President Assad claims his country is stable, but unrest is gathering pace – and any uprising will be more like Libya’s
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- David Hirst
- The Guardian, Tuesday 22 March 2011
- Article history
The Ba’ath affiliated Revolution Youth Union’s Dera’a branch – destroyed by protesters on March 21. Photograph: Hussein Malla/AP
In whichever countries it has already broken out – from Yemen, whose President Saleh is suffering new, perhaps even terminal reverses, to Libya, where Colonel Gaddafi defies the military “crusaders” from the west – the Arab democratic revolution pursues its seemingly inexorable, if chequered, course. But is it yet another country’s turn now? Of all Arab regimes, none more resembles those of former presidents Mubarak and Ben Ali than President Assad and the ruling Ba’athists of Syria; and, after their fall, his 51-year-old “republican monarchy” looked the next most logically in line of candidates to succumb to the Arab uprising.
Yet Assad himself begged to differ. “We are not Egyptians or Tunisians,” he said; Syria might have “more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries” but it was “stable”. And outwardly it did remain an island of calm, even as pro-democracy turbulence rocked other Arab countries from the Atlantic to the Gulf. But last week things suddenly changed. A series of small-scale and isolated but audacious protests developed into much larger ones after Friday prayers in a string of Syrian cities.
One, in the southern city of Dera’a, was particularly serious. It had been triggered by the arrest of 15 schoolchildren accused of scrawling anti-government graffiti on city walls, among them that trademark slogan – “the people want the overthrow of the regime” – of the uprisings elsewhere. It was a peaceful gathering but the security services opened fire, killing three. The next day a much larger, angrier crowd – estimated to number as many as 20,000 – turned out for the burial of the previous days’ victims.
Given the weakness and divergences of the traditional Syrian opposition, and sectarian and ethnic divisions in society at large, there are doubts whether these scattered outbreaks will coalesce into a cohesive, full-scale uprising.
Yet with the Dera’a disturbances now into their fourth consecutive day, this disparate opposition is clearly developing a serious momentum on the streets. There is a growing feeling that it could escalate into something much bigger and more decisive, with the regime’s own reactions – now consisting of the usual brute force with a novel, nervous admixture of conciliation – constituting the key factor as to whether it does or not.
If it does, Syria will, strategically speaking, become a kind of first. For decades Arabs have fallen into two main camps: on the one hand the so-called moderate regimes, pillars of the western-supported, Israel-indulging “stability” in the region; or on the other, the so-called radical or resistance camp – Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Americans and Arab “moderates” have forever sought to lure the Ba’athist regime into their camp, to tame it, or even bring it down. But so far it has been to their own camp that all the uprisings – and already fallen or grievously threatened dominoes – have been confined. Indeed, according to Assad, it is precisely because Syria was never a member of it that it would be spared an uprising of its own. His regime was chiefly stable, he said, because it was the true embodiment of the Arabs and Syrians’ “ideology, belief and cause” – essentially the struggle against Israel and western powers standing behind it. It thereby boasted a “patriotic legitimacy” that all other regimes lacked.
But this argument, advanced by a despot in favour of his own survival, appears almost as delusional as those advanced by others – such as the al-Qaida of Colonel Gaddafi’s bizarre imagining. The patriotic card clearly counts for little with the Syrian public. It is just a diversion from the real issues at stake.
And these are essentially the same as those that have moved Arabs everywhere else. Assad may be more personally popular than some of his counterparts but his apparatus of repression, led by members of his own family, is fiercer than Mubarak or Ben Ali’s ever was. “A Syria free of tyranny, emergency laws and special tribunals,” protesters shouted. The Assads are also as monopolistically corrupt as the Mubaraks were; protesters cursed Rami Makhlouf, Assad’s cousin and chief of the crony capitalists around him, and in Dera’a they burned down a branch of the cellphone company he owns. In this one-party state the million-strong Ba’ath party has owned the political process longer, more pervasively and more profitably than did Mubarak’s National Democratic party; in Dera’a they also burned down its local headquarters.
The regime has been trying to buy goodwill with bribes to keep key constituencies in line. But as for the people’s demands for freedom and democracy – there is so far almost no promise of that. Indeed, Assad has frankly asserted that he didn’t envisage such fundamental reforms before “the next generation”.
That doesn’t augur well for dialogue, reconciliation, or a smooth transition of power. So if uprising there is to be, it will be more like Libya’s. Never would the army and police leaderships abandon the political leadership as they did in Egypt and Tunisia. For them all, so incestuously linked, overthrow is simply not an option. For the regime they most resemble, and whose fate most surely haunts them, is that of the late Saddam Hussein and their brother-Ba’athists in Baghdad.
