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Maysaloon

The Day We Broke Fear

Posted: 03 Jun 2013 03:10 AM PDT

It was a clear blue day as I walked to the square where the protest was being held. I felt frightened and nervous having been warned not to do this sort of thing again, but I felt compelled to do something, anything. I couldn’t sit at home and pretend nothing was happening when I knew perfectly well that people were getting murdered in cold blood. It felt as if somebody was hitting me over the head with a hammer, telling me to get up and go, as if I would never be able to forgive myself if I didn’t seize that moment. As I got nearer and nearer I could hear the sounds of chants carried to me over the patches of silence in the square. One turn of the corner and I could see the flags, the familiar faces of friends, and my heart instantly felt at ease because I knew then that I wasn’t the only one.

In those early days I suffered from an intense feeling of isolation and loneliness. I used to seek out other Syrians so that we could talk about what was happening and about how we felt. Before that day the tone was always one of worry and fear – fear for our families, for ourselves, for lives which will be upturned. We were always worried of that “report” that might be written about us, that somebody would have our names on a file somewhere and then that would be it, that we would be out in the cold and exiled from our homes and loved ones. What a thing to tell a mother, that her son was marked as an agitator and troublemaker! And yet there was that hammer on the head again, that drive which pushed us on in spite of our nagging worries to speak up and keep speaking. Something was wrong and yet many people wanted to pretend as if nothing was happening. Then I went to that protest and everything changed. It was my second and up until that point I had still been undecided about what position to take. What was happening was clearly wrong, but I felt that change and reform could happen if we made clear how unhappy we were about the heavy handedness.

As we all stood together in front of the embassy the atmosphere was euphoric. I pumped my fist in the air and began to chant, no longer concerned if the embassy was filming us. I began to call for the overthrow of the regime! In the space of a few minutes a lifetime of inhibitions and taboos came crumbling down. There was no longer any fear. It might seem strange to bring this up today, but two years ago when this revolution started the word on everybody’s lips had been about the “fear barrier”. People marveled at the sensation of no longer being afraid to speak their mind, and we would exchange stories about our own individual moments. It was as if, by shattering this glass cage, we were becoming complete again, like fixing that tap which had always been dripping or changing a burnt out bulb after ignoring it for so long.

In those heady days we felt as if nothing was impossible and that we were going to change the world. I remember standing in the crowd on that sunny Saturday in Belgrave Square, wearing a bright blue t-shirt,  jeans and trainers and singing with everybody at the top of my voice. Nothing felt more right in my whole life.

But then things changed. Videos of tens of thousands of people demonstrating against tyranny gave way to the images of deserted streets in derelict towns. Of tanks driving up main streets and planes bombing villages. The cynics who didn’t bat an eyelid for the thousands of innocents who were shot like dogs now nod their heads knowingly and speak of a revolution “hijacked”. They can go to hell. This revolution was not about an ideology or a religion, and it wasn’t about grand political scheming, it was about normal people who stopped what they were doing to stand up for what they believed in, and they did that even though they were afraid and, in many cases, would lose their lives. Injustice can only sustain itself through fear, and on that day we broke fear forever. This is what the revolution was about I don’t ever want to forget that.

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Might does not make Right

Sunday, May 05, 2013

 Again and again the Syrian revolution is condemned as some kind of foreign “conspiracy” that is aimed against the self-described bastion of Arab resistance to Israel. Last night’s Israeli attack against an Assad regime research facility in Damascus has brought out of the wood work all sorts of individuals who, silent in the face of the massacre in the coastal city of Banyas for the past three days, have suddenly found their voices. The similarity in the pictures we saw coming out of Banyas this past few days were truly horrific, and reminiscent of the images we saw from the Sabra and Chatilla massacres during the Lebanese civil war. Yet these self-styled anti-imperialists did not retweet and angrily condemn these murders. They chose silence and wilful ignorance instead.

Today they are trying to portray the Israeli air raids last night as an attack on Syrian sovereignty, as if that is not what Assad has been doing to Syrians for the past two and a half years. Apart from the evident hypocrisy of this position, there are also two fallacies underlying their argument. Firstly that the Syrian regime represents Syria, and that an attack on it is an attack on the country and its people, and the second is that Israel did this in support of the Syrian revolution.

