and more people that I know are getting imprisoned, these are the first words that come to mind:

 يا ظلام السجن

كلمات: نجيب الريس (1922)


يا ظلامَ السّـجنِ خَيِّمْ إنّنا نَهْـوَى الظـلامَا
ليسَ بعدَ السّـجنِ إلا فجـرُ مجـدٍ يتَسَامى

أيّها الحُرّاسُ رِفـقـاً و اسمَعوا مِنّا الكَلاما
مـتّعُـونا بِـهَـواء منعُـهُ كَـانَ حَرَاما

إيـهِ يا دارَ الفخـارِ يا مـقـرَّ المُخلِصينا
قدْ هبطْـناكِ شَـبَاباً لا يهـابـونَ المنونا

و تَـعَاهدنا جَـميعاً يومَ أقسَـمْنا اليَـمِينا
لنْ نخونَ العهدَ يوماً واتخذنا الصدقَ دِيـنَا

يا رنينَ القـيدِ زدني نغمةً تُشـجي فُؤادي
إنَّ في صَـوتِكَ مَعنى للأسـى والاضطهادِ

لـسـتُ والله نَسـيّاً ما تقاسِـيه بِـلادِي 

فاشْـهَدَنْ يا نَجمُ إنّي ذو وفــاءٍ وَ وِدادِ

Oh the darkness of this prison, descend on us for we love the dark;

There is naught after imprisonment but the glory of a rising dawn

Oh guards, be gentle, and listen to our words;

Deny us not this air, for banning it is a sin

Oh land of pride and home of the loyal;

We the youth have arrived, and fear no death

And we had all promised, the day we gave our oaths;

To remain true to our word and took truth for our creed

Oh ringing chains, sing me a song to raise my spirits;

For your voice gives meaning to oppression and hardship

By God I have not forgotten what my country suffers;

So bear witness, oh stars, that I remain faithful and loyal 

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يا سوريا لا تسجلينا غياب

I first heard this song on the excellent al Jazeera Arabic documentary that aired earlier this evening and I love it. Enjoy. .

Rifaat Assad - An Interview with a Liar

I've only recently had the chance to watch the al Arabiyah interview with Rifaat al Assad, Bashar's uncle. Rifaat is widely believed to be responsible for the Tadmur prison massacre, as well as with the Hama massacre during the regime's battle with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in the eighties. Throughout the interview, an uncharismatic Rifaat is trying to portray himself as some sort of statesman. His solution to the current "crisis" is that a strongman from within the regime is needed, one who knows the threats to the regime, how to manage it, and who also knows "the people". He rules himself and any of his children out, and he is clearly uncomfortable when asked how he amassed his enormous personal wealth.

Regarding the massacres, he points out that he was not responsible, and then says that there are "documents" on the internet that will prove who did so. He makes an interesting reference to an Islamic bourgeoisies - meaning the Muslim Brotherhood and their sympathisers.When he is challenged about the killings, he denies being involved with the Syrian presidency, and says that he was always against the law which sentenced members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to death automatically. Surprisingly, he says that the killings were carried out under an article of the Syrian constitution, and as law they were to be carried out without question. Somehow I don't think the International Criminal Court will find that a sufficient defence. Ludicrously, he says that he was never a leader of the notorious Defence Companies, and that such companies never existed! His excuse is that people mistakenly referred to some armed defence unit with that name and it stuck ever since.

What a silly man, and I am still amazed that he can live freely in Europe and that nobody has ever charged him with crimes against humanity. Watching this interview makes me realise just how delusional, secretive and out of touch this corrupt and brutal regime is with the Syrian people. To the world, they lie, lie and lie, through their teeth. What goes on within their inner circle, I'd love to find out one day. Remarkable. .