SYRIA
Of all the recent amazing events in the Arab world amongst the best of all for me have been the recent events in Syria, one of the most sophisticated and cultured countries in the Arab region, potentially as cosmopolitan and vibrant as any in the world, suffocated under a cotton wool blanket of Chloroform held over the country by the Baath party since 1963. I think few things have humbled me and made me so proud of being a member of the human race than the sight of men women and children in the Syrian city of Deraa chanting “fear no more,” in the face of bullets and the omnipresent security police thugs. This protest was sparked by the imprisonment of 15 children arrested for writing freedom slogans on walls, disappearing into the vaults of the Syrian secret police for over 20 days. On the BBC World service a Syrian human rights activist described this as a common practice in Syria, including the execution of children, reaching a peak in the 1980’s.
This regime currently under Assad junior is incidentally the one praised by our old friend George Galloway in 2005 as representing a beacon of democracy in the region! Galloway recently expressed, in rather lurid language, on BBC Radio 5 Live the hope that Gaddafi would be hanged from a lamppost. Well though not a particular fan of lynch mob justice my self I wonder if Galloway now nurses the same sentiment toward his erstwhile pal Assad?
Things hang in the balance, but if the Syrian people finally assert themselves it will have profound implications in the region, not least in Lebanon, where the dead hand of Syrian interference has insured the crippling of Lebanese democracy, whilst in nearby Iran this emerging people power will not go unnoticed and will almost certainly give new impetus to the Iranian opposition.
This regime currently under Assad junior is incidentally the one praised by our old friend George Galloway in 2005 as representing a beacon of democracy in the region! Galloway recently expressed, in rather lurid language, on BBC Radio 5 Live the hope that Gaddafi would be hanged from a lamppost. Well though not a particular fan of lynch mob justice my self I wonder if Galloway now nurses the same sentiment toward his erstwhile pal Assad?
Things hang in the balance, but if the Syrian people finally assert themselves it will have profound implications in the region, not least in Lebanon, where the dead hand of Syrian interference has insured the crippling of Lebanese democracy, whilst in nearby Iran this emerging people power will not go unnoticed and will almost certainly give new impetus to the Iranian opposition.
