Maysaloon - ميسلون

Syria and the UN Security Council: Part Deux

2012-01-30T22:57:00.002Z

Nobody is taking any chances with this any more, the level of negotiations at this level must be the most intense it's ever been:

Hillary Clinton, William Hague and Alain Juppé are due at the UN security council in New York on Tuesday to support an Arab League plan to end the violence in Syria and to try to overcome Russian-led opposition to a UN-backed demand for political change in Damascus.

For the West this is the best chance they can get to be rid of Assad's regime, I don't blame them for going at it with everything they have got. In Russia's case, Syria is their most valuable Middle Eastern ally and a host to a very important naval base in Tartous. If a UN resolution gets passed this week then it will be through sheer diplomatic genius. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in one of those meetings.

2012-01-30T18:23:00.002Z

Whichever group thought it a good idea to grab some toeholds in Damascus over the weekend played a smart move. Rather than try to hold out against Assad's regular troops, forcing him to pin down loyal troops in parts of the capital as well as Aleppo means that he has less to deploy in problem areas throughout the country. A few more attempts like this every so often will give other groups operating in the country a bit more breathing space and could start shrinking the regime's options.

The parallels between Saddam's Iraq and Syria are very strong, and I think both the regimes share the same weaknesses. Namely that there are only so many divisions in the army whose loyalty is unquestionable, and they can only be in some parts of the country. The more the regular army is depended upon, the more likely defections and desertions will take place, so if Assad's loyal divisions can be tied down protecting key areas, then that means there are less of his fighters killing protesters or bombing towns and villages in the rest of the country. The Guardian reports:

Opposition groups, spearheaded by the irregular forces of the Free Syrian Army claim to have made a tactical withdrawal from the areas, mainly on Damascus's northen outskirts, and have vowed to mount more guerrilla-style operations as their campaign against President Bashar al-Assad's regime enters a new phase.

So any expectations by some people that this was the start of a liberation for the Syrian capital were premature. Apart from the Zabadani there just aren't any areas where the Free Syrian Army can hold its ground against Assad. I use the term "army" loosely, because I share the view of many people that this isn't really a unified and disciplined fighting force, but just a band of deserters and enthusiastic volunteers who are operating independently of each other in most cases.

Misguided Nostalgia

2012-01-30T15:21:00.002Z

I find it particularly revolting when Syrians who passionately support the regime also remember Saddam Hussein with admiration and call him a "martyr". Never in my wildest dreams did I ever get carried away and consider the man anything more than a butcher and a tyrant. But for people who support one dictator, closely aligned with Iran - the arch-enemy of Saddam Hussein whom he despised even more than the Israelis or the West - is laughable. Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad were tearing at each other's throats for most of their long reigns, and the Syrian passport used to state that the bearer could visit all country's in the world apart from the Iraqi Arab Republic (no mention of Israel on the list).

To consider Saddam Hussein as some kind of champion whilst also supporting Assadian fascism is a brand of stupidity that I can't even begin to address. Then again, hypocrisy and irony are two terms that would never cross the mind of such people. I want to go and cry now.

Independence day flag in Damascus

2012-01-30T14:58:00.000Z

A daring act of defiance in the heart of the Mazzeh area, which is the main thoroughfare for Damascus. I can confirm from the surrounding buildings and layout. That takes some.

The SNC and King Abdullah

2012-01-30T10:35:00.002Z

I'll say this as frankly as I can, I couldn't give two hoots about who the Syrian National Council writes letters of thanks to. We've reached a stage where even Satan would be protesting to Assad about the violence in the country. If the Syrian National Council wishes to thank the Saudi Arabian king and that outrages some people, then that's just too bad because what they should be outraged about is the murder of thousands of people by somebody they think is their champion.

Let's stop the blame game and the conspiracy talk, if you're not prepared to even start discussing the crisis that this regime has put Syria in then you have no right to criticise what some parts of the Syrian opposition decide to do in response. Having said all this, I think this is another sign of the stupidity that this Syrian National Council enjoys carrying out. Silly, silly, silly...

Clashes in Damascus

2012-01-29T18:02:00.001Z

Analysis from the BBC's Jim Muir:

If the Arab League observers had inhibited Syrian government forces from attacking residential areas, any such constraints now seem to be thrown to the winds.

Above is a map of Damascus. The triangle of blue dots highlights the Ummayad Square where Assad did his speech a few weeks ago, Kafr Souseh, where many intelligence buildings are, and Mezzeh, the main highway and thoroughfare for Damascus. In red are the areas where the BBC is reporting clashes between the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian regimes army. That is very close indeed.

At this stage, it's not clear how determined the Free Syrian Army will try to hold the positions in Damascus, or whether this was just a move to unnerve the regime and show that they can reach into the capital. The next forty eight hours should make things clearer.

The Syrian News Digest

2012-01-28T10:23:00.000Z

Khaddam on Assad
The former Syrian vice president, Abdul Halim Khaddam, thinks that Assad is planning to establish an Alawite state on Syria's coast, and that he has ordered the redeployment of Syria's strategic arsenal and warplanes closer to Lattakia and Tartous.

I've heard this rumour floating around for months and I think that is far fetched. Then again, nothing is impossible these days. If Assad did want to carve a feudal domain for himself on Syria's coast, then he could do worse. He could remain relevant to the Russians, and continue hosting a naval base for them in Tartous. He might have some idea that if the Levant's coast has a Jewish state, a Christian state, then why not an Alawite state? Letting the "Muslims" squabble in the interior, and cutting them off from the sea.

These aren't nice things to say, but for this sectarian regime that has never hesitated to terrify minorities and create an atmosphere of fear and mistrust between Syria's community's, I would not be surprised. The other problem with this story, of course, is that Khaddam is the man behind it. I don't trust the man, nor do I like him. He was a part of this regime for far too long, and that makes him suspect in my eyes.

A Massacre
Last week Assad promised to react with an "iron fist" and the results of his decision have started to appear over the past few days. Yesterday alone al Jazeera reported that there were one hundred and two deaths in the country, and the previous day there was a intensive assault on areas of both Homs and Hama; two cities that have been at the heart of this revolution. There has also been quite grim footage of the number of dead children that have been killed, and I've heard that a video on Youtube of casualties from Karm al Zeitoun are particularly depressing.

Many average Syrians that I speak to all voice to me predictions of Assad's fall: Two months, six months, that he won't last till the summer, but always that his end is inevitable. People I knew to be very non-political, and even in some cases a bit sympathetic with Assad, are now shifting dramatically against him. And nobody is afraid of talking politics or criticising the regime anymore.

The Iranian Factor
This is something which annoys me greatly. The constant drip of Iranian stories about Syria. Not many people recall but there was a story recently that five Iranians were kidnapped in Homs. I still haven't heard about their release, and nobody is talking about that anymore, until now. The Washington Post says that gunmen have kidnapped Iranian pilgrims close to the city of Aleppo and that:

Last month, 7 Iranian engineers building a power plant in central Syria were kidnapped. They have not yet been released.

But I'm pretty sure the story was more than a month old, and that the figure was five, not seven. Nevermind, the misinformation and confusion continues. To add more to this mix, Haaretz is reporting that the Free Syrian Army have captured Iranian soldiers in Syria. This is the Youtube video they have linked to. The singing sounds a lot like that found on salafist, jihadi videos. The video purports to show Iranian army officers, and one of them holds up an identity card. I don't know what they are saying as the video is not translated, and I don't know if this is genuine.

I don't discount this video, but it could be fake, and it could be about something else entirely. I'd appreciate if anybody who understands Farsee could give me their insight into what is being said. The article continues:

Moreover, there have been recent reports that Hezbollah was moving hundreds of missiles from storage sites in Syria to bases in Lebanon, fearing the fall of Assad's regime.

The Free Syrian Army
I'm also watching on al Jazeera English that the Syrian National Council is now going to provide more support to the Free Syrian Army. This army, under Colonel Riad al Asaad, has become more and more prominent in the headlines recently, and I'm reading reports that some of their checkpoints are minutes away from main streets on the suburbs of Damascus. The Zabadani and Madaya areas, a short drive from the capital, are now said to be completely in the hands of the Free Syrian Army as well. If this is true, then things are developing very quickly in a new direction with unpredictable consequences. I don't entirely feel comfortable with this Free Syrian Army business, and I think the Arab world has had enough of triumphant colonels riding into power with the best of intentions. The nature of their relationship with the Syrian National Council, and how much they are under the control of anybody, is all still murky - and I am worried about this a lot.

Syria's Kurds
On another note, a Kurdish opposition meeting in Irbil is probably the biggest sign that everybody is starting to prepare for a post-Assad era, or at least that the Kurds want to prepare for the worst should Syria descend into civil war. The Kurdish Autonomous zone in Iraq is reported to have declared its support for the Syrian opposition. They would not have done so if they didn't think Assad was weak or about to fall.

The Straw that Breaks the Lions Back...
...Could be the economy. The Syrian Pound is now regularly over seventy to the dollar, and the Syrian economy is at a complete standstill. Nobody is happy, and the old families with money in Aleppo and Damascus are said to be fidgety with Assad's handling of this crisis. A nice article about this on the LA Times website:

Some have begun quietly donating money to opposition groups for medicine, food and blankets in neighborhoods besieged by security forces — "playing for the future," as one Damascus businessman put it.

I first heard about this a few months ago, whereby Syrian merchants had been paying their Ramadan alms to the Syrian revolution, believing this to be their religious duty. I heard of one wealthy person purchasing four Thuraya satellite phones from Lebanon and having them donated to the revolutionary committees. Beneath the visage of iron-fisted regime control, there appears to be an invisible network of friends and acquaintances who are getting money to where it is needed. Many families are in dire circumstances and have been so for months, so informal networks are helping to provide for them and delivering food and medicine wear possible. In that sense, I think that the makeshift hospitals and surgeries which are treating wounded protesters are only a part of this massive informal network that is being formed to deliver services and assistance to Syrians.

2012-01-27T22:12:00.001Z

Al Jazeera [Arabic] is reporting over one hundred casualties in Syria today. So some people think that the "activist" groups reporting this are not credible. So let's say it was fifty Syrians killed by the regime. Is that less outrageous? What about twenty five Syrians? Would those hypocrites who pretend to be anti-imperialist be as snide and sarcastic in their comments about the daily death toll in Syria if it were Palestinians getting killed each day?

2012-01-27T22:09:00.001Z

Somebody recently told me that it is wrong to compare the oppression of the Arab regimes with the oppression of the Palestinians. Wlaa! Oppression is oppression is oppression. I can and will draw the comparison, and it is a moral obligation to despise oppression in all its forms, and not just the colour we prefer.

The Arab League Points

2012-01-23T10:56:00.001Z

I didn't follow the Arab League decision and press conference, but I have seen some Youtube clips of what happened and read a few commentaries about the main points that arose. So far it seems the Arab League want Bashar to hand full authority to a vice president who will then run a coalition government that would include the opposition. There is then an aim to have presidential elections within a few months.

Naturally the Syrian regime is frothing at the mouth that anybody dares insinuate a Syria not run by Assad. And what man (or woman) will fly to Syria as a member of the Syrian opposition in order to take part in the government. I mean honestly, who would seriously accept the word of the Syrian regime that they wouldn't be assassinated as soon as their plane lands? I know some people think there is a chance that might stop the bloodshed, but seriously, where are all the shabiha (thugs) going to go? Will they just pack up and return to wherever they came from? Not likely, none of this is likely.

Not surprisingly, I've heard that the regime has already rejected this "interference" in its affairs outright. I'd like to remind most supporters of Assad that interference in Syria's affairs only arose because this regime and its president were so incompetent and stupid, killing and maiming demonstrators and torturing Syrian citizens because they thought they could crush this revolution. When they thought they didn't need to negotiate they didn't. Do you remember how long it took before anybody in the regime even admitted that there was a problem in the country? Every step the regime has carried out so far has always been too little and too late. It was only after thousands of Syrians had already died before the first announcement of "reforms" were announced by the regime. Now that the Arab League is interfering in Syria the regime remembers that it has a national sovereignty to protect. It didn't remember that there was a national sovereignty when Israeli jets bombed Syria in 2007, or when US marines carried out a raid on Syrian land in 2008, or when a Syrian general was assassinated in 2008.

Anyhow, I'm going to stop writing now because the head of the Arab league monitors is giving a press statement about his work in the country.

2012-01-18T17:24:00.001Z

I believed months ago that Hamas' position was no longer tenable in Syria. In spite of some odd statements by Khaled Meshaal about the Syrian regime, it is an open secret in Gaza that Iran has stopped payments to the movement since the start of the revolution, and my sources tell me that this is because Hamas did not ask for Palestinians in Syria to come out in support of Assad. Now Hamas is leaving Syria, and Khaled Meshaal is going to resign from his position. If, and when, Assad goes, then the dynamics of the region will be altered greatly, and Hamas, aligned as closely with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, could start taking a more "pragmatic" approach to its international relations.

On one level, I won't deny the enormous influence of Islamist groups in the shape of post-dictatorship governments, but I still believe that these revolutions have been larger than any one ideology, Islamic or otherwise, and the same forces which are making dictatorship a relic of the past in the Arab world will also hold any future Islamic parties to task for any shortcomings. The way politics in this region will be carried out has changed forever, and whilst some despots have found this out sooner than others, all of the region's kings and colonels are discovering how weak they really are in the face of their people. We haven't seen the end of Saudi Arabian discontent, and Iran's green movement is most likely watching what is happening in Syria with much interest. We're nowhere near the end, you just wait and see.

The Maysaloon Syria Digest

2012-01-18T17:16:00.001Z

The tension that is building up in Syria will, I suspect, shortly reach a climax. I have never seen the Russians appear as adamant about their position regarding any country in the world as they are now with regards to Syria. Arms shipments and the threat of vetoing any security council resolution condemning the Syrian regime and potentially leading to armed intervention there, are all providing the regime with the diplomatic cover it so desperately needs in order to ensure its survival. The counter-revolutionary rhetoric, what with people citing dubious polls claiming Assad still has the support of 55% of the Syrian people, or horror stories of sectarian strife, are all reaching fever pitch and I suspect this is in anticipation of some new development that we can expect.

Obama's latest statement condemning the Syrian regime and asking it to step down, and after such a long period of quiet, might be a sign from the White House for another diplomatic bout of thrusting and parrying with the allies of the Assad regime. Watch the Turks and the Saudis closely for further statements in the next few days, and probably another attempt to get something pushed through the security council. I don't know how wise it would be to push for such a resolution with Russia guaranteeing it will veto anything and everything that might endanger Assad's rule internationally.

On other front's, al Jazeera is once again claiming that it's signals are being jammed from locations in Syria and Iran, which I suspect is true as Gaddafi's regime had also tried to jam the station's satellite broadcasts. This is probably meant as a way to hassle to the station, which has been condemned by the Syrian regime and those who sympathise with it that it is now merely a propaganda channel. Ultimately, it is unlikely that any foreign intervention in Syria is going to take place any time soon, and even if it does take place, I'm not so sure how much better it will be for the country.

The other alternative, civil war, is being played out slowly but surely. The so-called Free Syrian army has been mounting bolder attacks, and has been maintaining a stout defence in Homs, the heartland of the Syrian revolution, as well as in the Zabadani and Madaya suburbs of Damascus more recently. It's not clear how much longer they can maintain this, but I think the steady trickle of defections that are happening could start turning into an avalanche if this situation continues. On another front, the Syrian currency has recently sunk to a jaw-dropping low of 70.5 Syrian pounds to the dollar. Any more than that and the Syrian economy will start to go into free-fall.

I think all this discussion and condemnation of international intevention is a moot point. If this situation continues the way it is any longer, without one side trying to end the stalemate in its favour, then this regime could implode. Hezbullah daren't get itself embroiled into a Syrian civil war and stretch itself with Israel lurking just south of the border, and Iran, with all its enthusiasm, is too far from Syria to do anything more than token support and advice. We're not going to see divisions of the Quds brigade airlifted to Damascus just to prop up Assad, though we could start seeing a bigger spurt of suicide bombings, explosions and assassinations. Still, the country is crumbling under the political crisis, and whilst Assad is preparing to dig himself deeply for a long fight, he might find himself a prisoner in his own palace, as he faces not just defected Syrian soldiers, but the economic influence of the wealthy, bourgeois, Syrian diaspora who are enthusiastically supporting the Syrian revolution.

In the meantime, the Syrian regime has utterly failed in crushing the demonstrations that have been the lifeblood of this revolution. I'm watching further demonstrations in Deraa, the town where this all started, on al Jazeera right now. At the start of the Syrian revolution the Syrian army carried out a brutal operation that was meant to punish the rebellious inhabitants, and yet the people there are now demonstrating again. Assad can't impose his will on the country anymore, and there are few places where he or his father's statues or posters are hung up without risk of defacement. If Assad does survive this period, then it will be as a warlord, and not as a president.

The Syrian Regime and Wikileaks

2012-01-17T00:16:00.001Z

One of the most widely read and interesting Wikileaks documents about Syria is here. I have always enjoyed reading this particular document and when a friend recently linked to it, I couldn't help pore through it again. Not only does it give a remarkable insight into the workings of the Syrian government:

SARG officials at every level lie. They persist in a lie even in the face of evidence to the contrary. They are not embarrassed to be caught in a lie. While lower level officials often lie to avoid potential
punitive action from their own government, senior level officials generally lie when they deem a topic too "dangerous" to discuss (e.g., Al-Kibar, IAEA) or when they have not yet determined whether or how to respond (FFN, Hezbollah arms supplies, etc). When a senior SARG official is lying, the key challenge is not demonstrating the lack of veracity but discovering the true reasons for it.