Categories: New Arab Voices
Posted on March 21, 2011 by Amr El Beleidy
Caricature drawn by Sara Abd El Azim during the revolution, Photo: Sara Abd El Azim (Twitter @lujee), http://lewjee.blogspot.com
In the run up to the toppling of the then president Mohamed Hosny Mubarak, his parasitic group in power did their utmost to keep him in place. Government-controlled media took up mass propaganda by fabricating stories and advocating the ex-president’s merits.
The loyalists were using a message they thought would make most people quiet down, a message that had proven effective in the past – the president is your father.
It was a clever card to play, addressing the strong emotional bond between Egyptians and their families. A family in Egypt is widely seen as the building block of society, and its well-being is the number one priority to all its members.
Individuality is accepted so long as it does not harm or shame the family, at which point they have the right to intervene. But who decides what is harmful or shameful? The parents do, and traditionally the father has the last word.
Children are expected to love their parents unconditionally for life. And whether your parents treat you well or not, it’s a given you must learn to accept and deal with. Honour thy father and thy mother.
Kicking your father out of the house brings shame to you before anyone else. The government maintained that kicking the president out of power, in such a dishonourable way, would bring shame to the people. It would be unorthodox behaviour, and the president should stay for our own good.
But ‘I am your father’ is a phrase that could be used to insult. It implies an illicit relationship with the other person’s mother, the most sacred figure in any Egyptian family. Every time this message was repeated, I became furious and was even more determined than before to make the old man leave.
My father was the man sitting next to me as we watched the news on TV, and no one else has a claim to this right. Their message had backfired.
An Egyptian anti-government demonstrator touches a picture of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir squareFebruary 10, 2011, Photo: Picture alliance / © dpa
There was a clash of realities. The revolutionaries in Tahrir square and throughout the country saw the ex-president as a man who is an employee of the people. They believed his job was to implement the people’s will. He believed his job was to will the people’s implementation.
He saw himself as our father, guiding us, with foresight and wisdom, through the perils of a world we were not ready to face by ourselves just yet. In these thirty years of emergency there was no room for discussion, all must obey. Those who don’t, risk putting us all in danger and must be dealt with accordingly.
In the end, the stronger reality prevailed.
But a revolution was not only happening on the streets, a revolution was and still is taking place in every home.
Almost everyone I’ve spoken to suffered from similar issues to those I had with my parents. My father wanted me to stay in and not take part in the revolution. He did not believe the movement would get anywhere, and thought I was putting myself, our family and the whole country in unnecessary danger.
While I managed to leave home and join the streets, some friends were not able to do the same because their parents stopped them. Others were able to join but only on certain days or for a certain amount of time, depending on family dynamics.
But succeeding in overthrowing the largest symbol of controlling and abusive paternity in the country means that the younger generations have now won a crucial bet against the older ones.
We are not going to accept absolute power over our destinies anymore, whether from outside the house or inside, but I suspect the latter might take more than eighteen days to materialise.
par We are all Khaled Said, samedi 12 mars 2011, 11:42
Writtern by: Marwa Abdelrahman (The martyr’s cousin)
The hardest part of a story to write is always the end. The writer sits and wonders how best to phrase their final words and touch the audience that is to read their story. The hardest ending to a story of all is when you’re talking about the end of someone’s story: their life. Harder still is to write about the violent end to a life. Words cease to become adequate. These words are about the end of one man’s life. A man who gave the ultimate sacrifice for expressing his desire of change like any human has the right to. This man was Tarek Abdelatif Mohamed AlAktash.
Tarek was 36-years-old. He was happily married with kids and had a wonderful job and a loving family. He lived his life according to his faith and values and always lent a helping hand when needed. He was a man you could lean on in difficult times and a man you could rely on to make you feel better when you were sad. He had no political leanings to the left or right and was not affiliated with any political party, much like countless others living in Egypt prior to the events that began on January 25th 2011. On January 28th, Tarek, along with millions of others in Egypt, took to the streets to express his want of a new governmental system and for change from the 30-year rule of one man and his cronies. Late in the morning he marched towards Tahrir Square to shout out his longing and yearning. He was full of life and vibrantly participating in a revolution, but devastatingly, by eleven p.m. that night, Tarek was dead. Later, it was to be revealed that he was shot in the neck by a 4mm bullet that severed his arteries, killing him instantly. However, Tarek’s story was not over.
