23 April 2011
Great Friday
Yesterday will be one of those days that will be remembered for a long time. Either it will be known as the beginning of the end for the Asad regime … or the beginning of the end of the protest movement. At least 103 people are known to have been killed across the country in what is being called “Great Friday”.
Ever since the Arab Spring (or whatever it will be eventually known as) began in Tunisia in January, Fridays have been both the deadliest and the most event-filled days of the week. (Friday is the Islamic day of organized communal prayer and is a day when most people have off from work). Syria’s been no exception. And this Friday has been the bloodiest day by far.
Reports from yesterday list the dead thus:
Homs: 21
Bab Amr in Homs: 3
Teldo in Homs: 1
Damascus: 3
Kaboon: 4
Madamia in Rif Dimashq: 9
Zamalka in Rif Dimashq: 3
Jobar in Damascus: 2
Darayya in Damascus: 4
Harasta in Rif Dimashq: 5
Duma in Rif Dimashq : 5
Al Hajjar Al Aswad in Rif Dimashq: 4
Ezra in Daraa: 32
Al Herak in Daraa: 1
Hama: 5
Latakiya: 1
Total: 103
Which gives only a small sense of how universal things have become. To the dead from yesterday, one could add all the places where demonstrations weren’t fatal: Baniyas, Latakia, Qamishli, Suweida, Salamiyeh, Aleppo, Idlib … and on and on … the whole country is in turmoil.
This is in strong contrast to the risings between 1976 and 1982 that ended in the Hama massacres. Those were geographically far less than general, concentrated in Aleppo and Hama, and were coordinated by one party, the Muslim Brotherhood, and largely affected only one community, the Arab Sunnis of the cities. The government then had survived by mobilizing not just the Alawi (an offshoot of Shi’ism) ‘base’ of the regime but also Christians, Druze, Ismailis, and both Kurdish and Bedouin Arab Sunnis (the military units that carried out the repression in Hama that led to at least ten thousand deaths were mainly composed of Kurds and Bedouin). This time, though, Druze towns like Suweida, Ismailis ones like Salamiyeh, Kurdish cities in the northeast, Bedouins, and Christians have been intensively involved. In Homs, for instance, what the regime has labeled as ‘salafi’ is in reality being organized by Christians and Communists!
If there is a historic parallel to what’s happening, one needs to go back farther: to the national rising against the French in 1925, when Muslims, Christians, and Druze stood shoulder to shoulder against a hated regime. To a large extent that is happening now: the whole nation is rising.
The regime knows this. And so they have begun trying to appease the people. The hated Emergency Laws were lifted this week. Other concessions have been following … and, in theory, we are now governed by the Constitution which states:
‘Article 38 [Expression]
Every citizen has the right to freely and openly express his views in words, in writing, and through all other means of expression. He also has the right to participate in supervision and constructive criticism in a manner that safeguards the soundness of the domestic and nationalist structure and strengthens the socialist system. The state guarantees the freedom of the press, of printing, and publication in accordance with the law.
Article 39 [Assembly]
Citizens have the right to meet and demonstrate peacefully within the principles of the Constitution. The law regulates the exercise of this right. ‘
Yet yesterday’s violence says that many in the state have not taken that into account.
You never issue an ultimatum unless you are prepared for war. When President Bashar al-Asad abolished the forty-year-old emergency law on Thursday and dismissed the governors of Deraa and Baniyas, he stated that there was no longer any reason for anyone to demonstrate. He meant that further demonstrations would be dealt with harshly.
So, yesterday when hundreds of thousands of us went out in the streets, we knew that it was now or never. We chanted for Freedom and the Unity of Syria but, everywhere, one other chant echoed: “The people want the fall of the regime.”
The regime, however, wants the fall of the people! Security police opened fire with live ammunition on unarmed crowds, sometimes even when the army itself had made clear that they would stand down. Where I was, in Damascus, the protests were massive and the repression was clear: tear gas, batons and rubber bullets flew … three died. Three lives snuffed out before our eyes and, every one of us knew that it could have been us. The martyrs’ list grows … and with each death, a hundred or a thousand more join the opposition.
And today, there will be more protests when those who died yesterday are buried: and as has been true from one end of the Arab nation to another, the funerals will be even larger and the protests will grow. We are angry; those of us who saw death yesterday are almost blind with rage (I personally am almost too angry to write coherently about what I saw). And if the repression keeps on, the anger will grow and we will pull down the regime. Protests will continue, no matter what the sacrifices are, until people here achieve a democratic Syria.
Our demands are that the government stop the detention of people, the arrests, the violence against those who are detained, the release of all political prisoners …we want a transitional period, a peaceful transitional period from where it is now to a democratic multiparty, multiethnic society that will be tolerant to all of its citizens. We want the laws to be changed, peaceful elections and elections that are fair. We want the regime to know that we do not want bloodshed: we are willing to work with the regime to gain a democratic future.
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1 comments:
kul al2i7tiram lash3ab alsuri!
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