But it is beautifully written and clearly the product of a lucid mind. It might as well have been penned by a company man boating his way up a river in nineteenth century central Africa:

The President's self-image plays a disproportionate role in policy formulation and diplomatic activity. Meetings, visits, trips abroad that enhance his respectability and prestige are pursued; encounters that may involve negotiations or difficult debate are declined or delegated to subordinates. The President responds with anger if he finds himself challenged by visitors, but not until after the meeting. He
seems to avoid direct confrontation. When engaged in summit diplomacy, he often seeks to include allies to bolster his confidence (e.g., Quadripartite Summit in September 2008, Riyadh Summit in April 2009). His foreign policy subordinates are all "employees" without constituencies or influence independent of the President's favor. Their overriding concern when engaging foreigners is to avoid the appearance of overstepping or violating their instructions. They are particularly cautious in the presence of other Syrians; requests to meet one-on-one often yield more expansive and candid responses.

Given the confusing state of affairs concerning events in Syria, it is interesting to see how supporters of the regime apply the same tricks in their debates with sceptics of Assad's propaganda as his own cronies do in diplomatic affairs:

The Non Sequitur: When Syrian officials don't like a point that has been made to them, they frequently resort to an awkward changes in subject to deflect perceived criticism. Syrian officials seem to think they've scored a verbal hit by employing a facile non sequitur, usually in the
form of a counter-accusation. When the SARG's human rights record is raised with Muallim, for example, he often raises Israel's December-January Gaza operation or, more recently,
asks if the U.S. will accept the 1300 Al Qaeda sympathizers in Syrian jails. The non sequitur is intended to stop discussion of the unwelcome topic while subtly intimidating the interlocutor with the threat of raising a subject that is putatively embarrassing to him or her. When the non sequitur
is deployed, it is clear that the SARG official is on the defensive.

When the propagandist is asked about democracy and human rights in Syria, they would respond with something about Iraq; if you question the killing, they talk about Gaza or Bahrain; if somebody criticises the torture, they would counter with something about Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. Clearly it was a black day when the Syrian regime discovered the non sequitur (which is a Latin phrase that means something which does not follow from what came before it).

The report does have interesting things to say about Syrian foreign policy, and as I suspect, there has been a certain principled approach which permeated throughout the Assad regime's foreign policy. Of course this could never justify the beastliness of Assad's domestic repression, but it is good to be fair for history's sake.

The Alternative to Assad? You're looking at it

2012-01-16T17:44:00.001Z

Khaled Abu Salah is a man that has appeared a number of times on al Jazeera reports, and I first saw him when he was courageously telling one of the Arab inspectors about the horrific situation in Homs. I like his reasonable, sensible approach to explaining what is happening, and I worry about what would happen to him if the security services ever captured him. Here is a video of a short speech that is said to have been filmed today. If and when this is all over, watch people like him very closely. These people have emerged from Syria's streets and alleys and they are the future political generation that will help lead Syria - not some political dinosaur in exile abroad. When people sarcastically ask me who the alternative to Assad is, I think of people like Khaled Abu Salah. Why shouldn't a man like him become a future president of Syria?

I've done my best to translate it below:

Today, we have all come here, but not to offer condolences to Abu Muhammad. No, we have come here to offer him congratulations for the martyrdom of Muhammad Rabee. And to tell Abu Muhammad that we are all his children.

And guys, the most important thing that we have seen in this revolution is that we have all become brothers and family. But we are all revolutionaries, and the most important thing is to avoid showing sadness, because by God's will he is now a martyr. I don't want anybody to offer me their condolences. Congratulate me, for martyrdom is a medal that we can pin to our chests. This is our path and we chose it on the 15th of March. We all - together - went to pray in the square and offered the "prayer of the departing" before we went out to demonstrate.

Gentlemen, the revolution is not one of rights and jobs, it is not a revolution for bread, the revolution is a cause. If we cry for our martyrs, or feel sad, that does not mean that our resolve has weakened, no! We cry for them to remember them constantly, and remember that their blood is a debt we owe to them, all of them. We are all the children of this country, and whoever loves his country will sacrifice his life for it. Abu Muhammad we are all your children today, and God bless you all.

[There is a brief interlude where the crowd cheers and he gives some instructions for organising the next Friday's protests]

Guys, let me tell you something. I swear that as long as we are going out in the name of God, then we should follow his teachings and love each other. Let us love each other, and if somebody makes a mistake we should forgive him - we are all the same! If we love our friend and he makes a mistake, then we tell him that he made a mistake and forgive him. If we all continue to love each other, then no security, no army, no shabiha, no Iran and not even Russia can stand against us. God bless you all!

شام ريف دمشق الزبداني اصوات التكبيرات تصدح في سماء المدينه تزامنا مع الق...

2012-01-16T17:19:00.000Z

Another video uploaded today which claims to show the town of Zabadani, close to Damascus. The mosque minarets are chanting a praise that is usually reserved either for the Eid festivals or for times of grave crisis. You can hear what sounds like heavy firing, shelling, and explosions in the background.

War in the Zabadani

2012-01-16T17:15:00.003Z

This is a video uploaded today on ShamSNN. It claims to be of people in the Zabadani and Madaya, which is very close to Damascus. The video appears to show armed men who claim to be defending the inhabitants from the Syrian Army that is still loyal to Assad. There seem to be checkpoints around the town and the guards appear relaxed and confident. They also appear to be organised, communicating via radio and maintaining guard shifts. One of the guards appears to have a list of names that they are looking out for to capture. Not sure what they want with the names on that list as the context isn't very clear.

If the fighting is now intense in the Zabadani, which is a short drive from Damascus, then the level of defections and the scale of the revolt against Assad is now more serious. I suspect the intense bombing and military activity in that area is an attempt by Assad to crush any groups there before that area becomes a serious problem.

The Resistance-Brigade and their Hypocrisy towards Qatar

2012-01-16T14:15:00.000Z

I've heard some ridiculous comments being made about the Emir of Qatar's statement regarding foreign forces in Syria to stop the killing. There are people in the pro-regime camp, or in the "resistance-brigade", who think this only strengthens the claim that Syria's regime is the victim of a global conspiracy of some sort. These same people didn't have a problem with the Emir of Qatar when he was the best friend of the Syrian regime, and when he was funding the reconstruction of villages in the south of Lebanon after the 2006 war with Israel. All of a sudden today he is a pawn of a global American/Zionist conspiracy against Assad. They conveniently forget that even after 2006, Qatar still had some ties with Israel, as well as with the United States whilst still talking to the Iranians, the Syrians and Hezbullah. But of course if the Qatari Emir asks Assad to stop killing Syrians, then his country's embassy is attacked, he is insulted in the most grotesque form by Syria's representative to the Arab League, and the Syrian regime's propaganda channels launch a campaign of hatred against Qatar. Of course none of this registers with the resistance-brigade, who would be screaming bloody murder if the exact same thing was happening in Gaza, and it was Israel doing the killing. If that were the case they would not be lecturing al Jazeera about the niceties of media professionalism and the faux pas of relying on Youtube because no international media are allowed in. No, that would be distasteful, wouldn't it?

A Response to Creative Syria's Author

2012-01-15T15:55:00.000Z

Creative Syria has been relaunched with a fresh new look and an emphasis on the many crises that Syria is currently facing. Whilst the presentation of the site is excellent, the politics that are behind it will cause some consternation by Syrians who support the revolution. I do not intend to argue my own position in this post, instead I wish to critically examine the latest post, "Ten Reasons Why Many Syrians Are Not Interested Yet", and see whether his opposition to the Syrian revolution is justified or not. He enumerates these reasons first and then expands on his arguments. Naturally, I will begin by examining each point and then dissecting the rest of his argument. Like Camille, I will also backup my arguments, and examine whether the sources he cites are justified or not, and whether they support his argument.

1. The first argument is that there are no true democracies. Citing the Economist Intelligence Unit's democracy index, the idea that even the Arab world's better examples are all "flawed democracies" seems to be enough of a reason that Syrians are not interested, but in what, that is not yet mentioned. Are Syrians not interested in democracy because there are no truly democratic Arab countries? Or perhaps they are not interested in the "revolution" because even those Arab countries that are said to be nominally democratic (like Iraq or Lebanon) are a mess? Regardless of what is intended by this thesis, it is clear from that same index that countries such as Lebanon (scoring 5.32) and Iraq (scoring 4.03), are still higher than Syria, which scored a paltry 1.99

This score is derived from several factors according to the Wikipedia article quoted: Whether elections are free and fair; the security of voters; the influence of foreign powers on government; the capability of civil servants to implement policies. The Democracy index then places Syria firmly in the "Authoritarian Regime" category.

It is interesting that the author of the Creative Syria piece does not see the widespread protests that have paralysed the country for almost a year as enough evidence that Syrians are in actual fact very interested regardless of the flawed examples of Arabic democracies cited. The unprecedented level of presidential "reforms" in the past year alone, concerning everything from national health insurance companies to offering additional points to students at technical colleges, is a sign that the government is very interested in the revolutions that are sweeping the Arab world. Perhaps those many Syrians that Camille is referring to should be interested in democracy regardless whether they think Iraq and Lebanon are flawed democracies.

2. Camille states that in 2010 Lebanon and Iraq were perceived to be more corrupt than Syria. That statement is simply not true. In 2010, Transparency International rated the Worldwide Corruption Perception of Syria and Lebanon as an equally atrocious 2.5 for each, whereas Iraq was rated with a marginally higher score of 1.5. You can see the scores here.

3. A problematic description of "formerly proud" Arab countries is used for countries that have underwent the drastic changes that Camille believes "many Syrians" are not interested in. I'm not quite sure how he gauges whether or not a country used to be "proud". Iraq is described as a formerly leading Arab state, but I'm not sure how proud Iraqis felt of losing an entire generation (estimated at 300,000) in a war of aggression against Iran. Nor can we be sure how proud Libyans were before the overthrow of Gaddafi for us to snidely criticise Qatar's assistance of the Libyan rebels and their NTC. Were they more or less proud when Gaddafi gave up his weapons programmes for inspection to the West, and agreed upon massive oil concessions to BP, whilst hugging Tony Blair during the infamous "deal in the desert" saga. Most tellingly, Camille admits that the political process in Iraq, in spite of that country's occupation by the United States, could not proceed without consultations with Syria and Iraq. Obviously, and this is something conveniently ignored, this was because both Iran and Syria turned Iraq into their battlefield with the United States, which was the real reason for the atrocious levels of deaths amongst Iraqi civilians - apart from the American invasion and occupation. I'm not quite sure how valid an argument is when it depends on the "pride" of a nation. Especially in countries with such little transparency or scope for expressing genuine political opinion.

4. Yemen and Sudan are cited as examples of states that could be divided, and because three is a lucky number, I think Camille added Somalia - a curious and quite arbitrary addition. Yemen and Sudan, the most corrupt of Arab states, have been ruled by despots who will be judged by history to have been instrumental in dividing their states. The curious reversal of Omar Bashir's opposition to the division of his country, and the stupidity of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had to despatch a team to Libya to ask Gaddafi how to react to a revolution (the latter told him to start shooting, and Saleh's forces promptly began firing at the crowds after an initial period of peaceful protest). Both of these countries are staunch allies of the Syrian regime, though the Syrian regime knows how brutally corrupt Saleh's regime is, when a team sent by Rami Makhlouf (the Syrian president's cousin) to negotiate a confidential deal in Yemen had to be flown out in secrecy in the dead of night when they were going to be forced to sign on Saleh's terms. But what are such little niggles between friends, eh? These countries are risking being dismantled because of the incompetence of their rulers, so citing them as an example is slightly misleading, if not wilfully inaccurate.

5. We are told that women's rights deteriorate after changes that allow Islamists a powerful role in the new state. That's quite an interesting play on words when you think about it. These "changes" Camille refers to are revolutions which removed despots and families that had been in power for decades. It assumes that women's rights were better prior to the revolution, whereas it is known that sexual harassment in Egypt reached epidemic proportions during Mubarak's reign; Gaddafi's vulgar use of virgin women "nuns of the revolution" and his importing of Italian women for his bunga bunga parties was on a par with Gulf potentates' excess. Why is the case of Tawakul Karman and many other women in Yemen - perceived as a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism - not cited as an example? Why, when ever Egyptian on the street in Tahrir square knows the revolution there is not over until the ruling military council, which is a continuation of Mubarak's rule, is removed? Again, a skilful omission of such nuances gives us the picture that the Islamic bogeyman will wreak havoc with women's rights in a region which already had a dismal record of women's rights even under the supposedly secular dictatorships which have dominated them for decades. Furthermore, no mention is made of the Islamic Republic of Iran, a staunch ally of Syria and a country not without its own thriving pro-democracy movement, yet with a dismal respect for women's rights. To capitalise on the plight of women in the Arab world and try to score cheap political points by claiming that it is a problem exclusively caused by political Islam - which is not true - is an ugly way that deflects from the real problems that women face in Arabic society.

6. The theme of the Islamic bogey man is continued in point six, where the issues of minorities is now discussed. Could somebody please explain to me where the Jewish minorities of Syria are? Or how the security situation in Iraq was deliberately undermined by both Iran and Syria to fight the Americans there by sending Islamists across the border? Another story from 2005 shows how the Syrian regime turned a blind eye to men who went to Iraq to carry out a jihad against the occupying American forces. Ironically more Iraqis (and especially people from Iraqi minorities) died as a result of this policy than actual American soldiers. It seems that the Syrian regime was not too concerned with women's rights when it wanted to use Islamists, though it did not hesitate in discarding them just as quickly when they were no longer useful. When we are being frightened off by the Islamic bogeyman, we are being frightened from the Islamic extremism that is itself a product of regimes like those in Syria, and it is misleading to equate such groups with the politically Islamic groups that will now be forced to answer to a people that have not hesitated to topple far more brutal dictators. Far from being a reasonable precaution, using the Islamic bogeyman appears more useful for terrifying people into accepting the status quo of a dictator.

7. We are told that these "changes" that Camille warns against have come at the cost of enormous human casualties. For some very curious reason, he thinks that the Lebanese civil war is relevant to the Arab spring (it is not) and then ignores the role of Syria and Iran in Iraq, or the incompetence of Sudan's regime, in the grotesque orgy of violence that those countries had to endure. In Libya, Gaddafi's men were using anti-aircraft weapons to disperse crowds that had begun their protests peacefully, and the magical figure of 50,000 dead has now been conveniently used by those who lament the fall of Gaddafi and ignore the fact that if he was in the least bit concerned about the welfare of his country, and if he had allowed effective government institutions to be formed in his forty year long rule, then he should have resigned like any self-respecting ruler who has failed in his task. Instead, we are to blame the victim because a dictator did not step down and instead led his country into civil war.

8. We are told that change without a strong central authority leads to chaos and loss of instability. If this is supposed to be an argument against change then it fails. The strongly autocratic regimes that exist in the Arab world are so by design and not coincidence. Saddam Hussein threatened to turn Iraq into dust if he was to leave power, and so did Gaddafi. In an interview with the New York Times, Rami Makhouf, Assad's cousin, said:

“We will sit here. We call it a fight until the end.” He added later, “They should know when we suffer, we will not suffer alone.”

If such an attitude by the very people that are supposed to care for the welfare of the country is not a good enough reason for change, then I do not know what is.

9. We are told that revolutions and civil wars will devastate the economy. That is true, but so will dictatorship and untrammelled power over half a century by powerful dictators and their corrupt families and supporters. In fact when you have decades of political and economic corruption, then a revolution or civil war will be inevitable. Just ask King Louis the XVI of France.

10. Finally, the oldest bogeyman of all is invoked - Israel. This is curious when we hear statements from Rami Makhlouf saying that:

“If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel,”

This, again, is the Syrian president's cousin and one of the richest men in Syria. Riad Seif, a Syrian member of Parliament, was arrested after he questioned the monopoly on mobile phone networks that was being cornered by Makhlouf and his family. At the start of the Syrian revolution, analysts questioned whether Makhlouf was being offered as a sacrificial goat to deflect from public anger at the political and economic corruption of the Assad regime. For the regime to distance itself from Makhlouf's comments to the New York Times does not fit with how closely associated this man is to the regime and its interests.

At the end of these ten points we are given a chart with information that is unsourced, and appears to be compiled from information that is not verifiable. A blurb in a red box presents the erroneous assumptions listed above as fact, and proof that most Syrians believe removing Assad is a bad idea. The author then proceeds to rubbish and character assassinate the Syrian opposition figures, and selectively lists sources which do so. Conveniently ignored is the glaring problem that the reliance on such technology is precisely because the Assad regime prevents dissent, brutalises political dissidents, and attempts to crush any sign of dissent with Assad's rule. The fact that the Assad family has been in power for forty years, and still finds freedom of information, assembly and basic communications technology as a threat to be banned and censored, shows how dismally they have failed in their responsibility to the Syrian people. It begs the question of whether they should be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed time for more "reforms".

To conclude, the piece on Creative Syria does not tell us on what basis "many" Syrians are wary of change - any more than the opposition tells us that most Syrians are against Assad's rule. It also gives ten flimsy, and quite sophistic arguments as to why Syrians are allegedly not interested in the revolution. If Camille intended to make the case for why negotiation and peaceful discussion should be the way forward in this impasse, then, sadly, he has failed dismally.

2012-01-15T00:23:00.002Z

A Higher Military Council for the Free Syrian Army (announced yesterday) is probably a step in the right direction. So far I think this group has been a ragtag collection of defected and poorly equipped and led soldiers with more enthusiasm than actual soldiering skills. A proper command structure will help maintain discipline and also start crystallising an alternative to the Assadist army. The obvious disadvantage is that it further institutionalises a potential civil war in the country.

2012-01-14T23:59:00.001Z

I have never commented on my opinion regarding foreign intervention in Syria, but do those people who harangue the Syrian National Council and Free Syrian Army for calling for NATO intervention not see the beastly behaviour of the Syrian regime on its own people? Would they maintain such self-righteous indignation if this was happening in a country that was an ally of the West? Or in Palestine?

