Syria is a crossroad of past civilizations that saw the rise of some of the most industrious and innovative people of past era. But Syria is also the base from which religious battles have been waged and modern ethnic wars pegging two people against each other (The Palestinians and the Israelis) still to this day defines its politics and policies.
Many understand the underlying reasons of waging a cultural and ethnic war on the Jews, which remains centered around Arab tyranny intent on diversionary tactics and distorted history. As a proud Arab, my dignity is not connected to the fate or history of other countries but rather it is the result of direct self-questioning, self-dependence, and absorption in the delicate engineering of building a confident society.
We, Syrians, have a lot to prove to reach that level of civilized sophistication. As our country writes a new history, it is incumbent upon us to filter through the bad influences affecting the Syrian opposition today like a virus affects a toddler. The Arab League is not an example by which Syrians need to set their Litmus civilization test upon or sync their watches with to process and define their future goals.
In fact, the Arab League represents everything that is wrong with our region. What benefits can we possibly derive from the mission of an organization fully in the service of its ruling families rather than the people barely existing in those countries?
Syrians can and should attend to their national needs by developing a vision dependent upon the self-reliance of their people and an independence of thoughts and practice able to create the conditions for a Renaissance. This vision starts with practical and focused acts able to dispatch our message for the future we are building to bury our modern past responsible for our miseries and decline.
Honoring the Syrian Revolution should be our duty. The horrific picture and videos, the stories, the Blogs, the charred pieces of wood or the broken pieces of concrete, the blood-stained scarves or the the sounds of mothers grieving or children dying must be displayed for the world to witness the barbarism all Syrians experienced unfairly over the last half a century. A portion of that museum should also be dedicated to the horrific actions of the Iranian regime and the Russian speeches in support of a violent dictator. There is no better way to do this but by honoring the Iranian people suffering as much from their regime of terror and tyranny. We must also honor the thousands of Alawites who stood by Syria and in support of a peaceful future together. Their courage is as judicious as ours.
But we Syrians must also turn a new page in our history. A page that guarantees us a seat amongst civilized nations without trampling upon our national interests. For us to express the New Syria we have no choice but to build a Holocaust museum to imperatively educate our people about the real history starting with the reasons why Israel exists in the region. If only Syrians can see the pictures of the Holocaust horror and understand the barbarism of the Nazi party the way many Israelis see what Assad is doing to us today and have expressed solidarity with our cause, we would then be able to grasp the importance of a Holocaust museum in Damascus.
Our neighborhood is dangerous, full of violence, and revenge is most on our mind in defending our honor. But what we lack are the traits that embody humanity for others the way we overwhelmingly showed our human side towards the killing of our own people. Killing people, no matter the reasons, is very wrong except to defend our physical being. Allowing the Arab League to influence us to continue on the path of hate will only lead to accepting that the killings that may result from that hate is justified. That, in short, what separates us from greatness.
The Syrian opposition must show independence today by expressing revolutionary and forward-looking new ideas able to bifurcate from our past. Even at the expense of offending some Arab League members. Our civilization is thousands of years old and with all due respect to many of the people of the Gulf countries, theirs has just started and not exactly on the right foot because it is led by families with clearly defined selfish goals.
To express that independence and a future based on understanding violence, there are no better way than to build a Syrian Revolution museum and a Holocaust museum in the timeless city of Damascus, the seat to our industrious past. Those ideas must come from the Syrian opposition of today leading the effort in liberating Syria.
But hope is one precious commodity if it is to be spun around asking Syrians to define their future when western countries, in support of that opposition, see little wrong in the Arab League or have an inherent incapacity to see our future due to their own different history with its own influences and perceptions. We, Syrians, are the victims of a League pressuring us to imitate their wrongful ways of cronyism and favoritism on one side and western countries unaware of the dangers that lie in not just promoting peace but in their ignorance of understanding the spirit to really promote it.
Will I or my fellow Syrians ever see a Syrian Revolution museum? The chances are better than good when we defeat Assad. Will I and my fellow Syrians ever see a symbol of understanding what it means to co-exist and to eradicate hate from the soul of our country that comes in the most visual forms of building a Holocaust Museum? Probably not given who is leading the opposition today, the influence peddling of the Arab League, and the unconsciousness of the west with regard to the carpenters needed and their tools for this difficult task.
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