By the morning of January 29th, Tarek’s wife had alerted his brothers and family members that Tarek had not come home the night before. Worry hadn’t fully set in for them all yet because during that time, cell phone service had been shut off inside Egypt so it was assumed Tarek had spent the night in Tahrir Square. By the morning of January 30th, with no sign of Tarek and no contact from him, his family and friends began to mount a search for him by looking for him in the local hospitals, expecting that he had been injured. Their search led them to the French Qasr Al-Ainy hospital where they were told that all the injured and deceased they had treated and received had been identified and that Tarek was not one of them. Needless to say, relief was the prevalent emotion, but its close companions were worry and the beginnings of fear. If Tarek wasn’t there, where was he?
The next chapter in the story spans almost a month and a half. From January 28th to March 9th, Tarek became one of the most searched for people in Egypt. His story was on local and international news stations. Prominent journalists in Egypt spoke of him on their TV programs. They even had contacts within the military and state security that they exhausted day and night asking about him and his whereabouts. The answers they were given by these governmental entities were conflicting and vague at best. Some claimed Tarek was being held as a prisoner and others said they did not where he was. As the days went by, the hopes of finding Tarek dwindled. Tarek’s wife and family left no stone unturned in the search for him. They became frantic, almost obsessive when looking for him. They knew that every day that passed with no Tarek meant that the likelihood of his wellbeing was jeopardized. The trips to the morgues and hospitals became more frequent and the calls to the military slowly ceased. Tarek’s family could do no more in their search for him. All they could do was pray and hope for a miracle.
On March 9th, Tarek’s brothers received a phone call from a stranger telling them that they knew of Tarek’s whereabouts. When asked where, the man on the phone told them his body was at a morgue. The jarring news hit hard. No one had fully expected that Tarek had died but rather, that he was being held prisoner in an undisclosed location. Tarek’s brothers rushed to the morgue and it was there that the ending to his story was written.
On January 28th 2011, at around eleven p.m. at night, Tarek was shot and killed. His body was transported to the Qasr Al-Ainy hospital and was ID’s as “unknown”. On February 26th, his body was moved to the morgue where it was found by the stranger who made the phone call to Tarek’s family. This stranger was there on March 9th to claim Tarek’s body as the body of his missing brother, but was told by the mortician that this was not his family member; it was Tarek Abdelatif Mohamed AlAktash. Why hadn’t he contacted the family, the stranger asked? He was told that Tarek’s family was repeatedly called but no one had answered. This Good Samaritan then took it upon himself to contact the family and within hours, Tarek had been found at last. His journey had ended in a morgue with a bullet wound to the neck; violently and ruthlessly.
Tarek’s family now must wait for a DNA test to undoubtedly prove what they know: that the body they found is indeed Tarek’s. This is typical procedure according to the local law enforcement, when there is more than one family claiming a body as that of their loved one. As far as Tarek’s family is concerned, it was their son.
The events that started on January 25th in Egypt captured not just the hearts and minds of the millions in Egypt, but the hearts and minds of millions around the world. The revolution lasted 18 days and claimed hundreds of lives. Each life a loss and yet each life was a gift to those who would survive after it. Tarek gifted his life to his country. On January 28th, he became the greatest thing a person can become; he became a martyr. His memory will live on in his children and his family and his sacrifice will never be forgotten. His death will be mourned but it must also be celebrated. Tears of sadness should become tears of happiness and gratitude for a man who cared not for himself, but for the greater good of his fellow brothers and sisters. It was what he would have wanted, and, as he now rests in a much better place, gone and missed but certainly never forgotten; it must become what everyone wants as well.
source : facebook
It’s a lovely day to be talking to you all in a Mubarak and NDP free Egypt. It’s been quite the undertaking, and many people were terrified, injured or killed, but we somehow managed to do it. Congratulations on that to all of us. Pats on the back, everybody!
Naturally, we (the revolutionaries) still don’t think the battle is over. The Mubaraks are still free, so are Fathy Surrour, Zakaria Aazmy and Safwat ElSherief, alongside with all the corrupt NDP officials in all branches of government, not to mention all the state security and police officers who spent the last 3 decades terrorizing, monitoring, torturing & killing those they were supposed to protect. The Political prisoners and detained Jan25 protesters are still unlawfully in prison, the stolen money is still in foreign countries, and the Minimum wage of 200 dollars a month for all Egyptians is still not enforced. There is also the matter of transparency of the government (financially & operationally and having the country run by civilians instead of a military Junta, a new constitution to be drafted instead of one that gives absolute power to the head of state, political freedoms to all Egyptians, enforceable bill of rights to all Egyptians, equal rights to all women, equal political rights to Egyptians living abroad and/ or born or married to a foreigner, freedom of the media, etc..etc.. I don’t want to bore you, but, yep, lots of work is yet to be done, and it’s taking far too long by those in charge to get done, which is making us unhappy. And Unhappy protesters usually protest. It’s just a fact of life.