I say the world should have an international military force which can be deployed in any country that faces injustice. From Palestine to Baluchistan, and from Columbia to East Timor. Oh wait, we already have one and it's called the United Nations. Well, we all know how effective that turned out.

Going back to Syria, I think a dawning realisation that nobody will come to help should not necessarily lead to self-despair, but to a stronger sense of self-determination and independence. No more father-leaders, no more saviours from other countries, wouldn't it be amazing if Syria became a truly independent country that set its own standards for morality and expected the best from its people and for its people. There would be no need for foreign intervention, but rather our neighbours would look to us for help and for guidance - for a change. Imagine a country where justice was the ideal...

2012-01-14T23:50:00.001Z

Today was the second time that I heard somebody using paternalistic arguments to support Assad. The idea is that Assad does not want his thugs and security services to harm the Syrian people, but in order to fight the conspiracy that is fanning the flames of this unrest, he is forced to do so out of sheer frustration. The analogy of an irate father who smacks their child out of concern for them is drawn.

Is there really anything more insulting than such a comparison? That the entire people of Syria are nothing more than insolent brats who do not know what is good for them, and that a good natured father figure is killing them because that is for their own good? I feel so sad because even the absurdity of such an argument is lost on such people who resort to it.

Remember These Days?

2012-01-13T21:23:00.001Z

In case anybody has forgotten, this was what Hama was like in the glorious month when the Syrian regime's police and army were withdrawn from the city. On the eve of Ramadan, the Syrian army and security forces began shelling Hama intensively, on the pretext of fighting "armed gangs". Such demonstrations are now impossible in Hama because the people will be attacked by the security services. I watch this video now and it seems like something from a different time. If the regime was forced to withdraw the army and shabiha from the cities and villages, this is what we would see across all of the land of Syria. That would be amazing.

Dark Humour from Syria

2012-01-13T17:46:00.002Z

I don't know who made this, but it's pure genius.

A Call to Sanity?

2012-01-12T19:20:00.000Z

Accusations and counter-accusations, conspiracies and confusion, that is the state of affairs between people who support this Syrian revolution and those who don't. People have managed to fall neatly on either side, and each brings its own assumptions and condemnations to the table before any discussion can begin. I wrote a few days ago about a way forward in this impasse, at least for the reasonable people who might, for one reason or another, support a particular side, but place the priority of the country ahead of some grand geo-political narrative or some narrow sectarian agenda. Unfortunately such people are rare, and I am noting an emerging trend of loneliness amongst intelligent people on both sides of the divide who are surrounded by either the fascism of the pro-Assad supporters or the sectarian ugliness of those who think Adnan al Ar'our is leading the Syrian revolution.

I want Assad and his regime to go immediately, and somebody who is pro-regime - for whatever reason - needs to understand that whilst he can come and go as he pleases, people who share my views are getting arrested, beaten and tortured by the regime's thugs. Simply telling us to come down to Syria and see for ourselves is intellectually dishonest. The fact that this person has some level of popular support is also irrelevant. The point is that people who support him are not being attacked by his thugs, whereas those who peacefully oppose him, and have demonstrated in Damascus or Aleppo, have been brutalised by his supporters. The fact that the regime claims to be fighting some salafist insurgency is not an excuse for sealing off entire cities and the shelling of residential areas, or the mass arrests and torture of thousands of people. Finally, it is not a justification that a revolution will weaken "the cause" and benefit the West, if it is based on repression and brutality. It begs the question what kind of liberation and freedom we are talking about if we are going to be forced to be free at the tip of a bayonet and under the boots of some thugs.

Assad's Shrinking Crowds?

2012-01-12T00:38:00.000Z

Here is a Youtube video said to show yesterday's pro-Assad demonstration at Ummayad Square. It shows a rather small crowd of supporters attending the president's speech, and compared to previous demos the attendance seems quite poor. Also, from the angle this video is being shot, it seems to have been taken from the Syria TV studios so I don't know why somebody there would take this shot and then release it for the world to see.

Ian Black speaks on Syria's attack that killed French journalist

2012-01-12T00:33:00.000Z

A quick interview with Ian Black on al Jazeera English about the killing of the French journalist yesterday in Syria, and the deaths of eight other Syrians at a pro-government demonstrationin Homs.

2012-01-08T23:16:00.000Z

Sometimes I hate myself for feeling fed up with this whole affair. Then I remember what it must be like for those people who have lost loved ones in Syria, and who are risking their lives every day, demonstrating against this dictatorship. This regime will go one day, and we will get a chance at building a better country.

Syria: Can it be a city for all?

2012-01-08T17:08:00.000Z

I have been thinking for some time now about the apparently intractable divide between those Syrians who support the revolution and those who do not. There are fools on all sides, and the presence of the sectarian and petty Sheikh Adnan Ar'our as one of the Syrian revolutions most vocal and controversial supporters shows that even the "opposition" (in all its colours and shades) has as much a share of idiots supporting it as the Syrian regime. Yet if there are reasonable people on both sides then is it not possible that some basis of common understanding could be reached? Can there not be some way of promoting a dialogue on assumptions that will not automatically alienate and offend one side or both? I want to try and explore that here, and if I fail, then what better failure is there?

There are a number of barriers in the face of such an undertaking, and each of these is considerable. There is the resistance versus imperialism discourse which portrays the Syrian regime as the victim of some "universal" conspiracy because of it's alleged support for the Palestinian cause; the lack of any charismatic leader figures in the broad spectrum of the Syrian opposition and the lack of a unified vision for the best way forward; and underlining all of this is the fear of an Iraq-style scenario of suicide bombings, sectarian killings and kidnappings. Syria is not there yet, but somebody has it in their best interest to keep that as an option. There is also the problem of automatically branding anybody who is against Assad and with the revolution as a traitor, of pro-democracy demonstrations being brutally repressed by the security services, and of the thousands of Syrians who have been killed, imprisoned and tortured since the Syrian revolution began. Ultimately, it is a divide between those who think it is a revolution and those who think it is a conspiracy.

These problems will automatically cripple any form of meaningful discussion, and will lead to an angry exchange of accusations and counter-accusations. In order for any type of meaningful discussion to progress, then this band of "reasonable Syrians" will have to try a different approach. I will refer to the Reasonable Syrians throughout this article as covering individuals on both sides of the divide who will be able to carry out such a discussion. The reasonable person term contains a bit of a circular argument, but I will take it to include a person who is prepared to accept for others what they would also accept for themselves. Such a maxim was good enough for Kant and it will be good enough for me.

In terms of approaching this problem, there will be no progress if each side insists on starting from a particular position. Instead, I propose that we agree upon one value or goal that we can all agree upon, and that we could work backwards from. In doing so, it will be a bit like getting everybody to agree that a new city must be built and then if everybody has agreed on that basis, to then proceed to identify the type of city it will be, what it must mean to its inhabitants, and how it will maintain itself. A city must be a pleasant place for all its inhabitants, it must belong to all of them and not just some, and the livelihood of each inhabitant must be safeguarded through some mechanism that can ensure the best form of justice and prosperity for all. There is to be no talk about secondary issues such as wiring and plumbing, when at this stage of planning. Syria, if it is to survive, must be such a city.

This is not a naive attempt that ignores the reality on the ground. This is a genuine effort to overcome the entanglements and insurmountable problems which threaten to burn everything. It will take great courage to stride over the hysteria and anger but the reasonable person will not care about the obstacles in their way once it is clear what needs to be done. In this way, positions that might have been adhered to for emotional reasons will no longer have the powerful hold they once did. Only once the discussion is shifted from positions to a shared value can any form of discussion take place. So the starting point is not about whether there is a conspiracy or not, or who is carrying out the killing, but as to the shape of Syria and what we would like it to be. This would require frank conversations about Syria's ethnic and religious make-up, and about the interests of each of these groups. There is no place on the table for universal narratives, but rather a more pragmatic problem-solving approach. Security for minorities and how to address it is an individual problem; safeguarding the religious freedoms of individuals is another; preventing the concentration of power in the hands of one person and preventing monopolies is another problem. Each problem will then require mechanisms for handling it, and processes must be worked out for reaching agreements or making decisions.

This is not an abstract art that requires that mysterious breed of creatures called politicians. It is an activity that anybody could potentially take part in. Underlining all of this would be a consensus that violence and thuggery have no place in Syria, however great the pressure from any one side to resort to it would be. I don't see any other way of getting through this impasse, and for the sake of this country, both sides must start to recognise this reality.

Syrian Sarcasm - Gotta Love It!

2012-01-07T18:14:00.000Z

Appearing very quickly after the Damascus bombing yesterday, a friend's amusing Facebook status carried with it all the sarcasm and cynicism that many people view this recent event:

باشتراكك عزيزي المشاهد بقناة الدنيا بلاس يمكنك مشاهدة التفجيرات قبل يوم من حدوثها ..
كما يمكنك مشاهدة كواليس العمليات بدقة اتش ثري دي ..
وتستطيع تحميل دليل الدنيا بلاس السري من الانترنت والذي يمكنك من معرفة مواعيد التفجيرات القادمة في عام 2012 ..
..
لسنا الوحيدين .. لكننا الأقذر..
mnkool

And in English:

Dear Viewer, with your subscription to the new Dunia Plus channel you can now watch explosions a day before they occur. You can also watch the details of these operations in 3D. Finally, you can also download our secret Dunia Plus TV Guide which will tell you the dates of all planned bombings for 2012. [Dunia] We are not the only ones - but we're the filthiest...

Note: For people who don't know al Dunia, it is a privately own television station owned by the Syrian president's cousin and which has been criticised for its outrageous pro-regime propaganda. The Facebook status is written as a parody of the Dunia station's marketing campaigns.

فيديو كامل للحظة انفجار الميدان - دمشق

2012-01-07T17:55:00.000Z

A video said to show the "suicide bombing" that took place in Damascus yesterday.

The Meedan Bombings in Damascus

2012-01-06T11:24:00.000Z

If people were more cautious about laying the blame last time, there seems to be no hesitation in blaming the regime for this morning's bomb blast in Damascus. Syrian television, with grisly voyeurism, appears to be relishing showing the blood and death that are the by-products of such bombings.

Why are these bombings happening on a Friday? Why have they only started happening now that the Arab League observers are in Syria? So many questions and too few answers. I think the finger of blame can also go the other way, and whilst the regime could plausibly be behind the attacks, we cannot rule out rogue elements in the opposition. The fact that only hours beforehand, Colonel Riad al Asaad had warned of further attacks against the regime, has only stoked the fires of propaganda against the Free Syrian Army. Yet the fact remains, why would a suicide bomber carry out such attacks with such timing and limited success, when there are enormous pro-regime demonstrations that are held in the Ummayad square or in Aleppo? In fact, why is it only the anti-regime demonstrations that get shot at if the regime's story of armed groups is true? Wouldn't an armed group attack pro-regime demonstrations? Shouldn't common sense tell us that a more sensational target would be the pro-regime demonstrators? Or perhaps carrying out the bombings on a day that would not distract from the anti-regime protests that happen each Friday? Finally, al Qaeda or any of these terrorist groups usually relish the opportunity to declare their responsibility, so why has nobody stepped forward yet?

Questions, questions, questions...

The 7th of March 1963

2012-01-06T01:00:00.002Z

I've always been fascinated by shifts in power. When I was still at school I remember our English teacher encouraging us to read "The Children's Story" by James Clavell - and we were asked to describe our thoughts about it. At the time, I could tell that the children were being manipulated gently into accepting a new situation, and I could tell from parts of the story that the parents and the old teacher belonged to an old order, or way of doing things, which had lost the war. Today when I read the tale as an adult, I can recognise that it is anti-communist propaganda that fed on the hysteria of the cold war, but it strikes a cord which is relevant to any society which finds itself under threat today. A few years ago I imagined a similar scenario could be applied in the Middle East, with some foreign occupiers convincing children to cut up their own flag, or perhaps a Quran. Somewhere deep down, such stories feeds on our fear of losing all that we hold precious and sacred. We are provoked by the thought of indifferent and hostile enemies tossing aside our most valued possessions, and uprooting our very ideas.

I spent a long time disliking that story, in spite of the effect Clavell's story had upon me, but there was always something about it which fascinated me. It was the ease with which an old system or world would come to an end, and a new one could easily come into being, and make itself comfortable. Sometimes these changes are welcome, such as when an oppressive or brutal reign comes to an end, but other times things don't work out so well. On the 7th of March, 1963, Syria used to be a country where people could still say what they wanted without fear of being arrested or tortured. The people had already gone through the terrible years of Adib al Shishakli, and had ended an ill-planned and poorly implemented union with Nasser's Egypt. Yet on the eve of the 7th, not many people would have guessed how different their country would gradually become.

On the surface, the machinery of government continued to tick, the employees continued to go to work and business continued pretty much as usual. But at the top of the pyramid there was a brief, brutal and bloody struggle, and out of that mess came a new political ideology which wished to transform the country and the entire region. Slowly, heads of department are replaced, journalists are silenced, arrested or worse. Officers are purged, forced to retire or exiled. Then the thugs are slowly let loose into the cities and towns. Personal grudges and scores are settled as less scrupulous individuals find that they can exact revenge on those they disagree with - and ingratiate themselves with the new powers - by informing.

In the beginning people might have kept their heads down, thinking this will come to pass. But slowly, without anybody noticing, the most outspoken people who rejected anything they believed was wrong were silenced. One by one, they and their families were silenced by a creeping oppression that was terrifying in its inevitability. At some abstract level, high above the unknowing public, a titanic struggle for the soul of a country begins. Even amongst the ringleaders of the coup, there are plots, counter-plots and conspiracies. Finally, almost ten years later, only one remains and it is his will which utterly reshapes the way an entire country thinks, behaves and sees itself. Any who stand in his way are ruthlessly crushed, and those who manage to escape him are exiled into irrelevance. These exiles, like the Syria before the 7th of March, 1963, might as well have inhabited another planet. They speak a language, and in a manner, that nobody in the new generation can understand or remember. Even communicating with them, or uttering anything about them, had become taboo, such was the level of social indoctrination that they have experienced. The parents of these young Syrians are no help either, for they have either taught their children nothing - out of fear - or been happy to go along with the new system.

At some point, on the eve of that fateful night, the old guardians of Syria - from across the political spectrum - failed, and they were replaced by something so terrible and sinister that it had almost crushed the soul out of this land. Almost...

The Arab Observers

2012-01-05T21:19:00.000Z

From every angle that I look at it, the Arab League observer's mission in Syria appears to be unprofessional, bumbling and inept. Apart from the fact that the head of the mission is a general who served under Sudan's Omar Bashir - a man wanted for genocide - the observers appear to lack the equipment, skills and confidence that would allow them to accomplish their role. They also lack the numbers to cover Syria's protesting cities and towns. But that brings us to a very important point, what is the role of the Arab League observers in Syria?

Many frustrated people seemed to think that the observers were sent to Syria to stop the killing, which is not so. They were sent to the country to ascertain what is really happening, speak to the witnesses, and ensure that the Syrian regime has pulled out its forces from the cities and towns. The killing is supposed to have already stopped, something that clearly has not happened. There is now talk of including the UN for assistance in the matter.

"We are coming here for technical help and to see the experience the UN has, because this is the first time the Arab League is involved in sending monitors, and there are some mistakes," said Sheikh Hamad, quoted by KUNA.

I'm not surprised that the Arab League is a shambles, I've seen videos of the Arab league observers asking for a pen and paper so that they can note down the accounts of people they were interviewing, I've also seen other videos of the observers "documenting" what they are seeing - by using a mobile phone to take photographs...surely that is precisely why the observers were called in? Was it not the alleged lack of credibility of mobile phone footage precisely why these people were sent over in the first place?

Surely mistakes can be made, but this mission seems to lack even a rudimentary level of planning and preparation. The observers are not assertive enough about where they want to go and who they wish to speak with, and perhaps this is because they have been told not to appear aggressive to the regime. I doubt how valuable their observations will be, or how credible.

If I could hazard a guess, I'd say this Arab league is a formality that will be exploited both by the regime and by the Arab states. Both sides will pretend they have given the other side every opportunity to prove their sincerity, and will proceed to use that political capital in whichever way suits them best. In the mean time Bashar al Assad is killing more Syrians in the hope that the protests will stop and his family can continue to rule the country.

On the Arab Parliament

2012-01-02T12:52:00.000Z

The "Arab Parliament" is a relatively new organisation which was supposed to be - till the start of the Syrian revolution - based in Damascus. Interestingly enough, at one point Libya's Huda Ben Amer was appointed as head of this august body. Ben Amer, who is currently under arrest in Libya, came to prominence during one of Gaddafi's purges, when she pulled down at the legs of a man who was being hanged by the neck in a basketball stadium. The event was televised and Gaddafi caught a glimpse of this loyalty. Here is a picture of Ben Amer with Bashar al Assad when she visited Damascus in 2009:

Today the parliament is headed by a Kuwaiti, Ali al Salem el Diqbassi. Speaking about the presence of the Arab league monitors in Syria, Diqbassi says:

"This is giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League," Mr Diqbassi added.

Oh well...

The Observers

2011-12-28T20:19:00.001Z

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.

On Jonathan Steele's Guardian CiF Piece

2011-12-27T14:39:00.000Z

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".

Berating the Arab "Resistance" Crowd

2011-12-27T11:02:00.001Z

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.

A Word On Turkey

2011-12-26T11:34:00.000Z

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.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf...

2011-12-23T22:02:00.001Z

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...

al Qaeda in Damascus

2011-12-23T09:23:00.002Z

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.

Assad's Hapless Heroes

2011-12-21T21:51:00.003Z

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.

2011-12-21T21:05:00.002Z

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...