With regards to the second point most Syrians, including those who support the revolution, are missing the fact that Israel hasn’t got the slightest concern about the Syrian revolution or the Syrians who are dying. It is focused first and foremost in its battle with Iran and Hezbullah, and has consistently stated that it will not let the more advanced weaponry in Syria’s arsenal falling into Hezbullah’s arms. When it attacks Assad’s bases and arsenals, it is doing so with a clear strategy.

Syrians supporting the revolution should neither cheer nor lament the involvement of Israel’s attacks on Assad’s arsenal. From a practical point of view it is very much an advantage to the revolution (armed as well as peaceful), as it is far better for the regime’s arsenal and advanced divisions to be obliterated than that they be used against Syrian towns and villages. We have seen the piles of bodies in Banyas and countless Syrian villages and cities, on a week so close to the anniversary of the Houla massacre perpetrated by Assad regime thugs, and these images will forever be engraved in the collective memory of Syrians. Never again must we allow ourselves to be in such a position, that Syrians be slaughtered like sheep in an abattoir.

To cheer for Israel’s attack on Assad, apart from being misguided, makes the mistake of siding with one oppressor against another. How different is it, then, that people would side with Iran simply because it claims to be fighting for the Palestinians? This is a fallacy, and more importantly the answer is not to wag the finger at Israel and claim that once we finish with Assad we will drive over and liberate Jerusalem in a Golgotha of blood. International law, human rights, and morality are with us as they are with the Palestinian people, and it is through this path that we can then achieve true justice for all and make good cause with good people across the world.

True Syrian sovereignty begins with us as people and not as a regime. It is when we realise this simple political fact that we can decide how best to champion the cause of oppressed people the world over. We as Syrians, and the Syrian transitional government should take note, have a unique opportunity to right the wrongs of the past, and to be a shining beacon of human rights and democracy not just to the Middle East but to the world. We can and should create a national self-belief that we are a unique mix of people who will never accept might as right. A Syria committed to human rights and the rule of law will protect itself from Israeli missiles and warplanes far better than expensive, and largely ineffective, Russian S-300 air defence systems. When we become the change that we have fought for so fervently, we will become far better champions for the downtrodden than all the divisions of Hezbullah and Iran put together.

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The Syrian Summary

Saturday, September 01, 2012

 by Maysaloon

Well we’ve finally arrived at a civil war, and no I don’t think that this was avoidable or an accident. It is a deliberate policy and gamble by Assad to hold on to a sliver of power. Reforms were always out of the question because the slightest slip would have spelled the end of his family’s grip on power. Let us be clear about it, this is one family’s grip on a country, not a party’s, not a minority’s, but one family only and with its barons and loyal core of supporters. Assadism is the litmus test upon which you can test the revolutionary credentials of the artificial opposition that is sprouting domestically. These smart suited and highly educated technocrats with their talk of reform and convenient focus on only the transgressions of the regime’s opponents never openly criticize or call for the overthrow of Assad. They have permission to tear the regime to shreds (verbally, of course) but the person of Bashar al Assad is inviolable, and the mere mention of his name in a way that could be construed – even remotely – to be a criticism is avoided.

full article here

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Dust and Blood

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

I was watching some footage emerging from Syria, and the violence is still as shocking as it ever was. In one video the body of a man is dragged through the streets, in another, a body turns slowly as it hangs from its neck. The latest footage making its way around is the execution of members of the Barri clan of Aleppo. There isn’t much sympathy over them, judging by the comments being made, as it seems this pro-Assad clan has been accused of murder, rape, and pillaging. Still, there is always something sombre and unnerving about watching a group of men sitting at a wall one moment and then dead the next. I remember the first videos I saw of Assad’s men as they butchered and rampaged their way across the country, arrogant and boastful. One video horrified me, that of a protester whose jaw was blown off and yet who remained lucid until he died – I think he died. Now that I see the shabbiha [Assad’s paramilitaries] being lynched by those who were once their victims I feel guilty about feeling guilty. How can I not be when I’m seeing another human being dying so? Even one who might have been so utterly evil? The laws are silent, and Syria is at war; is there anything else one can do but wait until the madness goes away?

When I was young I used to enjoy reading about ancient battles. Alexander the Great conquering Persia, the battles of Marathon and Salamis, the Roman and Islamic conquests, the Crusades – all captured my imagination. But the books didn’t talk about all this horror and savagery, for a young boy it all seemed so clean cut and glorious. As I see the body of a man dragged through the streets in revenge, I wonder whether it was like this when Achilles dragged Hector’s body around Troy, or when Hind ate Hamza’s liver. I never realised that death looked like so much dust and blood.

