14 May 2011

Today: We're Here

Today

Well, yesterday was not as bloody as it might have been … maybe, just, maybe, the government is sincere in its talk about wanting to talk … though again that might be a ruse to get all of us whom they haven’t caught out into the open!

They are even claiming now to be pulling troops out of cities … maybe they are serious …

And if so, why?

Well, yesterday proved again that they aren’t convincing us to be silent. All across the country, Syrian people came out in large numbers and said ‘enough with this regime!’ A run down of where all the protests took place looks like a run down of cities of Syria – and there were ones in little towns and villages and out in the fields …
We’re not going back to where finding 200 people at a single protest was headline news; we’re not going back to calling protests and being too intimidated to show up

The djinn of the revolution is loose and cannot be restored. All those who have protested know that if we go back, they will eventually find us one by one and kill us all. They know it too. Are they going to kill a million Syrians?

And I think not.

They also know that if they push much more, the army will break. All the units that have been consigned to base will come out. And while Maher’s boys might have the newest guns and shiniest toys, they are not the majority in the military by far.

They have lost the population. So, now, they can take a page from their mentors in the old People’s Republics of East Europe and start negotiating their end. Would it not be more comforting for those in this regime to be known as the Jaruzelskis of Syria than as the Ceaucescus? Their choice …
We, at least some of us, are ready and willing to talk, willing to let them go free and protect them from retribution when this is done. Forgetting their crimes is a small price for us to pay if, in return, we get a Syria free of torture, free of detention, free of Article 8, one where all parties compete for elections and the press is free, one where everyone is equal before the law and the law rules the state, a democratic Syria, the Syria we dream of …
Bashar, you have our email … we’re ready … are you?

1 comments:

William Scott Scherk said...

Amina, very good to see that you are still active. I have been observing the 'soccer match' at Joshua Landis's Syria Comment, and it is interesting to see the walls of mutual disdain begin to crumble a tiny bit. Some of the most bellicose Regime-friendly voices are beginning to talk in details of the reforms . . . a sliver of common ground opens up. Although the regimists still rant against the FabricatedBadRevolutionEvul, they also mention in their own words things like article 8, the need for free demonstrations, dialogue, party law, and so on.

And a couple of the more bellicose have said, "now that we are free to say anything." It is as if they are recalibrating their expectations. None but the kookiest imagine a regime without a freer press, real elections, a revised parliament . . . and free speech. This is the biggest indication that the tide is beginning to turn.

Please keep safe and keep up the analysis. You have many observers and well-wishers.

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