The Idlib Massacre

2011-12-21T19:26:00.002Z

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

2011-12-21T17:12:00.002Z

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

2011-12-20T18:45:00.000Z

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.

زلزل عرش الشبيحة الأعادي .. الله أكبر يابن بلادي

2011-12-15T09:17:00.000Z

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

Unity, Freedom, Socialism!

2011-12-15T00:45:00.000Z

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.

2011-12-12T21:21:00.001Z

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...

2011-12-12T21:15:00.000Z

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.

"Getting rid of Assad is the easy part"

2011-12-07T07:42:00.001Z

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.

2011-12-06T22:53:00.001Z

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...

Nonsense

2011-12-06T19:06:00.001Z

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.

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

2011-12-05T23:50:00.001Z

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

يا سوريا لا تسجلينا غياب

2011-12-04T00:02:00.001Z

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

2011-12-03T23:46:00.001Z

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.

The "Problem"

2011-11-30T12:13:00.001Z

There is a marked escalation of the international pressure on the Syrian regime today, Turkey's foreign minister has announced sanctions and a freezing of assets for the Syrian regime. He's stated outright that Turkey will not deal with a Syrian government unless it is "legitimate", and most ominously:

"If tens, hundreds of thousands of people start advancing towards the Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey borders, not only Turkey but the international community may be required to take some steps such as a buffer zone," he said.

Over the past month, a solid case has been meticulously put in place condemning the Syrian regime. In a sense I don't blame the regime for getting desperate, as there is nothing it can do to stay in power, which is its ultimate goal. All paths lead to an eventual removal of the Assad regime from rule, and that is something which the inner circles of that family will refuse to countenance.

From a more personal perspective, I had a worrying insight into the mentality of some people I know who have been extremely vocal in their support of the Syrian revolution, but to the point of adopting an extremely sectarian approach to what is happening. Last night I was having dinner with some friends at a restaurant owned and run by a Lebanese Sunni Muslim from Tripoli. He asked us what we would do about the "problem" in the South, ie. Hezbullah.

"We won't forget you", said one Syrian I was sitting with, a journalist who was extremely pro-Saudi in his politics and an admirer of the late Rafiq Hariri.

"No you won't, you'll forget about us", said the Lebanese man.

"No, we won't, but the Syrian people will, they have a short memory", said the Syrian. "They [Hezbullah] will have to strip down even to their underwear, believe me!"

"You must be joking. Listen, they are armed to the teeth. From their young to the very old, they are all holding on to their weapons and would never let go. We are talking about a war of extermination. That is the only way", said the Lebanese man, matter-of-factly.

The fact that they were talking about such things so comfortably in front of me, at all even, was surprising to me. This same discussion is being mirrored by people who support Hezbullah and Iran, and believe that Sunni Islam is now a tool of the West that needs to be destroyed utterly. I sat and sipped at my tea quietly, and shuddered at what might happen if people like these took over one day.

From Moscow to Damascus: Reflections on Assadism

2011-11-29T12:37:00.001Z

These days I feel I can't write, I can't even think. Just when you think everything is crystal clear, that you are certain you know what is happening, something blindsides you and then you're back where you started. I look back at all I've blogged and written about in the past year, and almost all of it is to do with Syria. Pro-regime Syrians sneer at us, the exiles, the expatriates, and challenge us to come back to Syria to "see that it is all a conspiracy". In their twisted and illogical minds, only they care for the country, and their god is sacred and inviolable. Only by his grace, and under the majestic gaze of his calm blue eyes, could the country be saved. But saved from what? What is it about anybody who criticises their Baathist cult which makes them hate him so much?

A friend of mine told me a story about his family that took place in the early sixties. Back then, Syria was still relatively a comfortable country to live in. Politics was remote from the lives of the citizenry, in spite of the turbulent political conspiracies, coups and counter-coups. At that time, a young man had asked for his aunt's hand in marriage but the father had turned him down. He told the young man that, as a member of the Baath party, his life would be unstable, and that tomorrow another coup would make the man and his family exiles or worse. The young man smiled and told him that the Baath were different from other parties, and that he should not be worried. Both parties moved on, but I recall this tale often these days, because I try to understand how a political party that was as marginalised and suppressed as the Baath party was during the fifties, could so dominate a country with all its various and conflicting political, economic and intellectual elites.

I think we can find our answer if we look a little bit further north, to another country that has never emerged from the cold winter of totalitarian governments. Russia, that enormous country with its amazing people; the motherland of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Gorky and countless others, has also given birth to the templates for the most frightening forms of political domination. Putting Nazi Germany on one side for a bit, the real template for Assad's Baath is Lenin's Communist Party vanguard. Lenin believed that the proletarian revolution required a ruthless, disciplined cadre of hardcore revolutionaries who would lead the rest on to revolution, and create the necessary conditions for overthrowing the conservative bourgeois regimes of Europe.

In Syria, the Baath party's civilian wing, like the Mensheviks, were sidelined by the more ruthless and disciplined Military Committee, of which the elder Assad was a member. This process took place over most of the sixties, and by 1969, Assad had made himself the unconfirmed leader of Syria after doing away with the other members of the Military Committee. The road to power in Syria lay in a series of defenses, like concentric circles, that were overcome one by one until this remarkably shrewd man became the undisputed master of the realm. Again, analogies with Russia are remarkable. Stalin, accused by Trotsky of having taken over the machinery of the state, also eliminated his enemies one by one, until in the end, it was only Stalin. The only major difference is that Stalin did not try to preserve rule in his own family. In fact he left his own son to die in German captivity, rather than trade him for a high ranking German general who was captured by the Soviets during the Patriotic War. Apart from that, the cult of personality we find in Syria is almost identical to that of Stalin. The same could also be said of Saddam Hussein's Iraq during his intolerably long reign.

One can draw analogies ad infinitum between Assad's Syria and Stalinist Russia, but a puzzling aspect remains. How do we explain the younger Assad's influence on the country? And on what basis does his popularity remain, albeit greatly diminished? From the time when he assumed power, I noticed a remarkable change in the political and propaganda machine and the way it portrayed the relationship between the regime and the people. In the old days the relationship was one of pure power and domination. There was no room for discussion, only blind obedience stripped of reason. The way the young Assad sought to portray his rule was definitely more paternal, more informal. A poster shows the smiling Leader holding up and kissing a pretty little girl. On the top of the poster we see that now famous phrase "We Love You", and at the bottom of the poster the slogan continues "and my Daddy Loves you too!". I remember reading that poster as I walked the streets of Damascus and smiling to myself, "I'll bet he loves you, he daren't". The new theme seemed to be that you will love us whether you like it or not, so why not just like it? And in a sense, why not? As the young Assad liberalised the economy, opened up Syria to foreign investment, and started opening private banks, Syrians found that they could live, through easily available credit, a far better lifestyle, and with the same consumer goods that they once envied their other Arab neighbours for.

For a time, it seemed that Syria was genuinely improving, and the country was starting to look like a place people could want to live in once again. Of course the young still dreamed of emigrating abroad, where the real money and pay were to be found, but in cities like Damascus and Aleppo, jobs for the young and educated were starting to become available. Unfortunately, a large swathe of Syria's population were getting left behind in the rush. This writer's friend had once volunteered to make a collection of basic food stuffs that were going to be donated to the poor and needy that lived in the shanty towns on Qasioun mountain. Overlooking the capital city, these shanty towns had started to spring up over the past twenty years as the Syrian countryside, suffering from a drought and desertification, forced entire villages to pack up and move to the cities. Placing a greater strain on cities that already suffered from poor planning and a weak infrastructure, many were forced to swell the sums and lived lives of abject poverty. This tale of migration from the countryside to the city is identical to what we have seen throughout the world, for most of the twentieth century, and Syria was never going to be an exception.

Whilst it could afford to, Syria's regime could subsidise diesel, sugar, flour and other basics for the poor, but as the world economy started to place a burden on the state's coffers, already stretched due to the grotesque levels of corruption that are systemic to Assad's Syria, the state began to tighten the belt. Thinking that an anti-Western foreign policy could make him immune from the wave of unrest spreading out of Tunisia, Assad thought such austerity measures could pass lightly. But he whom the gods wish to destroy, they make complacent, and a population that, at best, was marginalised during the boom years was now no longer going to accept the rampant corruption and heavy handedness of the regime's security forces. Public sector pay rises, renewed subsidies, and the lifting of a temporary ban on all non-essential imports, were the panicked response of a regime that couldn't believe what it was seeing. After forty years of complete subservience, reinforced by the terror of 1982 and a massacre in the city of Hama, the Syrian people had broken the fear barrier.

Those people who today worry about the ruination of Syria are lamenting the loss of the vision of Syria that they experienced in the early years of the young Assad's rule. An unspoken pact seemed to govern: that as long as corruption and heavy handed oppression did not get too much out of hand, then the legitimacy of Assad could remain unquestioned. But those people who gave him their support, and might continue to do so, were not the same people who suffered economically under the wanton liberalisation of Syria's economy, and were not the people who suffered the most under the heavy handed security services, or the degradation which is called Syrian military service, where young men who are supposed to be serving their country, become unpaid serfs to their commanding officers during their period of service. The remnants of Assad's populism rests with these people, 'encouraged' by his diehard supporters who are now approaching mass hysteria as the net tightens around their precious regime. The intolerable stupidity that is portrayed by the regime's media outlets is directed to this segment of the population, and not to the international community, or to Syrians that have already seen the regime for what it is. The question remains how quickly more Syrians can be made to recognise this truth, now that the mask has been removed.

The Syrian News Roundup - Lite

2011-11-28T17:01:00.001Z

The big news this week has been about the Arab League's imposing economic sanctions on Syria. In a nutshell, Syrian regime officials will no longer be able to travel to other Arab countries, and Syrian regime assets will be frozen wherever they are found. The League stressed that normal transfers from expatriate Syrians will still be allowed through, in the hope that the sanctions will have less of an effect on the average Syrian. Beirut and Baghdad have both rejected these sanctions, and it seems they will carry on business as usual with Assad's regime:

Sheikh Hamad said Arab nations wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened in Libya, where aU.N. Security Council resolution led to NATO air strikes. He warned other Arab states that the West could intervene if it felt the league was not "serious.""All the work that we are doing is to avoid this interference," he said.

There has been an alarming escalation in the language and condemnation of the gulf states by the regime's supporters and its television and media. A derogatory term عربان (Arabians) is being used to refer to them, and I think it carries with it the historical derision that city folk الحضر viewed the Bedouin البدو. The regime and its supporters see themselves as better and more civilized than the Gulf Arabs.

If racist insults were the worst that this regime is capable of then I wouldn't be worried, but there are worrying signs and much darker clouds appearing on the horizon. In other news, DP-News, a news site sympathetic to the Syrian regime has reported that the Japanese beat Syria in the London 2012 Olympic soccer qualifier.

Bahrain versus Syria: Shameful Discrimination

2011-11-26T00:24:00.001Z

It pains me to see people that I thought were principled in their commitment for justice and outspoken in their support for the Palestinians, ignore the plight of the Syrian people and dismiss what is happening there as some Western conspiracy. Those same people will accept "insights" from "sources" in Bahrain, publish Youtube videos of demonstrations in Saudi Arabia's Qatif, and yet criticise al Jazeera for relying on anonymous sources, or Youtube videos in Syria, knowing well that all foreign media have been banned from operating there. They afford full respect to the Bahraini protesters, and relish the opportunity to use their plight as a way to highlight Western and Arab hypocrisy, and yet they waste no opportunity to ridicule coverage of Syria, and to argue about semantics or demonstrate their critical thinking and scepticism about any story that comes out of Syria. Yet at the same time they would never dream of applying such high standards of scrutiny for the same standard of stories, allegations or speculation if it came from Bahrain or, for that matter, Gaza. The opposite is true for those who conveniently ignore what is happening in Bahrain and cry crocodile tears for the Syrian people.

Shame on them all, completely and utterly. I support the people of Bahrain and all the Arab revolutions. I find no contradiction in this support, and I'm not waiting for somebody from the corrupt oppositions, the Muslim Brotherhood, or the stupid "resistance" demagogues and populists to remind me of my human duty.

2011-11-24T20:05:00.001Z

An excellent analysis of the Syrian situation by the International Crisis Group. One thing I said when the regime agree to attend the first Arab League meeting about Syria has turned out to be true. Coming so soon after the Russian and Chinese veto at the UN Security Council, I argued that the regime was pressured to begin negotiations in order to sort out this mess. They wasted this life line and now both Russia and China seem to be slowly distancing themselves from the regime. The Crisis Group report confirms this initial suspicion I had, and it also goes a bit further and accuses the regime directly of exacerbating the sectarian tensions in the country. This is far more blunt than I've read from international organisations before; usually the regime is given the benefit of the doubt. It's a good - and light - read, and well worth taking a look at.

Condemnation at the UN General Assembly

2011-11-22T23:09:00.001Z

Abdullah Gul is in London for the first trip by a Turkish president in twenty three years. In an exercise of vanity, I hope that he's here mainly because of Syria, but he's probably here to talk about a number of other things, including Europe. Still, his visit coincides with Recep Tayip Erdogan's calls for Assad to step down, and also the condemnation of the Syrian regime for its brutal repression of an eight month uprising. The pressure is mounting considerably. One thing I noted with interest was that Russia and China abstained from voting against the condemnation at the UN General Assembly, and that echoes the behaviour of Arab regimes that might traditionally have supported a fellow dictatorship, but instead voted to suspend Syria from the Arab League, as was the case with Algeria and Sudan. At the Arab League vote, Iraq was conspicuous as the only country which abstained from voting, and I think that says a lot about the level of support that the regime thought it enjoyed. There is another Arab League meeting coming up, and the possibility of more sanctions looms large on the horizon.

On another note, I still think this Free Syrian Army business is a recipe for trouble. Many Syrians might disagree with me, and I'm certainly not in a position to tell anybody what to do, but it is important to approach this phase with caution. The prospect of a civil war is, at this stage, very real and has the potential to plunge the country into a dark place from which it might not emerge in our lifetimes...

2011-11-22T23:03:00.001Z

I don't have a problem with the term "Arab Spring" like some people I know do. Yes, I appreciate their arguments about what kind of connotations it can have, but frankly I think there are for more important things to do than worry about the label for a phenomenon that is non-ideological and deeply rooted in the masses. I think the only comparable period in modern history is the period of revolutionary change and collapse which followed the end of the First World War. That was the "European" spring, of socialist and communist activity, and which sprang from similar grievances, though of course we haven't got a "world war" in the Middle East - yet. As a matter of principle, I will probably not buy any books dealing with the Arab Spring until ten years from now, when we might start getting an inkling about the effect it has had. Anything written before then will be, in my opinion, opportunistic and premature.

Syrian News Roundup

2011-11-21T12:59:00.001Z

There seems to be confusion about who was responsible for the attack at the Baath party headquarters in Damascus on Sunday:

The commander of a group of Syrian army defectors retracted earlier claims that his followers launched an unprecedented attack inside the capital, Damascus, in an embarrassing turnaround for an armed movement trying to oust President Bashar Assad's regime.

So who was behind it if not the defectors? But perhaps even more worrying is the attack on a bus carrying Turkish butchers back from Saudi Arabia after the Eid holidays:

"We had stopped at a checkpoint," Surmeli told The Associated Press by telephone. "Syrian soldiers emerged from behind sandbags and cursed (Turkish Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan when we told them we were Turks. Then they suddenly opened fire at the bus."

If this is confirmed to be from the Syrian army, then it looks bad for a regime that is already trying to mend fences because of the thugs that had attacked foreign embassies in Damascus last week. I can't imagine anything more damaging to Syria at this time than its soldiers starting to shoot busloads of people from Turkey just because their government criticised his regime.

The thought did occur to me that maybe somebody from the Free Syrian Army has engineered this attack in order to draw the Turkish government further into the Syrian crisis, but: A) I hate conspiracy theories, especially when there are so many real conspiracies; and B) that is even more stupid than the regime's thugs having done it. If I were to take an educated guess, I'd say that the regime doesn't have the iron grip on its soldiers and thugs that it likes to think it does, and an over-enthusiastic bunch of pro-Assad goons might have thought they'd gain brownie points.

Canadian Navy stays in the Mediterranean because of Syrian Crisis

This is something I hadn't heard of before, the Royal Canadian Navy, which came to this little sea surrounded by an ocean of turbulence, as part of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi's Libya. The Canadian Defence Secretary said:

"I think it's fair to say that a lot of dictators are on notice that this type of behaviour isn't going to be tolerated," he said. "How we go about it and what comes next is done on… an escalating scale before making any final decisions around intervention."

I guess what he means by the escalating scale is the route that is slowly taking us from the Arab League back to the UN Security Council. To be honest, I used to think that NATO involvement in Syria was far-fetched and impossible, but I think I was wrong. It might have been impossible this time last year, or even in March, when the protests began, but with a regime that has lost all its friends and enjoys minuscule domestic support, the idea doesn't seem to be so unlikely anymore.

Still, the Russians still seem to be giving Assad some form of cover, and are now seeing the Syrian revolution as a civil war in which nobody else must get involved. The Jerusalem Post reports that the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, is accusing the West of "fanning the flames" of the Syria conflict. I don't doubt for an instant the sheer relish with which countries in the West, and Saudi Arabia in particular, are watching events in Syria unfold. We have to recognise that alongside the legitimate demands of the Syrian people, and their complete humiliation and oppression by the Syrian regime, there is also a wider conflict between different powers. The trick I've been trying to manage is to avoid getting sucked into either axis as I might have before. Tehran and Riyadh are just as bad as each other, and Washington DC and Moscow will do what is good for them, and not what is good for the Arabs. Unfortunately the Syrian Opposition seems to be clutching at straws like a drowning man, and doesn't seem to be looking that far ahead yet.