Posted by Maysaloon at 7:37 PM  

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The Never Ending Lies…

The first Syrian diplomat has defected, the ambassador to Iraq Nawaf al Fares. But some people will, as always, seek to minimise the importance of this fact. Let’s get this straight, this is a big deal. The people who work for the Syrian foreign ministry and diplomatic service practically worship Bashar. They cannot pass the rigorous inspections and monitoring to hold such positions if they did not. If an ambassador has finally decided to defect, then it is the latest in a series of important developments.

But firstly, here is a list of the lies I can remember being told since the start of this revolution:
1. There is nothing happening.
2. There are some minor protests, but these are isolated and not important.
3. Some people have been killed, it was a mistake.
4. People are getting killed, but it is because they are being violent.
5. There are armed gangs who are shooting at the security services – one month into the uprising.
6. Hamza al Khateeb was not tortured to death by the security services, and neither was his friend. Hamza al Khateeb is a rapist, he is not a child.
7. The repression in Bayada never happened, the footage was in Iraq and the perpetrators were Kurdish peshmerga.
8. The repression in Bayada did happen, and the man the regime arrested who was filmed disproving the lie was alive and well in a Syrian prison, to show Syrians that the man they hold, who was repressed in the town that was not in Syria, allegedly by the Kurdish peshmerga, has not been murdered.
9. The demonstrators are getting paid and being given drugs. Some of the drugs had al Jazeera stamped on them.
10. The demonstrators were waving Israeli flags.
11. The demonstrators were all salafists and funded by Bandar bin Sultan.
12. The first defection videos of soldiers are a lie, the uniforms and ID’s presented are fakes.
13. The first defections of government officials and high ranking officers are a lie, the men were kidnapped and coerced.
14. The people crossing the border to escape the violence were “visiting their family” in Turkey or Lebanon.
15. The refugee camps in Turkey were set up months in advance.
16. The women in the refugee camps were getting raped and giving birth to illegitimate children – five months into the uprising…
17. The protests shown on Youtube were filmed in elaborate studios and film sets in Qatar.
18. The people who were allegedly out protesting were really out to celebrate the fall of the rains.
19. The massacres in Deraa were committed by the salafists, the massacres in Houla were committed by salafists, the massacres all over the country were carried out by salafists.
20. It’s over.
21. It’s really over.
22. It’s definitely, certainly over.
23. The defection of the treasury official is a lie, he is an embezzler.
24. Seventy percent of the Syrian people want Assad to stay.
25. Assad has no interest in power and will leave if the people no longer want him.
26. Syria will have a democracy that will be the envy of the world.
27. The Syrian revolution is a conspiracy hatched by the Mossad, Al Qaeda, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the West.
28. Syria is the last bastion of Arabism and is being targeted because of its foreign policy
29. Syria is a sovereign nation

Please feel free to add more to this list, I’m tired and I want to go to bed now.

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The Silence is Deafening

Yesterday there was an enormous gun battle that lasted most of the afternoon and throughout the night in Damascus. Any explanations? Any questions by the esteemed parliament that the president of this banana republic appointed? Has the parliament demanded an end to the Syrian army’s activities in Homs, Deraa, and the countless villages where it’s passed through like a Tatar horde? No, nothing. They stand there in their “Sunday best” – or should that be Friday? – and clap when asked to clap for the man who has treated this entire country and its people like a joke. When all the voices are silent in a great country like Syria, and the man in the suit gives you that patronising half-smile because he knows that he’s got it sorted, what can you feel but utter contempt?

Yet that’s nothing besides the renewed vigour of those fifth columnists who did well out of the dictatorship; those young and educated, suited and booted, who have now rallied as a representation of an illusive “internal” opposition which – shock and horror – wants to negotiate with the dictator, and wants him to stay, “just long enough to hand things over”, you understand? Pardon my ignorance, but I had thought that the real Syrian internal opposition was the one getting shot at and pounded with artillery on the streets of Syrian cities and towns.

I’ve read history, in fact I’m currently reading Philip Khoury’s history of Syria during the mandate years, and I’ve never come across anything as barbaric as what this regime is doing to the country today. I grew up with that heady mix of nationalism and intense pride at kicking out the French. Yet the Great Revolt of 1925 is like a picnic compared to what’s happening in the Syrian Revolution of 2011.