But we are hearing that some of you are unhappy with all this protesting. We are hearing that you think we are kids with no purpose or jobs, who are currently destroying the country and the economy by all of our protesting and demands. We are hearing that you just want stability & security, and that we are not listening to all of you or your concerns and that we are no different than the dictator we just toppled. Please be assured, this is not the case here, because you are our people, and your concerns are the same as our concerns. We must admit that we are surprised by such accusations, & some of us are not taking it well, while others don’t have time to respond because, let’s face it, trying to find out whether your friends are killed or not, and trying to free them from being court-martialed in the new democratic Egypt, all the while addressing a the new referendum, and the issue of Copts getting murdered, churches being burned and such other sectarian strife issues that plague us, well, it could become a consuming full-time job. Our sin might be that we are so used to fighting those small (in your opinion) battles that we are not focusing enough on explaining our point of view to you and how we are on the same side. For that we apologize and we hope you forgive us. Now, on to your concerns.
You are concerned about the lagging state of the economy and the losses that were caused by the revolution and all of our protests, and you just want everybody back to work, without asking yourself how is it that our economy was so weak that all it took to destroy it was less than two months of protests, while a country like France has nation-wide protests all the time, and their economy isn’t collapsing because of it. You are also forgetting that that the other main causes of the lag in economy is the complete & total corruption in all government institutions (state, municipal & local), the military curfew that’s completely destroying our logistical operations and Tourism, the absence of Security (more on that later), and the total confusion of (the many many many) foreign investors- who want to come to Egypt now and invest- in regards to who they could talk to in order to come here and invest, given that the civilian government has no power and the military council isn’t exactly approachable.
You are concerned about the thugs attacking and robbing you of your property & demanding the return of the police & security, but you are forgetting that the police (who acted no different than the thugs except having a shiny uniform) used to rob you every single day. And about those thugs who are terrorizing you, who let them out of their prisons in the first place and then refused to arrest them? Oh yes, I remember, the Police. Silly us for demanding that they get held accountable for their actions. We should beg them daily- like you- to come back to work unconditionally after they betrayed their oath to protect us & put us all in grave danger. Our bad.
You are concerned about your kids getting killed by thugs (who, again, reminder, are unleashed by the police), but you were not concerned that they were getting killed daily by the polluted water, the poisoned meats & fruits & vegetables, the completely unsafe roads & public transportation options, the complete and utter catastrophe that is health-care and Egyptian public hospitals, where far more people die than get better and where any Egyptian would rather not step a foot inside if they can afford to go to a private Hospital (which isn’t always incredibly better). Lest we forgot, even the grandson of our former President died in one of them. But yes, the thugs are the problem. Our bad.
You are concerned that the Islamists are going to take over the country and turn it into Afghanistan, and yet don’t seem concerned with taking concrete steps to ensure that this won’t happen without impeding their rights. A good way to do so is to demand the overhaul of the Egyptian education system, the end of bigotry & discrimination against minorities in all job positions (private or public), the removal of hate-inciting Imams or Priests from Mosques and Churches, and in case all of the aforementioned are too much for you to handle, you could simply stand for religious freedom and equal rights to all in Egypt, especially Egypt’s Christians, who in case you didn’t hear are getting attacked and their churches are getting burned and you don’t seem to care. We would recommend you take a small visit to the Maspiro protest and talk to “those people” and understand the issues at hand, but we also should understand that this would take some time from your busy schedule of complaining about us ruining everything. Our bad.
We get it. We see how we are irresponsible. How we are ruining the country. How we are not concerned about you. We are evil. A cancer that plagued this fine and healthy nation. 25 Khasayer. You are right not to like us. You are right to hold protests against protesting and only 500 of you would show up on a Friday and then claim you are talking in the name of the silent majority. Those millions of us who went down to support those demands are only from every social class and religious background and from both genders. We are in no way representative, especially that the majority of people in Tahrir right now are now the poorest of all the protesters, who are told to go home & live on 20 dollars a month salary until we figure all of this out in 6 month to a year, and all of your Korba Festival buddies are too busy to go there anymore. You want the ones who are still there to go home and leave u alone. After all the ones in Tahrir now are poor. They smell. Can’t have that! Egyptian people are not smelly or poor, of course. Shame on them for defaming us all.