It was interesting to hear on al Jazeera earlier that the Syrian National Council has released its plan for a future, democratic and inclusive Syria (sounds lovely on paper). Conveniently mentioned near the end is their commitment to the return of the Golan Heights according to international laws and agreements. I have a sneaky feeling that this won't look very good once it is applied into practice, and there will be a lot of favours that the SNC will have to return once, or if, they ever manage to form a government in Damascus.

From Lebanon:

Sheikh Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, has said that the unrest engulfing Syria is a foreign conspiracy fueled by the United States and its allies.

I like Qassem, and I remember his book being invaluable as I researched my undergraduate thesis on Hezbullah. His position with regards to Syria is hardly surprising, and I've written before about why I think Hezbullah will stick with the Syrian regime, come rain or shine. That he would make a statement about what is happening in Syria is the latest indication of how concerned Hezbullah is with the Syrian regime failing. Clearly they see its removal as an existential threat and I expect they will fight tooth and nail to let Assad, or at least his regime, continue in power. Ignore Hezbullah at your own peril.

Sectarianism and Idiots

2011-11-21T07:58:00.001Z

I just read a good piece on Syria by the New York Times' Anthony Shadid. It paints a worrying picture of tit-for-tat sectarian and kidnappings that have started happening in Homs. In a way, the lawless situation there and the absence of security are making everybody paranoid, and the brutish and thuggish Syrian security services are the root of this. But this is no justification for the ugly sectarianism that is rearing its head and the people wishing to dislodge the regime have as much a share of idiots as the pro-Assad "we love you" brigade. The longer Assad stays in power, the more likely this reality will spread across Syria, in spite of the lethargic mutterings of our foreign minister Walid Mouallem at his recent press conference.

The problem with sectarian and civil wars, and wars in general, is that stupid people thrive in them, whilst intelligent and reasonable people are relegated to irrelevance. Once stupid people control a country, they can only be dislodged at a great cost and with much difficulty, like these idiots:

A pile of Rubbish

2011-11-20T23:13:00.001Z

The footage that I've seen from Tahrir Square in Egypt is deeply disturbing. I saw a thug with a big stick drag the body of a demonstrator by the arm. He pulled him to the side, and left him lying in a pile of rubbish whilst other riot police walked past it and looked on indifferently. Is this what the human being has been reduced to in our countries? Are our lives so meaningless that they can be taken so easily? Between foreign conspiracies and domestic oppression, should we all just curl up and die? I can't stand watching so much senseless death and destruction, it is all so ugly.

Egypt

2011-11-20T00:49:00.001Z

I've been focused mainly on the events in Syria lately, but I have been watching things unfold in Egypt and I think there is a simmering pressure that was only slightly eased. The arrest and show trial of Mubarak might have distracted people for some time and made them think that Egypt had changed, but it seems that the control of the SCAF (basically the army generals) remains as tight as ever. Egypt needs to wrap up its revolution and get rid of the last traces of the Sadat-Mubarak military-industrial complex, and it needs to do that as quickly as possible. The state of the country's economy can't be that good, and the longer the country stays in its lawless state, the more difficult it will be to heal the damage that has been done.

Egypt is like the Arab world's elder brother. In the old days, everybody used to look up to her with hope and expectation. Today that's still the case. It's the Arab country which has the most developed and organised civil society, and yet it still hasn't been able to seize power yet.

كذاب

2011-11-20T00:24:00.001Z

كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب

كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب

كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب

كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب كذاب

...كذاب

Prolonging the Inevitable?

2011-11-19T23:23:00.001Z

Almost everybody who I have spoken with, and who has been to Syria recently, tells me that the general mood in Damascus is overwhelmingly against Assad. This is at odds with the state media that shows crowds of thousands of pro-regime demonstrators gathering in the central squares of the city. The regime is still very shocked by its suspension from the Arab League, and my guess is because it recognises this as a very serious prelude to something more serious and far reaching. Let's say the Turks do decide to enforce a buffer zone in northern Syria, and that the Free Syrian Army begins mounting serious attacks against regime strong points and loyalist forces, will they be able to take and hold ground?

The arrival of a high level military delegation from Iran might be for just such a possibility. If the country sinks into all out civil war, the Syrian army command will have to factor in things like low morale, high levels of desertions, and the ability to fight an insurgency. The Iranians can help with the latter, firstly because they've been doing the same for Shia groups fighting the Americans in Iraq, and secondly because they have had their run-ins with their own insurgencies from the Kurds or Iraqi sponsored-guerilla movements. Still, if the Syrians need an Iranian delegation to tell them how to protect their own territory, then at this stage that's hardly going to do them much good.

At the moment there is a sense of hope that, when push comes to shove, the regime will buckle. If it doesn't, well, then it doesn't.

Shameful

2011-11-17T22:00:00.001Z

This video is almost a month old, but I watched it for the first time tonight. It is disturbing and humiliating to see this happening in Syria today. I don't understand what type of reforms Assad and his supporters are talking about, or who they think they are kidding, when a man is humiliated and abused in this way in Assad's Syria. There is no possibility of remaining impartial when we are faced with such brutality, and no justification is possible.

I'll translate this as much as I can, there is no context to the video, but the soldiers are described as members of the elite, special assignments unit, that is loyal to Assad. It was posted by Sham SNN on Youtube on the 16th of October, and is dedicated to the Arab League.

The man is being asked to smile and laugh to the camera. He is told to state his name, and then when he does so he is slapped brutally. In the video he is also told to say that he is happy for them to have sex with his sister, and that he has purchased drugs and weapons. Near the end of the video he complains that he is an asthmatic, and that he needs his inhaler. The man who was filming him at the start, and who is now standing next to him, gives him the inhaler, and asks him if he has "repented". The prisoners says "yes" and the soldier tells him that this is Ramadan, and that if he is a good Muslim then his promise means something. The video ends with the prisoner being slapped so hard that he falls to the ground.

Shameful and deeply disturbing. This is the kind of footage that the regime and its supporters do not want the world to see.

A Misguided Nostalgia for Adib Shishakli

2011-11-17T11:53:00.001Z

The text of a former Syrian president's resignation letter has been circulating on Facebook and Twitter for the past few days. In 1954, General Adib Shishakli was forced to resign after overwhelming political pressure, and I suppose some bright spark has decided to contrast the hapless general with Bashar al Assad. This is a mistake, and in fact Shishakli and Assad had far more in common than not. But first the text, I'll put it in Arabic and then translate it:

رغبة مني في تجنب سفك دماء الشعب الذي أحب , والجيش الذي ضحيت بكل غال من أجله , والأمة العربية التي حاولت خدمتها بإخلاص و صدق , أتقدم بإستقالتي من رئاسة الجمهورية إلى الشعب السوري المحبوب الذي أنتخبني والذي أولاني ثقته آملاً أن تخدم مبادرتي هذه قضية وطني , وأبتهل إلى الله أن يحفظه من كل سوء , وأن يوحده و يزيده منعة وأن يسير به إلى قمة المجد

In English:

[And] In my desire to avoid spilling the blood of the nation that I so love, and of the army that I have sacrificed so much for, and for the Arab nation that I have tried to serve in honesty and sincerity, I present my resignation as president of the republic to the beloved Syrian nation that had elected me and entrusted me with their complete confidence, in the hope that by doing so I will serve the cause of this nation. I pray to God to protect [this nation] from all harm, and to unify, strengthen and protect it as He guides it to the peak of glory. (February the 25th, 1954)

The first glaring irregularity in Shishakli's speech was that he was never elected. Far from being committed to any democratic process or republican principles, he actually undermined it. Shishakli was involved in three coup's and had helped General Husni al Zaim overturn Syria's nascent (and bumbling) parliamentary democracy - albeit dominated by the landowning aristocracy - in Syria's first coup. He then helped Sami al Hinawi take power in a second coup, before turning on Hinawi and making himself the de facto ruler of Syria, placing his friend Fawzi Selu as a figurehead. He did eventually become president but that only lasted for about a year, after which he was ousted by enormous pressure. There are, it could be argued, some parallels with the political career of Hafez Assad, but I think that the similarity is superficial. He was a central figure in ousting his former comrad Husni al Zaim, and was furious that Zaim had handed over Antun Saadeh, the founder and head of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) over to Lebanon, where he was later tried and executed. Shishakli had become enamoured with the ideas of the SSNP (a quasi-fascist super nationalist Syrian ideology)during the 1948 war against the Israelis.

During Shishakli's rule political opponents were exiled, assassinated or imprisoned. Political parties were banned, and during his time political heavyweights such as Akram Hawrani, Michel Aflaq and Salah al Din Bitar, were all exiled to Lebanon, where they continued working against him. It is strange to read of the Baath party as being a marginalised and repressed political party, but during the fifties that is precisely what they were. As an exception to most of Syria's presidents before or since, Shishakli was quite the public orator and it is said that he used to address the Syrian people by radio almost every single day. His rule was said to be progressive, and women were encouraged to take part in public life and the armed forces.

Coming from a notable Kurdish family from Hama, Shishakli seems to be a figure that somebody wants to whitewash. The Wikipedia entries about the man are quite sympathetic, although the Arabic version is horribly biased and very badly written; it portrays his period of rule as some kind of golden age. He is said to have described himself as the "Caesar of Syria" and if true then this would be quite apt given his involvement with the SSNP and support for the fascist ideas of Antun Saadeh.

Although from a minority background, Shishakli was merciless in his dealings with the Druze of Suweida, and in an infamous act that was unprecedented in the short history of the new Syrian republic, he ordered the Syrian army and airforce to carry out a campaign against them. There are no exact figures as to the number of casualties suffered, but the campaign was deeply shocking to many Syrians, who had come to expect such behaviour from the French, but certainly not from their own countrymen. In a sense, the iron-fisted policy he applied to the Druze would ultimately be his downfall. In a small Brazilian town in 1964, ten years after he wrote this resignation letter, a young Druze man by the name of Nawaf Ghazaleh stopped him as he walked over a bridge, exchanged a few words, and then shot him five times. Ghazaleh had gone all the way to Brazil to exact revenge on the man who had carried out the first massacre of Syrian civilians in the history of the Syrian Arab Republic.

It is ironic and tragic that today people are quoting Shishakli with nostalgia, after forty years of Baath party rule and thirty years of Assad family rule.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

2011-11-16T20:38:00.001Z

OK this is hilarious:

Britain is being urged to help set up an international "contact group" to co-ordinate western and Arab policy towards the crisis in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is defying mounting outrage over the violent suppression of mass unrest.

And guess who is doing the urging?

It has emerged that King Abdullah of Jordan raised the idea, borrowed from the recent Libyan uprising, in talks with David Cameron on Tuesday.

Do you want to tell me that this Hashemite Pinnochio came up with this brilliant idea all by himself? Seriously, I want the killing to stop in Syria, but getting the half-English king of Jordan who can't wipe his chin without permission, is probably up there with using the Arab League as the front for international pressure on the Syrian regime. I can almost see the puppet strings moving Abdullah's hands as he shakes hands with David Cameron.

If the situation in Syria wasn't so tragic and the Assad regime not so stupid, I would have a different position, but right now Syrians would probably shake hands with the devil.

Fasal al Kasem's recent the "Opposite Direction" on Syria

2011-11-16T19:48:00.001Z

An excellent debate on the popular "Opposite Direction" talk show hosted by Faisal al Kasem. It was between Joseph Abu Fadel (pro-regime) and Mohammed al Abdullah (anti-regime) and Abu Fadel gets completely broadsided by Abdullah's razor sharp wit and good humour. Unfortunately it is in Arabic and I haven't found a translated version yet.

2011-11-16T19:27:00.001Z

So let me get this straight, the mysterious armed groups (receiving funds from Saudi, the US, Israel, Turkey and Qatar) that are killing Syrians across the country only target anti-regime demonstrators who are chanting for democracy, but they never seem to shoot demonstrators at pro-regime rallies, and they certainly don't seem interested when Assad's supporters burn down foreign embassies. Could the armed gangs be working for you Mr Assad?

First hand account from Syria

2011-11-16T18:27:00.001Z

This evening I finally caught up with a friend of mine who had arrived from Syria a few months ago. To my surprise, I found that H had been active in the protests that had been regularly taking place in the Meedan area of Damascus. The picture he painted of life in the city was illuminating. Coming from a traditional Damascene family, H describes how people speak frankly of their position regarding the regime. He and his friends speak of a Damascus where protests were regularly taking place after Friday prayers at each mosque.

Security services are edgy and tense, and respond with live fire or overwhelming force when a demonstration starts. H described meeting five of his friends so far, each of whom had been detained and beaten for some time, emerging from the prisons more confident and eager to continue protesting. Far from crushing their spirits, the regime is strengthening the determination of protesters.

The Damascus merchants were said to be providing the LCC and the revolutionaries their Ramadan alms, and he said that one individual volunteered four satellite phones (at the cost of half a million Syrian pounds each approximately) that he had bought on the black market, and arranged to have them sent to different people in the country. Far from a monolithic state, the Assad regime is seen internally as shaky and unable to maintain effective control at all places and all the time. An unconfirmed story he told me was that even the officers at the detention centres are unhappy with what is happening with the country. People are donating a lot to the revolution, according to H, though to whom and how he could not say.

He's also noted how quickly people have become interested in politics, and that this is all that many people discuss. Nobody believes that Assad will make it through this crisis, but it is still not clear what alternative many people are seeking. H was sceptical of fears that Syria would be run by an Islamist government should Assad fall, and he felt that actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood were dinosaurs from a past age whose time had passed. The thing that made him most happy was that the fear which had paralysed a generation of Syrians is no longer there. He was also of the opinion that many Christians have joined the protests, though they have some fear about the future since they are a minority.

I can't confirm any of what H has told me, but a lot of it corroborates with what I've been hearing about events taking place in the country. Perhaps most surprising was his account of Damascus merchants donating funds for the revolution and how widespread the support for the revolution is within the city.

Joseph Massad and the "Struggle for Syria"

2011-11-16T12:22:00.001Z

I've just read Massad's opinion piece and its not as bad as people have told me. In short he's arguing that the struggle for a democratic Syria is now no longer possible because the involvement of the Gulf states and the West will place a Western compliant dictator in charge there, as is the case with Bahrain. He puts forward a strong argument and whilst I think he will be right in the short term, this is not the first time that Syria would have a pro-Western dictator at the helm. Husni al Zaim had plans to recognise Israel and resettle Palestinians along the Iraqi border before he was overthrown and shot.

What makes Massad's article fatally flawed is precisely what undermines other writers who subscribe to the "resistance" discourse, the assumption that it is the regime which safeguards the resistance to Western hegemony in the region. What has been proven again and again in modern Syrian history is that the intense nationalism and pro-Palestinian stance of Syria has its roots in the Syrian people and not with any authoritarian regimes. It is this passionate stance which the regimes have capitalised on in return for acquiescence to their rule, and so Massad's thesis is turned on its head if we take a long term view. Anybody who takes over in Syria after Assad will have to take part in a political process, but will be unable to control the political process without an overwhelming popular mandate. Yes, the West will try, and for some time probably succeed, in altering Syria's foreign policy decisions, but it cannot maintain a puppet dictator for long. Egypt and Yemen are stark examples of the new political reality that has been imposed across the region.

Syria could still implode into civil war before either scenario plays out, but to call it quits just because some opportunist actors are taking advantage of the Syrian revolution is a curious and untenable position to hold.

Bourhan Ghalioun in Moscow

2011-11-15T13:16:00.001Z

Since the suspension of Syria on Saturday my head has been spinning with the avalanche of events that have been taking place. When I watch Syrian state media it is very clear that this has broadsided the regime completely, and they are quite shocked with what has happened. What else can explain the fact that within forty eight hours Walid Mouallem calls for a press conference and then Bashar requests an emergency meeting with the Arab League?

It's almost sad to see Syria reduced to this. I mean since when does the king of Jordan, of all people, call on the president of Syria to step down? This king, who is a vassal of the United States, wouldn't even wipe his chin without permission from Tel Aviv or Washington, yet today he is giving a statesman-like interview and pretending as if he is somebody important. The Baathist regime and its Assad leadership have failed the Syrian people utterly. I just hope Syria has enough common sense to avoid being relegated back to insignificance.

Squaring Hezbullah's Circle - An Exercise in Futility

2011-11-14T17:14:00.001Z

I've been meaning to comment about Amal Saad Ghorayeb's article, "Why Hezbullah Supports the Assad Regime" for some time now and simply never had the time. I think distinguishing Hezbullah's understanding of liberty as "positive" and the Syrian protesters understanding of liberty as "negative" doesn't stand up to scrutiny. In her conclusion she says that:

Hezbollah’s understanding of freedom as a positive freedom to control one’s destiny and to achieve self-determination, both digresses from and surpasses the liberal preoccupation with the negative freedom from external constraints and hindrances. To be free is not to be left alone but to continually struggle for justice. It is for this reason that Hezbollah is inherently antagonistic to liberal uprisings like Syria’s which focus their efforts on freeing themselves from state control at the expense of the struggle against US and Israeli colonialism.

I never liked this dichotomy (which is posited by Isaiah Berlin) and have always found it to be arbitrary, and Saad-Ghorayeb's use of this term is just as problematic. On what basis does she put the Syrian protesters in a box and label their uprising as "liberal", and what exactly makes Hezbullah so unique that its version of freedom is to control one's destiny and achieve self-determination? One could just as easily say the same about the Syrian protesters, who do not have self-determination and certainly don't have control of their own destiny. It is sad that an academic like Ghorayeb has to resort to such verbal acrobatics in order to square Hezbullah's circle.

Contrary to her idea that this dual understanding of freedom would help us understand Hezbullah's position regarding Syria, which only muddies the water, I suggest we apply Ockham's razor, and reduce this issue to its simplest. Syria is a key ally of Hezbullah, and without the Assad regime, Hezbullah's position will be very difficult to maintain and leave the group more isolated. Ergo, Hezbullah needs to support Assad and ignore the demands of the Syrian people to be free from oppression and free from the threat of oppression.