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What Can the Average Syrian Do?

Posted: 16 May 2012 01:38 PM PDT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Kaff

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

Since the start of the Syrian uprising I’ve scene clip after clip of the Syrian policeman, soldier, or thug, slapping the prisoners. Maybe it’s supposed to strike deep down at their masculinity and confidence. The Egyptians have a variation of it, it’s when the same slap is given at the back of the neck. Each to their own I suppose. For the disgraced general, it’s the first and only landmark he need take note of before being pushed into oblivion, into that place from which nobody emerges the same, if ever at all.But the thug enjoys his power and he gets a kick out of it. He knows you can never be as barbarous as him, and he can’t wait for you to slip into his hands. I don’t care, he is all that he can ever be. My gripe is with the man, or men, who put him in a position of power over good people. I want to haul those men in their expensive suits out of their luxury imported cars and stand them before me. I want to look at them as they mentally rehearse their lies. Then, just when one of them opens his lips, I want to raise my arm with ever ounce of strength that I possess, mustering all the anger and defiance of every man, woman and child who has cried out because of this bastard, and bring a kaffdown on his clean shaven face with all the force a weak, grieving and angry man can give. I want him to feel that sting and quiver with injustice, because then I will be sure that he knows what his victims have felt like. But that’s never going to happen, is it?Source

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A Word On The Syrian Independence Flag

Maysaloon :

Several times I have heard people who support Assad derisively label the Syrian independence flag as “that French mandate” flag. For some reason these people think that this flag is a product of Syria’s former colonial masters, and that it is fitting that a revolution that they consider to be a foreign plot against the regime would choose such a flag. This is patently untrue and demonstrates a lack of knowledge in the country’s history. If anything the Syrian independence flag represents the best of everything that is Syrian, and its history gives us some startling insight into the present.

In 1933 the French colonial authorities suspended the Syrian constitution of 1930 and tried to impose an independence treaty that would have left them in control of Syria’s coastal mountains. There was an immediate uproar and widespread demonstrations and strikes. There was also immense support throughout the Arab world, with protests in what are today Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. This period of crisis reached its climax with the Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence, which was the first time that a treaty was made with a recognised representative of the Syrian people, the National Bloc, under Hashem al Atassi. al Atassi, who was the prime minister of the short lived Kingdom of Syria under King Feisal, returned to Syria and was made the first president of the Syrian Republic. This independence flag was made the national flag of all of Syria, including Syria’s coastal mountains and what might have become a separate Alawite Syrian state under the French.

The main goal of the National Bloc was to achieve independence through non-violent and diplomatic means, and they succeeded. Today the Syrian opposition would do well to remember how Syria’s freedom was initially won, and how the Syrian Republic had been born. The general strike that eventually forced the French to the negotiating table paralysed the country, and could not be quashed violently. Ironically it had its roots in an event held by the National Bloc commemorating the death of another national hero of Syria’s fight for independence, and once a prominent National Bloc leader himself, Ibrahim Hanano. Hanano had fought the French and led an armed uprising, with Ataturk’s help, centred around the Idlib and Aleppo regions. It was soon crushed when the Turk’s withdrew military assistance, but it cemented Hananu’s reputation in Syrian history, having already fought for King Feisal’s Arab Army. When the heads of the National Bloc were arrested by the French, mass protests and a strike were called. The series of events culminating in the Independence Treaty of 1936 can be traced from here, and with that, the path to the new Syrian independence flag.

Today that flag has been chosen by many of the Syrian opposition as representative of those who do not wish Assad or his family to rule the country anymore, and in it they find an authentic representation and nostalgia for a better Syria where life was not governed by fear. Cynical attempts by detractors of the Syrian revolution – in both its armed and peaceful components – ignore the enormous personal bravery and conviction required for any Syrian to dare challenge Assad’s rule and stand up against his injustice. They choose to simply see things in a black and white world of power politics and a West versus the Rest perspective. In doing so they deny the Syrian people any agency, and also deny them the right to make their own mistakes and aspire for a better future for themselves and their country.

Everything about this flag, the background of the movement that made it a symbol for Syria, and the figures that fought for it to become so, is steeped in principles rooted in a hope for a better country that is free and good for all its people. Should the Syrian people decide one day to once again make this flag Syria’s official flag, then it is not because the current flag is any less legitimate, but because the independence flag represents that hope. To describe it flippantly as a “colonial” flag is an insult.

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