Friday, August 19, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Warning: Angry and pointless anti-revolutionary rant
I'm angry... That's why I've been quiet for a while...
I just didn't want to share angry thoughts. Not in critical times like these. Then again in times like these noise takes over and I'm in no mood to whisper over the shouting. So I thought I'd give my self and my thoughts time to thaw. I thought I thaw... a pussy cat. Sorry, I had to do it..... Anyway this is supposed to be a serious angry post ... There's no room for Tweety... Or is there? Assad has a lisp, just like Sylvester, Tweety's nemesis...so let's start there.
Dictatorship must end in Syria. I already said this on April 1st (scroll down a few posts) and I stick by it for the most part. However, not all dictators end up in a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia or a hospital bed in an Egyptian court. Some actually, and contrary to what people want to hear, squash people's uprisings and rule happily ever after. It has happened in Syria before... It happened in Iraq... It happened in Saudi Arabia... Mubarak himself killed thousands of Egyptian soldiers and went on to rule for 25 more years. Sorry to piss on the parade, but the way things are evolving in Syria, in my barely humble opinion, is not in the revolution's favor. I can draw up a timeline of the "last nail in the coffin" references and they go back to at least April, hundreds of coffins ago. Sometimes the more people die, the more people die. That's it. Getting killed for a cause has been hailed as martyrdom in many cultures and ideologies throughout history, but even by that logic when death proves irrelevant to the progress of a cause, getting killed becomes pointless. Here's where a revolution resorts to plan b... and no, Hillary Clinton and Abdullah al saud don't count... If anything they might be the last nail in the revolution's coffin, even though they would love for nothing more than the status quo dragging on for a few months even years; "weaken the regime without toppling it", Michel Kilo's words not mine. Gulf war I comes to mind.
What's next? Well clearly it would be unacceptable to go back to pre-2011 status; although whether I deem it acceptable or not is irrelevant as it is a real possibility. But in order not to completely crush the revolutionary spirit, what would be considered acceptable gains? Freedom of press would be my first preference. Of course, that's a bit selfish as that would affect press in damascus and beirut, but keep in mind that Egypt's revolution was prefaced by years of struggle that gradually led to people wrestling out many platforms of free-ish expression from the regime. The ongoing Egyptian revolution did not start on January 25, 2011 and did not end in 19 days. Just think what Syrian editions of al liwaa and al bayraq (widely unread beirut dailies) can accomplish. At some point street fatigue sets in even if the people know their way around the block. Of course the word "reform" is as overused by the regime as al jazeera's eye witness and frankly it has not exactly built a reputation of delivering on promises but when you have the upper hand you can afford to do so, at least temporarily. It's just the way power dynamics work. To demonstrate how it works here's an untrue story that could be true... There was once a.... Who am I kidding? I hate aesopean tales with morals, but I must admit they can be a quite effective propaganda tool. There's nothing like stripping a picture down to just the black and white points that prove your point while ignoring the palette of shades of gray that might raise questions. It's my angry rant so I can go off on tangents. I can bring Tweety back into it, or I can just end it here and hibernate again.
I just didn't want to share angry thoughts. Not in critical times like these. Then again in times like these noise takes over and I'm in no mood to whisper over the shouting. So I thought I'd give my self and my thoughts time to thaw. I thought I thaw... a pussy cat. Sorry, I had to do it..... Anyway this is supposed to be a serious angry post ... There's no room for Tweety... Or is there? Assad has a lisp, just like Sylvester, Tweety's nemesis...so let's start there.
Dictatorship must end in Syria. I already said this on April 1st (scroll down a few posts) and I stick by it for the most part. However, not all dictators end up in a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia or a hospital bed in an Egyptian court. Some actually, and contrary to what people want to hear, squash people's uprisings and rule happily ever after. It has happened in Syria before... It happened in Iraq... It happened in Saudi Arabia... Mubarak himself killed thousands of Egyptian soldiers and went on to rule for 25 more years. Sorry to piss on the parade, but the way things are evolving in Syria, in my barely humble opinion, is not in the revolution's favor. I can draw up a timeline of the "last nail in the coffin" references and they go back to at least April, hundreds of coffins ago. Sometimes the more people die, the more people die. That's it. Getting killed for a cause has been hailed as martyrdom in many cultures and ideologies throughout history, but even by that logic when death proves irrelevant to the progress of a cause, getting killed becomes pointless. Here's where a revolution resorts to plan b... and no, Hillary Clinton and Abdullah al saud don't count... If anything they might be the last nail in the revolution's coffin, even though they would love for nothing more than the status quo dragging on for a few months even years; "weaken the regime without toppling it", Michel Kilo's words not mine. Gulf war I comes to mind.
What's next? Well clearly it would be unacceptable to go back to pre-2011 status; although whether I deem it acceptable or not is irrelevant as it is a real possibility. But in order not to completely crush the revolutionary spirit, what would be considered acceptable gains? Freedom of press would be my first preference. Of course, that's a bit selfish as that would affect press in damascus and beirut, but keep in mind that Egypt's revolution was prefaced by years of struggle that gradually led to people wrestling out many platforms of free-ish expression from the regime. The ongoing Egyptian revolution did not start on January 25, 2011 and did not end in 19 days. Just think what Syrian editions of al liwaa and al bayraq (widely unread beirut dailies) can accomplish. At some point street fatigue sets in even if the people know their way around the block. Of course the word "reform" is as overused by the regime as al jazeera's eye witness and frankly it has not exactly built a reputation of delivering on promises but when you have the upper hand you can afford to do so, at least temporarily. It's just the way power dynamics work. To demonstrate how it works here's an untrue story that could be true... There was once a.... Who am I kidding? I hate aesopean tales with morals, but I must admit they can be a quite effective propaganda tool. There's nothing like stripping a picture down to just the black and white points that prove your point while ignoring the palette of shades of gray that might raise questions. It's my angry rant so I can go off on tangents. I can bring Tweety back into it, or I can just end it here and hibernate again.
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