The Arab League Decision

2011-11-13T11:01:00.001Z

The surprise decision by the Arab League to begin processing Syria's suspension from the organisation is an immense surprise and an act that has stirred the hornet's nest. Watching Syrian television online and I can tell that the presenters are visibly bored and demotivated. They bring some tired commentators on board and denounce with the same pale accusations and insults: a conspiracy; a zionist plot; a new Turkish ploy to slice another Alexandretta province; a Saudi-Qatari plot. There is also an endless number of callers willing to slur everybody who challenges the rule of the Assad's. In a way this will not likely stop the killing, but it is a huge political advantage for the opposition and, I suspect, it will open the doors for wider ranging actions from a variety of actors. At some point I think a deal of some sorts was made between the United States and Russia that a "local" solution using the Arab league was to be tried first. What happens from here, I can't say, but the fact that the regime has been dealt a huge blow is out of proportion with the importance of the Arab League. The League is hardly influential in itself, so we must understand this as a prelude to something more serious.

By the way, Syria's foreign policy will, in the short term, change if Assad is removed. The brutal repression that he has subjected his people to will make them reject any kind of strategic alliance or political stances it held before the revolution. This is unfortunate, but, I think, short-lived. There is a strong anti-colonial and anti-imperialist sentiment in Syria that won't go away just because a dictator abused it.

2011-11-12T11:01:00.001Z

Thirty seven people were killed in Syria yesterday, according to al Jazeera Arabic. But it's far more important for the Syrian opposition to squabble with itself and bicker. Well done, boys. Keep it up and don't forget that there are still just over twenty million Syrians left before you get your act together. And don't worry, we can always make more.

Will the Arab League freeze Syria's membership?

2011-11-12T10:54:00.001Z

I don't expect the Arab League to freeze Syria's membership today. Too many other Arab dictators want to stop the flooding from spilling out of Syria and Yemen. I'm sure that Saudi Arabia and Qatar would like to do so, but whether it will be practicable to do so given the interference of countries like Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan and Yemen is very doubtful. The Yemeni regime has its own revolution to contend with, whilst Algeria and Lebanon are strong allies of the Syrian regime. Algeria and Syria both provided considerable support to Libya's Gaddafi during the civil war there, and Syrian pilots died in Libya. Lebanon, controlled by Hezbullah, will not do anything that could compromise Syria's regime, and will support it in the United Nations as well as in the Arab League. Sudan's regime is just stupid. So if Syria's membership is frozen today then I will be extremely surprised.

Somebody wake me up when it's all over.

برومو الجزيرة ثورة شعب سوريا

2011-11-11T00:03:00.000Z

I've been trying to find this excellent montage put together by al Jazeera about the Syrian revolution. I'm glad its finally available on Youtube. Touching and very powerful.

A Liberation Delayed

2011-11-10T22:17:00.001Z

Ever since the invasion of Iraq almost ten years ago, there has emerged a distinct "resistance" ideology which criticises the West's constant scheming and interference in the affairs of Arab or Muslim states, which is of course true. But at the heart of this resistance ideology lies a peculiar tension which has, since the start of the Arab revolutions, threatened to undermine the entire logic of resisting imperialism in the area. This is because whilst the West could be criticised heavily for its meddling in the region, it is far more difficult to objectively justify the oppression and heavy handedness with which the rulers of some Middle Eastern countries - that are themselves the champions of this resistance ideology - treat their own subjects. Pictures of Abu Ghreib or Guantanamo might shock a Western audience, but for many Arabs and Muslims, the open secret is that such practices have been the norm since as long as anybody could remember. In Iran, the notorious Evin prison could compete with anything that the CIA has subjected the victims of its rendition programme. Syrian or Libyan prisoners would make Guantanamo Bay appear mundane. And yet, the people who embrace the "resistance" ideology seem to always skirt the issue of torture in the countries they tacitly support in their struggle against imperialism. Citing ignorance, or claiming that as citizens of a Western country they are not concerned with what happens in other nations, the issue of torture and repression is then simply pigeon-holed into a cynical game of political points-scoring. But this attitude today threatens to undermine the credibility of the entire anti-imperialist project. By condemning the injustice of one party and condoning that perpetrated by the supposed victim, the entire moral foundation for their edifice becomes compromised. Here is a nice song that I think expresses some of the sentiment of anti-imperialism and resistance ideology

The point is not that the grievances felt by this current are not valid. In fact their concerns represent some of the greatest concerns facing humanity today. With what is probably the greatest economic world crisis in living memory, the issues of poverty, injustice and the economic distribution of goods in a fair manner touch upon the lives of every living human being on the planet. But it is one thing to condemn the power which oppresses, and another thing entirely to tolerate or even justify the injustice of the oppressed. This Fanonite approach to resistance politics has, for over half a century, undermined and in fact weakened the moral ground upon which resisting inequity and oppression have rested. The FLN that Fanon so passionately supported have devolved today to a corrupt cartel of generals who have it in their power to disappear anybody who protests their autocratic and repressive rule. In Syria a regime has used the socialist ideology and pan-Arabism of the Baath party to assume the reins of power, and then ruthlessly crush any form of dissent - a process that is ongoing even as I write this. In Iran, the revolution that toppled a ruthless and corrupt Shah was eventually dominated by an Islamic theocracy that is as brutal and repressive as its pro-Western predecessor. Even in Latin America, it is very difficult to justify the brutal repression of Castro's Cuba, or Chavez's populist rule, as somehow any better to the crushing economic injustice they would suffer under pro-Western dictators.

Yet today, there are still people who, because of Iraq, Afghanistan and the occupation of Palestine, continue to believe that the movements and governments which resist Western hegemony in the region are blameless when it comes to the treatment of their own people; that somehow the ends justify the means. This is absurd, and in fact by doing so they actually condemn their position to failure. One need only contrast the romanticised view of the Soviet Union with the harsh reality of life in the different soviets or the Eastern bloc countries. During the Cold War, it was to the West that most defections took place, and far more people died trying to escape Eastern Germany than Western Germany. The romantic vision of a noble popular struggle against a decadent and exploitative West just didn't seem to stand up to any close scrutiny. Here is a song from that era that captures this romantic spirit. Notice the dreamy look of the lead singer as he looks at some imaginary point on the horizon, unseen by the viewer, but evocative of a bright future, the promised proletarian paradise which would emerge once capitalism and the bourgeoisies have been defeated. It's a very interesting song , and it has a haunting and peculiarly Russian melancholy that lasts long after the song has ended. The fact that it is called the song of the Volga boatmen is no coincidence either. At the root of the party's ideology is a belief that it is rooted in the support of the common man.

The problem, as most people know today, is that the Soviet Revolution which was aimed at liberating the human being from the alienation of capital and the exploitation of those who controlled the means of production, was that instead a different tyranny, that of the ruling party and its supporters, came into existence. By the time the Soviet Union imploded, only the most fanatic still believed in the ability of Marxism to transform the world. The euphoria that greeted the end of the Cold War led some to believe that liberal capitalism had finally triumphed, and for a while it seemed that it had. Francis Fukuyama called this period the "end of history and the last man". But over twenty years later, you will be hard-pressed to find an enthusiastic champion of the neo-liberal world view. Yet at the same time, there is no clear alternative available. The resistance politics that has emerged in the past ten years has tried to find coherence, and failed to do so. In 2006, Hezbullah shot to the limelight when Israel failed dismally to crush the movement in Lebanon. In the Middle East, the resistance ideology used popular enthusiasm and support for resisting Western hegemony to seize power and strengthen their power base. The propaganda of Hezbullah is remarkably similar in its central themes to the old Soviet propaganda, albeit far more sophisticated and less obviously ideological. Farmers, old women and common people are depicted in this video,and the central message is that a great victory is attainable and just beyond the horizon.

This video became quite popular after the 2006 war, and shows the celebratory mood that existed after the thirty-three day war. Notice the presence of Syrian celebrities who show their support for Hezbullah and its leader, and we will notice later that whilst this form of propaganda was very effective in mobilising support against a foreign enemy, it was far less so when the oppressor was the Syrian regime, and a key ally of Hezbullah. The resistance discourse could no longer remain coherent when the army that was supposed to champion the ordinary Arab was instead shooting at its own people. Here is another video where the pro-Syrian regime celebrities are trying to garner support for the beleaguered Syrian president. We can see the same crude theatrics that were shown in the previous video, but by now there is a distinct lack of energy and enthusiasm. The application of populism to garner support against another segment of the population is a distinctly new development and I think unprecedented in any other region of the world. Similar protests were organised in Iran and by Hezbullah in Lebanon, both key allies of the Syrian regime. But the fact that a portion of the population is supporting a dictator in his repression of another segment of the population could no longer be justified as a form of resistance, as hard as a regime might try to do so.

It is this populist discourse which has been used to raise a reasonable doubt in other countries about the legitimacy of the revolutions occurring in the Arab world. By attempting to portray these revolutions against corruption and oppression as counter-revolutions that have been fomented by the West, the Arab regimes have successfully convinced many who subscribe to the ideology of resistance and anti-imperialism that the revolutions in Libya or in Syria were not worthy of their support. Crucially, there seems to be a judgement that the resistance project is far too important to risk being compromised for an uncertain future in which the people these regimes are oppressing can finally choose for themselves. In this narrative, the Arab citizens are deprived of any agency and reduced to crude pawns in a geopolitical game. They are mourned over if killed by the West, but a deafening silence ensues should the perpetrator be an Arab dictator who shakes his rifle defiantly at America. This is a reality that nobody can ignore for long, or justify.

2011-11-10T21:15:00.001Z

I've written before about how families and friendships have been torn apart by what's happening in Syria, but I feel that as much as I write about it, far more needs to be done to understand how something like a revolution could affect a society so deeply. In the past eight months, new identities and labels have been created and solidified. There are the minhibakjia (the "we love you" crowd), and the term shabiha which has become derogatory for supporters of the regime. On the other side of the divide we find the term mundaseen (saboteurs) being used, as well as mugharareen (deceived) which is meant to imply a misguided fool at best.

Where did these names come from? And how were they imbued with such power and significance? A year ago none of these terms meant anything yet today, families are divided over them. It is as if at some point two poles of gravity emerged, and something that had lain buried inside attracted us to one side or the other. I fear that whilst these divisions easily came into existence, they will take a far longer time to heal.

Is a New Syria Possible?

2011-11-05T22:38:00.001Z

Today I watched a man speak to the Syrian people, not at them, for the first time in my life. I like Bourhan Ghalioun and his speech today, on the eve of the Eid holidays, is an important statement and a media coup against the Syrian regime. In the speech he has promised reforms, honoured the martyrs and promised a future Syria in which there will be no torture, nepotism and sectarianism. The Kurds will have their rights restored to them fully, and Syrian citizens will be equal under a fair and just constitution. He also acknowledged the efforts of the Syrian soldiers who have defected, and asked the Syrian army to uphold its oath to protect the country and not a regime. He has also warned that those who shoot people will not be excused if they say they were just following orders.

Ghalioun emphasised that whoever kills his people, steals from the country's wealth, and that his future is a trial, and that his rule will end. This was a subtle warning to the Assad regime. He also warned that reform and a transition will not be easy, or quick. He has said that the council has many options, and that they have requested that the United Nations send independent observers to Syria. His soft spoken and calm manner is, in all honesty, a soothing balm to the turbulence and anger that many Syrians have been feeling over the past eight months. There was something in his speech that has been missing in discourse about Syria for a long time, hope...

Overall, I found the speech inspiring and it caused my skin to tingle. For the first time, I see a Syrian speaking to Syrians using clear, logical language. There was no rhetoric or tired slogans, and complete empathy with what the country is undergoing. Unlike the insulting and condescending speeches of Bashar al Assad, Ghalioun empathised with the sufferings of the average Syrians, and didn't insult our intelligence with talk of conspiracies and subversive groups. For the first time in my life, I feel that I could belong to a real country.

A War on Iran and Where to for the Arab World?

2011-11-03T22:57:00.001Z

Let's face it, rumours about a war on Iran have been so frequent since 2006 that I've almost started ignoring them. This year things feel a little bit different. The region is being transformed into something different and nobody can say what that will be exactly. At the same time, the old fault lines between the United States and Iran are still active. This is a little bit like having a sword fight on a burning ship, the fighting will be fierce, damaging and both sides might end up getting destroyed in the process. I find myself remembering what the region looked like in 2001. Back then Saddam Hussein was still running Iraq and an invasion seemed as far-fetched and unlikely as an invasion of Iran today seems. Of course Iran is far stronger than Iraq ever was, but that doesn't mean that they are invincible. It just means that the mess a war with Iran would create would be enormous and very, very costly.

So in ten years the Middle East has seen the fall of four dictators, the rise of Iran as a regional power, and the invasion of an Arab country. Syria had a young and relatively inexperienced president who was yet to prove his mettle, and - most depressingly - so many people were yet to lose their lives in the instability that would envelope the region. There is one theme that has remained constant throughout this very turbulent time, should a foreign 'conspiracy' be a sufficient excuse for domestic repression and a complete lack of political freedoms? In 2003 that question seemed so clear, political freedoms were a small price to pay for resisting foreign domination. Today only the most ardent supporters of dictatorship would accept the slowly-slowly approach to reform that Arab dictators have promised their people. I'm still of the mind that foreign interference is a major problem for many Middle Eastern countries, but I see this more like a body with a weak immune system and therefore it is more susceptible to infection. And the political problems we face are just one aspect of all this, the world is experiencing the largest economic recession in history, the challenges of life in the modern world are enough to make even proper countries struggle, so the effects of the recession on the Arab world must be catastrophic by now. There are so many challenges, so many peaks to climb, but at least some people have started the journey after decades of dictatorship.

The Year of the Macabre

2011-11-03T15:26:00.002Z

I have never felt death so personally and as closely as I have this year. On a personal level, and also on a wider level, death seems to be everywhere. It is almost normal this year to see the calm visage of dead people as they are prepared for delivery to the next world. Sometimes the bodies have not been so horribly damaged, other times it is terrible to even grasp what has happened to the unfortunate soul. But perhaps more worrying have been the videos I have seen of people who have not yet died, but have suffered injuries so horrific that you would wish them a quick and painless death. Whilst this grotesque orgy of violence that we are presented with has shocked me, it has also made me feel much more stoic about life in general. In retrospect, I feel that an adolescent rebellious streak within me has died. Maybe this is because, with the inevitable death of our elders, we become more conscious of our own mortality, and of our small place in this world.

On another note, has anybody else noticed how it seems to always rain after there has been a lot of death? I don't expect or want an answer. I'm just wishing myself to believe that this cold universe cares when we feel sad.

Where is Huda Ben Amer?

2011-11-03T15:06:00.000Z

An interesting photo from 2009, when the Syrian president met with Huda Ben Amer, a trusted Gaddafi supporter, on her visit to Syria. Huda Ben Amer proved her loyalty to the colonel when she pulled at a man's legs whilst he was being hanged in a basketball stadium in Benghazi, 30 years ago. Here is the article on a regime mouthpiece, the Thawra website.

The article says that the president congratulated 'Dr' Huda for her appointment as the head of the 'Transitional Arab Parliament', and they discussed the role that this parliament can play in Arab regional affairs. The headquarters of this parliament is in Damascus, and it aims at strengthening ties between the Arab countries.

It is interesting to see yet another connection emerge between the Syrian regime and Libya. What I find intriguing is how Syria, a strong ally of Iran and Hezbullah, is also friends with Colonel Gaddafi's regime, yet Musa al Sadr was vanished off the face of the earth by that same colonel. Hezbullah has no qualms supporting an ally of the man believed to have killed the founder of the Amal movement.

Now that Gaddafi has fallen, I wonder where Huda Ben Amer is?

The Syria News Roundup

2011-11-03T15:02:00.000Z

As I expected a few weeks ago, the heat is now definitely being increased on the Syrian regime. The fall of the Gaddafi regime means that media coverage, especially Arabic, is focused mainly on what's happening in Syria. I won't get into the details that are obsessing people who think there is a conspiracy. Frankly I don't care if there is a conspiracy against the Syrian regime, the regime has been conspiring against its own people for over forty years, and that is unforgivable. That's my opinion about this view.

The ICRC is seeking access to Syrian prisons on its own terms. This is unlikely to be allowed, but it's another way that pressure is being applied:

In an interview with Reuters, Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said that the independent humanitarian agency would assess its role after an upcoming visit to a detention centre in Aleppo.

In other news, Syria's envoy to the UN has rejected claims that a site bombed by the Israelis was likely the covert site for a nuclear reactor. I shudder to think how untouchable the regime would be if it actually did have nuclear weapons.

As for the Arab League's plan to stop the violence in Syria, it seems that the killing has continued in spite of the regime agreeing to stop the violence:

Syrian tanks mounted with machine-guns fired Thursday on a city at the heart of the country's uprising, killing at least four people one day after Damascus agreed to an Arab League plan calling on the government to pull the military out of cities, activists said.

So much for that then...in the meantime the regime's mouthpiece, SANA, has stated that 13 of the regime's soldiers were killed by the mysterious 'armed gangs' that they blame for causing instability in the country. The Guardian also reports that there have been more defections from the army. For some time now I have been hearing rumours that the number of defected soldiers from the Syrian army now ranges between 10,000 and 15,000 soldiers from various branches of the security services.

I don't know how true that is, as it could be an exaggeration to win support and gain momentum. Then again, we can't discount it entirely. The Syrian army is composed of Syrians and not, like in Bahrain, from foreigners. This means that it's far more likely that more and more soldiers will become disillusioned with the killing they are being ordered to do. Lots of guessing and lots of confusion, these are the hallmarks of the Syrian revolution.