So, since we are such a public menace and refuse to listen to reason, I have a proposal to all of you that will surely make you happy: How about we take all those people who took part in the revolution and supported it, and give them a piece of land in Egypt to create their own failed state on? Maybe somewhere in Sinai, on the beach, say Sharm el Sheikh for example? Yes, give us Sharm and some backland and leave us there, so you can continue living your lives in Peace and stability. We will give you back the Mubarak Family (we are not big fans) and we recommend you give us all those people you don’t like in return: you know those annoying minorities, like the Copts, the Bahaai’s , the Shia, the jews, the Nubians even. Yes, get rid of the races you dislike as well. We will take them all. We will even divide the people up fair and square and ensure that none of us remain with any of you. Ok? Let’s start right now.
You can have Ahmed Shafiq as your Prime Minister and we will take Essam Sharaf as ours.
You can have the NDP and its officials and we will have all the new political parties that are starting up all over the place.
You can have Aamr Moussa as your ideal Diplomat; we will take Mohamed ElBaradei as ours.
You can have Zaghloul elNaggar as your top Scientist; we will take Ahmed Zuweill.
You can have Alaa Mubarak, Ahmed Ezz, Mohamed Abu Elenein, ElMaghraby as your businessmen, and we will take Naguib Sawiris and the Bisharas and all the other businessmen in Egypt who want to run legitimate businesses without unnecessary bureaucracy and bribing 18 different entities to open and continue to run one.
You can Have Adel Emam, Yosra and Samah Aanwar, we will take Khaled Abulnaga , Basma and Yousra Ellouzy.
You can have Tamer Hosny and Mohamed Fouad, we will take Mohamed Mounir, Mariam Aly and Ramy Essam (and we will make sure no one tortures him while he is in their custody).
You can have Farouk Hosny, and we will take the artists that the revolution brought out.
You can have the Supreme Military Council meet your demands on their schedule and discretion; we will take the Revolution Trustee Council any day of the week.
You can have a country where women suffer from oppression, sexual assaults, genital mutilation and honor killing, we will have a country where women are in all positions of power, sexual harassment and FGM absolutely not tolerated, and where one gender doesn’t see that it has the right- in the name of honor- to oppress , beat and violently murder the other gender. We won’t tolerate that happening to our women; you can do with yours what you please.
You can keep a constitution that got amended so much in the past 7 years and still discriminates against many Egyptians and gives the President absolute Power, and we will have one that ensures the rights and equality of all of our citizens (no matterwhere their parents come from or whom they marry) and where there are checks and balances against executive Power.
You can keep an economy that is plagued with inefficiency, corruption, poverty and Monopoly. We will have one where entrepreneurship is encouraged and supported, our country open to all investments, and our workers are guaranteed a living wage.
You can keep a public school system in shambles and half of the population being illiterate, and be forced to pay for public schools and private tutoring for your children. We will have public schools that are well funded and teachers who are well-trained and well paid.
You can have your healthcare system being a complete and total fiasco where apathy and complete lack of concern for the patients’ well-being is what defines it, while our public Hospitals will be properly funded and staffed and those who due to negligence harm or kill a patient will be held accountable.
You can have a country where people believe that being civilized is to go for one day and clean Tahrir Square up, while we will believe that true civilization is ensuring that our government cleans our street up and as for us, well, we just won’t litter.
You can have Your Internal Security services spying on you, arresting you indefinitely, collaborating with terrorists to attack your churches (if you will continue to have any) torturing and/or kill you, and your Police to bully you and blackmail you. Our internal security service won’t do that to us and our Police will protect us, will uphold the law, and, god forbid, reduce crime and put criminals in jail instead of letting them out.
You can have an Army that dictates orders to you; we will have an army that obeys us.
As you can see, what we are asking for is totally unrealistic and we are completely dedicated to destroying ourselves. If we are truly such a problem, we urge you to help us make that happen, so we can get out of your hair as soon as possible.
But if you are insane and unreasonable like the rest of us, please join us and help us. We don’t want our own state, we want to do this here. We want our Country, Egypt, to be the best country it can be. One where we all can live and co-exist; one where the state is healthy and functions and all are represented and have rights. That’s what we always wanted and called for, and we don’t know when that message stopped being clear to you.
We are not saints. We make mistakes and we are not above criticism of any kind. You have the right not to help rebuild the country, and you have the right to criticize those who are trying to do it, but you don’t have the right not to help and only criticize that things aren’t exactly to your liking. If you don’t like something, change it. That was the lesson of the Jan25 revolution after all, you know?
So please, if you agree with our vision, join us, and if you can’t, simply defend us. We have achieved so much, that it would be a sin to stop now.
Help us! We need you!
Sincerely,
Mahmoud Salem
(A Jan25 Protester)
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