War with Iran - Definitely, Maybe, Certainly, Probably

2011-11-02T18:16:00.000Z

Some interesting developments on the international front with regards to Syria. The Arab League has a working paper that is being examined by the Syrian regime. Allegedly the regime has accepted it, and on face value that means they will withdraw their killing machines from the streets of Syria's cities and towns. In reality I don't think much will change and most people I speak with are very sceptical. Of course the Syrian regime and its supporters still speak about 'armed gangs' roaming the country, and after eight months of security services torturing and killing people there now are some. The so-called Free Syrian Army is also claiming responsibility for attacks against government targets, and it seems that the level of defections continues at a steady trickle.

Anyway, you can read the string of events taking place on the news, but what's really trigged my curiosity is the rising temperature that the entire region is experiencing. The ballistic missile test that the Israelis have carried out is a clear challenge to Iran, and an article on the Guardian's website today speaks about the United Kingdom updating its contingency plans for attacks on Iran. Sometimes I think that the speed with which things are developing this year is almost breakneck, and when everything comes to its culmination it will happen so quickly that we won't know about it till it's well and truly underway. Everybody knows that a showdown with Iran has been in the cards since 2006. What surprises me is that at no time in the number of years that I have been following this story has the region ever been closer to a complete explosion of war. For the first time ever, I find myself hoping that neither side wins. In a region of bad guys, the only losers are the people.

Milestones in Syrian History - The Iron Hand Society

2011-10-26T00:08:00.001+01:00

When I think of the French mandate period in Syrian history, I usually tend to think either of the doomed defence that the Syrian Defence Minister Yousef al Azmeh mounted at Khan Maysaloon, or the Great Revolt of 1925-27. There were, however, far more attempts at making life uncomfortable for the French High Commission based in Beirut. Apart from the Hanano revolt in Aleppo, there was also an urban resistance that revolved around clandestine organisations which were based in the nationalist urban cities of Syria. One organisation that has captured my imagination is the Iron Hand Society جمعية القبضة الفولاذية which was the brainchild of an amazing Syrian, Dr Abdel Rahman al Shahbandar. Some people called him the Zaghloul of Syria and I'm ashamed to admit I had never heard of the man before, apart from knowing that there is a roundabout named after him in Damascus.

Shahbander was the son of a merchant, born in 1880, and a remarkably intelligent individual. Fortunately for his future ambitions in political agitation and resistance, he married a wealthy wife and this meant he didn't have to worry much about making a living. During Ottoman rule he stirred a bit of trouble, writing a paper which insinuated that the Ottoman presence in Syria was now an occupation, and having some very modern views about the law and personal freedoms. He had to make himself scarce when the Turks, under Jamal Pasha, started hanging Syrian nationalists, and eventually ended up in exile in Cairo. When the French occupied Syria under the guise of the mandate, he was instrumental in agitating and stirring up nationalist sentiment. For that he was sentenced to the island prison of Arwad, which I visited in 2008 and found to be crammed with tourist shops, unremarkable restaurants, and a very quaint and (by modern Syrian standards) non-intimidating prison. There is also a commemorative plaque there which lists his name amongst some of the founding fathers of Syrian republicanism who were also imprisoned there.

An interesting fact about Shahbandar is his strong friendship with Charles Crane, an American who was sent to find out whether the Syrian people wanted the French mandate or not. His findings, in the King-Crane US Commission of Inquiry report, were conveniently ignored by the great powers, but in terms of political ammunition the report was invaluable for the Arab nationalists. On his second visit to Syria, Charles Crane was hosted by Shahbandar and his presence was used as an excuse by the French to subsequently arrest Shahbandar and several of his Iron Hand co-conspirators. A cheque of $1,000 was found with Shahbandar which was used as 'proof' that he was involved with a foreign conspiracy. It is interesting to contrast US involvement in Syrian affairs before and after the creation of the Israeli state. I dare say it was almost constructive, but that was a long time ago.

The arrest of Shabandar led to protests in Damascus, based around the Ummayad mosque, which numbered in the tens of thousands. One of the protests was led by a line of women who, veiled, approached whilst ullulating towards the Castle of Damascus. The French troops opened fire and about 35 people died that day but from then on the name of the Iron Hand Society was made known and respected. It was now more than just an impressive name. Shahbandar and the other Iron Hand Society members were imprisoned for twenty years on trumped up charges, in spite of the eloquent defence by Syria's eminent lawyer, Faris al-Khuri. In spite of their best efforts, the Iron Hand Society's leadership were forced deeper and deeper underground until they were all either exiled or imprisoned.

The Society did, however, manage to inspire a spin-off, the Red Hand Society in Aleppo. Sadly, as with most things the Aleppines attempt, it was a poor second best, and they were nowhere near as successful as the Damascene Iron Hand Society.

2011-10-25T11:00:00.000+01:00

Buried unceremoniously in a secret location, the man who was lord of Libya for forty two years makes his exit from this world:

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son Muatassim and a top aide have been buried at a secret location with a few relatives and officials in attendance, a Misrata military council official said today.

The capture and killing of Gaddafi - let us be truthful and admit what really happened - was the closing chapter in the bloody civil war which toppled him. I think it was very unpleasant to watch and, though he did not deserve it, I also felt pity for the old man. I've read from some people that this bodes ill for the future of Libya, and that revenge and extra-judicial murder will set a worrying trend. Perhaps, and then again perhaps not. De Gaulle gave the resistance forty eight hours to settle old scores and eliminate French people who had collaborated with the Nazi occupation. Whilst we can pontificate about right and wrong, the fact is that Libya went through an extraordinary experience of dictatorship, brutality and a civil war. In such extraordinary times, things we don't find tasteful might be necessary for the people and the country to move on.

Despondent about Syria

2011-10-24T13:05:00.000+01:00

On days like this I feel the least optimistic about Syria. It comes and goes, but a feeling of disenchantment with the existing regime and the awful opposition threaten to overwhelm me at times. Where is this all going? What is to be done to get the country out of this mess? Nobody can give me a satisfactory answer. This regime has to go, but rather than do the honourable thing and reform it has, from the start, embarked on a programme of killing and repression that has shocked me. Many Syrian friends of mine no longer recognise this country they once called home. So many of us thought that the bad old days were behind us, that Syria was genuinely on the road to becoming a real country. It turns out that we were all horribly mistaken. I just hope that our optimism for overthrowing this brutal regime isn't as misguided and doesn't lead the country into an even deeper abyss.

The Syrian Update

2011-10-24T12:36:00.000+01:00

A lull in coverage from Syria in the past few days, most of the focus has been on the death of Gaddafi and the future of Libya, but of course there are plenty of people who are now looking to Syria to see what happens next. A point to note is how easily, and relatively unnoticed, a UN Security Council resolution against Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh was passed. Unlike with Syria, it seems that nobody cares whether he leaves, and in all likelihood we'll see him leave before the faintest inkling of change begins in Damascus. But that's speculation.

From Jordan, the American Senator John McCain warns about military options against the Syrian regime:

"Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military operations might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria," McCain said at the World Economic Forum in Jordan. "The Assad regime should not consider that it can get away with mass murder. Gadhafi made that mistake and it cost him everything," he added, referring to ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi who was captured and killed last week by fighters loyal to the new government.

This kind of talk surfaces every now and then, and it's been around since 2008, when it became clear to the United States government that they have lost Iraq to Iran and this was in no small part due to Syria's allowing supplies and Islamic fundamentalists to cross the enormous border that the two countries share. Frankly, unless this senator knows something that everybody else does not, NATO intervention in Syria is about as likely as Gaddafi becoming the next pope.

Ahmedinejad's interview with Fareed Zakaria shed some interesting light on his views regarding Syria. In line with the Russian position regarding Syria in the Security Council, there seems to be a consensus reached between the West and the Rest that Syria is to be a zone of non-interference. The Syrian people are alone, and the problem must be mediated, preferably with Arab League assistance. There are the first hints that a genuine round of talks between the Syrian regime and the Syrian Opposition will be brokered, probably a few months from now. At the moment the Syrian regime isn't hinting at anything, but it is interesting to see that they haven't ruled such talks out. Let's see what happens. Ahmedinejad's comments about Syria, a tad hypocritical, but then again I don't think 2009 was anywhere near as bad for the Iranian people as it was for the Syrians (with the greatest respect, of course):

"We say that governments must be responsible for the requirements and desires of their own people, the security of the people and their rights. And this is general for Iran, for Libya, for Syria, for Europe, United States, Africa, everywhere. And this is a general rule for all. We have announced that many times."

In other news, Syria appears to be strengthening her ties with Iran's Iraq with the possibility of establishing two joint Free Trade Zones. This is according to SANA, so the news must be taken with caution, as the Syrian regime is keen to boost investor and merchant's confidence in the Syrian economy. This story could just be a morale boosting exercise because the rest of the Syrian economy is in tatters.

A very interesting development is that UN nuclear inspectors are to visit Syria in the next few days. It's worth recalling that Israel bombed an alleged Syrian nuclear facility (built with North Korean help) in 2007. Syria's regime famously retorted that they will respond, "in a time and place of their choosing", and most Syrians today use that famous phrase to ridicule the Syrian regime's impotence against foreign foes which is in stark contrast to the brutal repression of the eight month old uprising that has engulfed most of Syria's cities and towns.

The timing of the visit raises several questions. Was there a deal struck? Did Assad offer this as a concession to the West in order that they ease their political pressure on Syria? We can dismiss such questions as conjecture, but when it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, then in all probability it is a duck. For the Syrian regime this could be an excellent opportunity to buy time, along with their attendance of the Arab League meeting which set a two week deadline (a week ago) to end the killing in Syria. Watch this space.

In other news, the African Union has insisted that Syria must yield on democracy. This is a far bolder position than they took with regards to the Libyan civil war. But Gaddafi is dead, I suppose, so the old Syrian saying, "feed the mouth and the eye will be ashamed" no longer applies. Wonders!

Finally, it seems that the US ambassador to Syria has "temporarily" left the country and gone back to Washington DC. Hmm...sounds suspicious.
That's it for today folks.

Twilight of the Arab Dictators - A Brief Examination of Failed Ideologies

2011-10-21T22:15:00.002+01:00

We are living in an age of extraordinary change, perhaps even more so than when we witnessed the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. This is because whilst the ideological component of the Cold War might have died with the end of the Soviet Union, much still remained the same behind the scenes. The game might have ended, but the players were still on the field, so to speak. Ten years after the end of the Cold War, Russia was still a key component in a bloc that found its interests directly opposed to those of the West, and a complicated dance took place across the world's international organisations as they frustrated the new Western unilateralism that tried to impose its order on the post-cold war landscape. From Serbia to Syria, across two decades and a war on terror, this bloc of countries continued to operate as they did during the Cold War.

What is remarkable about the Arab Spring is that all the dictators who have fallen so far belong to that old, Cold War era ideological mould of radical socialism and leftist politics. Each of these dictators took power at a time when such ideas genuinely threatened to change the conservative, liberal economic world order. Here I want to show that the dream which promised to liberate the poor and the downtrodden, itself became a nightmare orchestrated by the former champions who believed ardently, almost religiously, in the inevitability of historic change that they were embarking upon. By 2011 each of those champions, now ruling their own individual fiefdom's, became selfish, tyrannical, and anti-thetical to everything that they once claimed to stand for. The radical leftist politics of intellectual and academic circles in Western Europe. At the root of this politics was a radical vision of liberating the human being from the shackles of tradition, tyranny and oppression, and those who adhered to this vision found the strangest of champions to cheer for, whether that was Slobodan Milosovic, Saddam Hussein, or the Assad Regime in Syria.

Each of these unlikely heroes of the left found that they were able to maintain an iron grip on their respective countries whilst championing a liberation ideology and proclaiming that they were defending their people against imperialism and exploitation. Each of these figures appear to have genuinely believed that the choices they were making were justified with regards to their ultimate goals. But these goals became something vague and unreachable, and like the religions that many of them scoffed at, they ended up selling a dream to their people of a blessed utopia that none of them would see in their lifetimes, a dream that was meant to distract them from the totalitarian reality that was being imposed on them. In the West, an unlikely network of prominent public personalities continued to adhere to the strange liberation ideology which, in a way, plays the devil's advocate for these dictators. One need only look at the likes of Jacques Verges or John Laughland to see a trend of intellectual and legal protection provided for those former rulers who fall from grace. With Jacques Verges in particular, I am reminded of a truly existential individual who rises above the conventional morality expected by the average person in every sense of Nietzsche or Sartre's philosophy. Verges rose to fame when he volunteered to defend Klaus Barbie, a former Nazi in court. Asked in an interview whether he would have defended Adolf Hitler in court, he famously replied that he would have even defended George Bush. At the heart of their slightly leftist, mostly existential, view of the world is a harsh, unforgiving perspective in which life is seen as a constant struggle against a ruthless capitalist enemy that has alienated humanity, and in which necessary and painful sacrifices must be made in order to achieve victory.

The story begins with a philosopher in France, Jean-Paul Aymard Sartre, who, during the second world war, was briefly imprisoned by the Germans before resuming teaching again. Sartre was an existentialist philosopher who was heavily influenced by a German philosopher, Husserl, and his ideas of consciousness and imagination. For Sartre, the imagination was one of the foundations of a truly free consciousness and an expression of free choice. As such, it was this imagination which could be used to construct an ideal world unrelated to the actual world. Politically, Sartre had a rather odd relationship with Communism, joining the party during the Korean War, but leaving it after the brutal Soviet repression of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Unable to digest him, the Communists could never quite decide what to make of his ideas, and ultimately rejected him, as he did them. But Sartre was to have a lasting influence on the liberation ideology that was forming in the post-war and post-colonial era of Western Europe. Strongly supportive of the Algerian Revolution, Sartre once said that every single French citizen was collectively responsible for the crimes that were taking place in that country. In 1960 he went to Cuba to meet Che Guevara, whom he described as the world's most complete human being. Here is a picture of them together, along with Sartre's wife, Simone de Beauvoir:

It was Sartre's political activities, and his concern with liberating the third world countries from what he saw as the oppressive capitalist system of the West which form an ideal starting point for understanding the ideological underpinnings of the bloc we see today. Sartre held quite interesting philosophical views about the way in which an exploited and oppressed people could react to their oppression, and this was based on the 'existentialist' idea of bad faith, "human reality is what it is not, and it is not what it is". His most famous example illustrating this was of a waiter in a cafe. That waiter was eager to please his customers, submissive and helpful, and flattering in his mannerisms and words. The very fact that he was play-acting at being a waiter, for no person could possibly behave in such a contrived and artificial manner without realising it, was proof that he was aware that he was not simply a waiter, or object. In essence, he was ultimately free to do whatever it was that he wished, and he freely chose to objectify himself as a waiter, thus applying bad faith. But he was still a free being, and free to define himself whichever way he chose to be. His reality was that he was not a waiter, and though he was a waiter, he was not. This confusing idea of negative reality was to have far reaching consequences with regards to how occupied peoples were to view themselves, and it was to have a strong influence on the liberation ideologies that were spinning into existence in the radical political climate of the nineteen sixties. More importantly, his early thoughts on individual freedoms opened up a vista of radical reinterpretation of the traditional moral systems by which human beings normally judged their actions against. In a truly changing human consciousness that exercises its fundamental freedoms, says Sartre, there is no need to constantly refer back to constitutions, laws and religious or moral codes to justify one's actions, and each individual action was to be judged based on its own merits and justifications at the time. In a sense, this was a morality beyond morality, a demolition and existentialist rejection of the hitherto existing models of morality and behaviour that mirrored Nietzsche's writings in the previous century.

In the Paris of the nineteen sixties, these ideas were to have a profound impact on a strange collection of thinkers and future political leaders who would come to define third world politics for decades to come. Like many philosophers, Sartre analysed and was influenced to a certain extent by the thought of Martin Heidegger, whose horrendously complicated thought and in particular his theory of being we will, thankfully, not relate here. Of marginal note is that Martin Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party during the war, and is alleged never to have apologised or renounced his support for the party, or things that he had said about Adolf Hitler. Ideologically motivated commentators of the radical left and the existentialists would be quick to try and draw a line between Nazism and Iranian Islamic political philosophy or the radical leftist, and socialist -style third world countries that were particularly opposed to Israel. I think that is intellectually dishonest although I cannot discount it entirely. Regardless, Sartre was in fact very enthusiastic about the creation of the state of Israel, calling it the crowning of the Jews' sufferings and their 'heroic struggle' and a step towards a humanity where "the future of man is man". I would, therefore, hardly call Sartre a closet Nazi.

One person who was heavily influenced by Sartre was the psychiatrist and physician Frantz Fanon. Fanon had fought for the French in the second world war and was profoundly affected by the racism he saw and experienced both before and during that period. As a member of the FLN he was actively involved with the Algerian Revolution and was exiled for his activities. His most important work, the "Wretched of the Earth", was widely distributed and originally banned in France. In it, he advocated the use of violence by peoples who were suffering under colonialism, arguing that violence as a means to an end was justified completely in the struggle against an oppressor and occupier who was inherently violent and relied on military might to maintain their occupation. It was this ruthless approach of meeting fire with fire that charged the FLN's struggle for independence, portrayed critically in the famous film, "The Battle of Algiers", which depicts a bomb exploding in a packed cafe, and numerous attacks upon civilians. Fanon was honoured by being buried in Algeria, where his family continued to live. Today, Algeria is dominated by the same generals who were central in the FLN's struggle against French colonial rule, however, their iron-fisted control of the country and corrupt rule are typical of everything that Sartre had also found wrong with the Soviet Union. In a sense, the same structures which were intended to liberate the peoples became themselves an instrument of their oppression, and often in crueller and more intolerable ways. In the nineties of the last century, Algeria was subjected to a vicious civil war in which the government forces applied a brutal policy of extermination and terror in order to stamp out the Islamists who had won the elections. In Algeria today, an Orwellian 1984-esque regime exists, where the 'disappeared' are not just taken away forever, but their official records, from school attendance to their identity cards and birth certificates, are purged completely. The 'country of a million martyrs' lives under a system that is as brutal and inhuman as anything its people had experienced under French rule. It was almost as if, unsure of what to do after acquiring independence, the new rulers of Algeria gave up on the idea of liberation and instead sought to exist simply to maintain power and accumulate wealth.

The Palestinian cause as it came to be expressed through the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and other radical leftist spin-offs could all directly be traced back to the radical, Fanonite thought, which helped the Palestinian people put the occupation of their land in perspective, and also inspired them to carry out numerous attacks and bombings throughout the world against targets that they deemed to be legitimate in their final struggle to liberate Palestine. Ironically, the Palestinian cause resulted in some very strange bedfellows for the Palestinians, from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, to Assad's Syria, to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and, most recently, Iran and its patronage of Hamas. This brings us to the next point of interest in the chain of thought that began, or more accurately, was influenced heavily, by Sartre's philosophy.

Another person who was influenced by the Third World Socialist movement that had its heart in nineteen sixties France was a fascinating, and little mentioned, professor and intellectual by the name of Ali Shariati. The son of an Islamic scholar and exposed during his time at university in Iran to Western philosophical ideas, Shariati was profoundly affected by existentialist and Sartrian ideas of a liberated personality, free from the shackles of oppression and control, which would redefine itself in a brave new world. Shariati, coming from a Shia Islamic perspective, excitedly applied these ideas to Islam itself, arguing that Muslims who awaited the arrival of the Islamic "Mahdi" a saviour of sorts who would right the wrongs of the world along with the returned Messiah, were mistaken, and that they were actively supposed to fight oppression and injustice throughout the world. He called his brand of Islam, "Red Shiism", as opposed to the clerical, conservative and stagnant "Black Shiism" that was predominant in his time. Shariati believed that, "every day was Ashoura; every day was Karbbalah" and a Muslim was obligated to actively fight against oppression. Building on the existing idea of "Occidentosis" (Gharbzadigeh) he sought to purge his fellow Iranian Muslims from the cultural and mental oppression that he believed had afflicted them from the West. Most profoundly he would translate Fanon's the "Wretched of the Earth" into Persian where it would go on to have an enormous affect on Iranian revolutionaries who were struggling to overthrow the Shah, a staunch Western ally and enormously corrupt ruler of Iran.

Amongst these revolutionaries was a religious scholar and leader by the name of Ayatollah Khomeini, who not only absorbed the ideas of the oppressors and the oppressed into an Islamic discourse, but also applied the same vicious methods to ensure that the revolution which overthrew the Shah was to be an "Islamic" revolution, and not an atheist, leftist one. His former leftist allies were, one by one, arrested, imprisoned, and forced to "confess" their betrayals on television, before they were duly hung or shot. Shariati died before the revolution could materialise, and was buried in the Sayideh Zeinab cemetary in Damascus, Syria. Today, Syria under the Alawite Assad regime has been a staunch ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran almost from its inception, and at the time of writing, this regime is reported to have killed or imprisoned thousands of Syrians who have been protesting for greater political freedoms.

The Syrian Baathist ideology, though not related to the Sartre school of thought, did have its ideological beginnings in Western European positivist thinking, and interestingly both Salah al Din Bitar and Michel Aflaq both studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, like Shariati. The central premise of Baathism was that a resurrection of the Arab nation was long over due, and needed to be strived for in order for the Arabs to take their rightful place back in history. It was a strange mix of socialism and Arab nationalism, and it was based on the fundamental belief that in order for the Arab nation to be resurrected from the ashes, a new kind of Arab consciousness needed to be created that transcended the tribal, ethnic and religious baggage of the Arab regions. Being the radical challenge to conservatism that it was, it found its most enthusiastic support in the villages and rural areas of Syria and, later, Iraq. As a result of the peculiarities of the post-colonial Middle East, the Baathists eventually found themselves first in control of the military and then, almost inevitably, in control of the government. What happened next was a radical transformation of society and education along lines that were similar to Eastern bloc communist countries, and with whom the Baathists found much affinity, though they would repress communist parties in their own country. As a result, Syria found itself in the same political current, albeit via a slightly different route, and found that there was already an international political system to which it could integrate without being dominated by the West.

But Shariati's influence was not just limited to Iran, as another prominent Iranian cleric was also heavily influenced by his liberation ideology imbued into Shia Islam. This cleric was Moussa al Sadr, an Iranian who settled in the predominantly Shiite south of Lebanon, and who would electrify those who came into contact with him into organisation and action. In 1974 he formed the "Movement of the Deprived" which, as the country descended into civil war, developed an armed movement that is today referred to as Amal. It was from Amal that a disaffected and more fundamentally Islamic organisation was formed, in order to fight against the Israeli army which invaded Lebanon in 1982. This organisation was called Hezbullah, and the reason that many of the former Amal members, including its present Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, decided to defect was because the leadership of the group had passed on from Mousa al Sadr to the more secular and pragmatic Nabih Berri. Sadr, in 1978, disappeared whilst on a trip to Libya - widely accepted today as having been murdered by Gaddafi's regime. The founders of Hezbullah believed that Amal had moved away from the original Islamic, but also revolutionary, spirit intended by Musa Sadr. One need only read Naim Qassem's, "Hezbullah: The Story Within" to see the enormous influence of Shariati and Sartre, filtered through the thought of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, upon the newly formed movement. Today the discourse of the "Party of God" can only truly be understood from an ahistorical, existentialist perspective that has rejected entirely all manifestations of Western political and cultural influence and has reinterpreted modern life through the lense of Shiite Islam. All of this, of course, was still far into the future when Colonel Gaddafi ordered the execution of Musa Sadr and his two journalist companions in Libya.

One would think that this act would have put Gaddafi out of this unique bloc of socialist inspired countries. He was certainly eccentric and unpredictable, but the bizarre Third Universal Theory, a bizarre mish-mash of socialist, Arab nationalist and Islamic ideology that he expounded in his "Green Book", was - apart from incoherent - a perverse and amateurish attempt to express the very ideas of self actualisation and liberation that Sartre was talking about. This was imbued with Gaddafi's own, schizophrenic twist, but it was a stillborn ideology from the same womb as the revolutionary politics of violent resistance advocated by Fanon, or the revolutionary "red Shiism" of Shariati. In all likelihood his ideology has already died with him, if ever it had inspired anybody, though heaven knows what kind of person could have taken it seriously. Still, the network of contacts and affinity, if one could describe relationships between such individuals and countries as such, shows a remarkable web of solidarity that was only slightly exposed as the NATO campaign against Libya progressed. A post-Soviet Russia, capitalist China, and most African countries, themselves run by dictators, did everything in their power to delay the fall of Gaddafi, and to shelter him from a concerted Western effort to have him removed. Ultimately that failed and his capture and death will, like that of Saddam Hussein, earn him the title of martyr amongst the left-wing acolytes who have provided the intellectual justification for his actions, justifications that can be traced all the way back to the existentialist and radical ideologies of post-war Western Europe at a time when colonialism was still alive and real.

The philosophical and political climate that resulted from the radical politics of the sixties produced the classic template for what would become the future archetype of the Arab dictator. Young, idealistic and ideologically motivated men would seize the opportunities to escape their impoverished backgrounds and attempt to level the playing field for future generations. The death of Gaddafi has motivated and united this bloc of 'radical' countries in a way that their hostility with the West never could. When the seat of their power was itself at threat, the ruthlessness that they had achieved power with was used once again in order to maintain it. But it seems that they are only fighting off the inevitable. This is because as they and their revolutions grew older, more jaded, and as corrupt and oppressive as the systems they once sought to replace, they transformed their countries into personal ranches, and unwittingly became the dry straw that would ignite as the frustration of their people sparked. Granted, an unprecedented economic recession proved the catalyst, but a long simmering resentment of their failed promises and now empty slogans meant that a revolution was long overdue.

What is remarkable about the Arab Spring is that, for the first time in that region's history, the people themselves have taken to the street in revolutions that can be called neither capitalist nor communist, and are 'Islamic' only by an enormous stretch of the imagination. The radical politics of the nineteen sixties can be said to truly be running their course today, and these exhausted ideologies of a previous age are now being rejected by the disillusioned people who believed that its champions could free them and improve their lives. From the streets of Paris to the various Arab capitals, this radical liberation ideology has been adapted, twisted and manipulated into the present regimes we see today. The gradual fall of each marks the twilight of the Arab dictators and the failure of the radical politics which have defined the Middle East for over half a century. The real question is that if conservatism and radicalism have each, in turn, failed to deliver for the region, then what next?

The End of an Era - Spaghetti Dictatorships?

2011-10-20T22:39:00.002+01:00

I'm in a good mood tonight, so I'll post something a little bit light-hearted for a change.

Whether it's Ali Abdullah Saleh, Muammar al Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein, the Arab world's dictators are like something out of a Spaghetti Western. They lived fast, took what they could, and were merciless to their enemies and friends alike. Their time is ending, but spare a thought to these hapless heroes as they blasted and plundered their way across the twentieth century, mixing ideology with religion, philosophy and revolutionary spirit. They believed in nothing but power and money, yet at times their villainous visages and buffoonish defiance in the face of history made them almost endearing, and possibly even martyrs for some people. For that, I suggest we call them the "Spaghetti Dictators". From golden handguns and Kalashnikovs to pet tigers and chemical weapons, I have to say that the Arab world has created some of the most colourful and interesting dictators in history. I mean if you want to be a tyrant there's no reason why you can't have fun along the way, right?

Here is a short soundtrack to that thought, and if you watch the video below closely, you could almost imagine our Arab dictators fitting in perfectly with these big screen villains.

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

The Death of a Villain

2011-10-20T22:06:00.001+01:00

He was the archetype of the Middle Eastern dictator. Festooned with medals, dashing in his fashions, and eccentric in his behaviour, who else in the world had an entourage of Amazons to protect him? And what other Arab "leader" enlivened the utterly boring Arab League meetings with the colourful denunciations and insults that Colonel Muammar al Gadaffi used? There is something of the endearing fool about Gaddafi that made us all (apart from the Libyan people) like him. But he was murderous as well as buffoonish, though not a stupid man. He also knew what human nature was and how best to manipulate and bring out the worst in it. Unfortunately for him that was also his downfall, because he thought he could crush his people like rats, that by using overwhelming force he could stamp his people back into submission using terror, torture and fear.

Tonight, I think far more people will be happy that he is dead than not, and whilst I'm a bit old fashioned and don't like talking ill of the dead, I will say that seeing his body dragged like a dog's over the earth was poetic justice for forty two years of oppression, tyranny and untold cruelty.

Why Mirrors Might be Banned in Syria One Day

2011-10-19T22:41:00.002+01:00

So let me get this straight. First the Assad loyalists insisted that nothing unusual was happening in Syria and that this was all a conspiracy by the international media to manufacture a revolution. Then they insisted that there are armed salafist groups running around destroying, pillaging and looting. Then they said that Syria's two biggest allies in the region (after Iran, Hezbullah and Hamas), Qatar and Turkey, were fomenting a revolution. Then they ransacked the Qatari embassy. Then they said sorry to Qatar but Qatar wasn't interested. Then all of a sudden they remembered the Alexandretta province, ceded during the time of the French Mandate in Syria, but conveniently forgotten for the past ten years as they cuddled up to Erdogan, watched Turkish drama series and took their cheap holidays to Istanbul. Oh, and at first they blamed the Saudis and Bandar bin Sultan, but now they don't mention that anymore. They also remembered the Golan Heights after it has been occupied by the Israelis for forty years, and decided to stage a 'spontaneous' demonstration at the borders, but then they decided that was a bad idea after the Israelis shot over twenty of them dead, and the Syrian army didn't fire a single shot to protect them.

Now they believe that the Arab League is also part of this conspiracy, and condemn the Arab League for trying to promote internal dialogue between the regime and the opposition. Finally, they say that the West is conspiring against Syria. But they neglect to mention that the West, in all fairness, has always been conspiring against Syria. So instead they say that the entire Arab Spring was planned all the way back in 2001. These are the same people who will tell their friends knowingly about a Masonic, Zionist, Imperialist conspiracy to rule the world, and that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real, and that the Youtube video, "The Arrivals" is a serious exposé, nay, that it is even a documentary. They will also tell you that all Jewish office workers were told not to show up to work at the World Trade Centre on 9/11, and they will say that Bin Laden doesn't exist and is an American agent. Now, we're supposed to believe them about what is happening in Syria because they say so.

The Assadists always ask," so who is killing all the members of the security services that have died", but they never ask, "who killed Hamza al Khatib, or Ibrahim al Qashoosh", or thousands of others like them. They also never ask why thousands of Syrians have been arrested, and they never ask why torture is routine in Syrian prisons, and they never ask why peaceful demonstrators in the heart of Damascus or Aleppo get attacked by thugs with sticks, knives and electric batons.

I find myself wondering, what is wrong with these people? That they refuse to see what is before their very eyes. It is not an excuse to say we were ordered to do so, and it is no excuse to say that we were forced to support the murderers. I know of people who were not ordered, were not forced, and are not intimidated, yet they are blindly cheering for a regime that kills and murders its citizens. The only refuge their lie now has is the fiction that there are armed gangs wreaking havoc in the country, and of course this fiction is conveniently protected by the regime banning international media, and impartial observers, to the parts of Syria where the army and the regime's gangs are being deployed. These twin pillars keep the apologists' fragile worlds from crumbling, and from their facing the reality that they are apologists for murder and oppression in its ugliest forms. As prisoners are released from Israeli prisoners in a dodgy deal by Hamas, Syria's ally, at a time when it is politically expedient to do so (to detract from plans to have a Palestinian state recognised) some of them will be exiled to Syria, and so they will leave a small prison cell for a bigger prison cell. It pains me to say this, but an Israeli prison cell is probably the Four Seasons Presidential suite compare to Assad's torture chambers. The supporters of Assad will not allow themselves to utter such facts. Hell, I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror if I did what they do. Maybe they will ban mirrors in all of Syria one day as well.

2011-10-14T11:21:00.000+01:00

Gaddafi is almost, just about, nearly, and shortly and soon to be defeated. Saleh has, unsurprisingly, refused to step down even though he said he will do so. In Syria, three thousand people have been killed since the start of the uprising there. These dictators just don't want to take a hint.

2011-10-14T11:11:00.000+01:00

There is a "Great Game" that continues across the Middle East, regardless of the wave of Arab revolutions that are altering the region's makeup. It's a bit like two people sword fighting whilst a massive car pile-up is taking place. It would be ridiculous to say that they caused the pile-up.

News Roundup about Syria

2011-10-12T16:40:00.000+01:00

In an interview with The Associated Press, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States would continue to pressure long-time leaders to leave power in Syria and Yemen, and ensure chaos is averted in Egypt, where demonstrators have succeeded in ousting an autocrat. But she cautioned against overly optimistic forecasts for how quickly each country could make its break with the past.

Clinton then had some interesting things to say about the protest movement that is building up in Syria:

“It is not yet accepted by many groups within Syria that their life will be better without Assad than with Assad,” Clinton said. “There are a lot of minority groups that are very concerned.”

Speaking about the Kurdish minority in Syria, Clinton said:

“seems to have been just a spark to the tinder because that goes right at one of those groups that up until now had been kind of on the sidelines,” she said. “As this goes on, I really believe there will be more support for change.”

Qatar Emir calls for dialogue in Syria

Specifically, he seems to be saying that the Syrian regime should sit down with the Syrian National Council and discuss a new constitution for the country. Judging by the tone coming out of Damascus, the response is no, to put it politely. It’s interesting how quickly the regime’s relationship has soured with both Turkey and Qatar. A year ago things seemed to be remarkably cosy, but Qatar seems to have taken a particular offence to the regime’s knee jerk reactions at the start of the protests:

Despite apologies from Syria, Qatar did not re-open its embassy. In August, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors in the Syrian capital “for consultations.”

Finally, speaking from Kuala Lampur, Boutheina Shaaban said that “Each Reform Step was Faced by more Pressures on Syria“

What is remarkable is that Dr. Shaaban finds time in this crisis to go abroad and lecture at the “Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations”. According to DP News, Dr Shaaban:

clarified that the main goal of the USA and the foreign powers is not carrying out reform rather they seek pretexts for spreading chaos to achieve their benefits through controlling the region and its resources, pointing out that the USA has used the veto more than fifty times at the Security Council against the rights of the Palestinian people.

This could just be a pre-planned talk, then again, it could be a way to explore possible new markets for Syrian oil. Of course that is just conjecture, but, as the DP news article points out, both Indonesia and Malaysia have strong ties with Syria, and Malaysia has been strongly opposed to any pressure being put on Syria. Watch this space.

In Paris, a Foreign Office Minister has met with members of the Syrian National Council.

“I call on the Syrian regime which continues to divide communities and brutally repress its citizens to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people who are yearning for reform and democratic change.“

At the same time, the UK Foreign Office warns its citizens against all but essential travel within 5km of Syria’s borders.

From al Jazeera’s Nir Rosen, a very good article about Syria’s Alawite community. He points out that Assad’s cult of personality also suppressed Alawite religious identity, and that the regime is interested in maintaining power only for itself, regardless of its Alawite origins. In this second part, Rosen gives invaluable insight from the perspective of average Alawites about the regime, corruption and the protests.

I don’t know how this guy managed to pull of staying in Syria for so long undetected, but well done to him.

Finally, there are reports from the US that a Syrian agent, Mohammad Soueid, of Leesburg, Virginia, has been arrested on charges of spying on and intimidating Syrian activists in the United States.

[This post has also been published on the Syrian Pulse site]