Do you think Syrians would accept that every other Arab country embraces freedom and democracy and we would continue embracing the tyranny of Assad? The world better prepare for that day of reckoning and no higher power, no matter how determined, will be able to stop us. This is our country, these are our people, and it is about our dignity. This is Syria’s love revolution.
Bashar al-Assad told the Wall Street Journal he is immune to what happened in Tunisia and Egypt. Just one fact should throw some doubt upon this claim of his. Every year, over 150,000 young Syrians from a graduating class of 300,000 begin their hopeless journey under a regime more interested in designing suicide car bombs, plotting the occupation of other countries, supporting terrorist organizations of all creeds and affiliations, and staying afloat through sheer terror and violence than to provide any comfort for their people.
The coming Syrian revolution will be led by two million young Syrian women unable to find economically independent husbands and forced to embrace celibacy (Ansa’a) because of rampant unemployment and economic deprivation; in our culture, buying a sheltering home, offering one’s bride a token of gold, and providing for your family at least one weekly meal with meat are essential to the stability of our Syrian society.
What do you think these young women will do when they find out that Assad has pilfered more than $40 billion from the Syrian treasury while their future husbands walk endlessly the streets of our cities? Syrian young women already know about the tens of billions pilfered by Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt; they are trading stories as this article is written. They will be an essential component in the coming love revolution and this is why Asma al-Assad chairs a women’s organization in Syria whose real purpose is to gauge their anger.
An impromptu large demonstration was sparked recently in Damascus over the beating of a young man by four policemen and the video shows clearly that the crowd refused to turn it into an Assad propaganda demonstration. The next one will be sparked by a young woman committing suicide because she cannot marry the man she loves. It is not a color or a flower; ours will be the Love Revolution.
But hardened policy makers and analysts around the world keep producing articles and speeches to sway and deflect from the deficiencies of the Assad regime and strike fear in our hearts that the Islamists are coming. We were told a similar tale in Egypt. It turned out that there is a template after all for a peaceful transition from tyranny to democracy, one that RPS has called for repeatedly over the last seven years. In fact, one of the subjects I personally discussed at the Knesset in June of 2007 revolved around a formula of transition that would protect Syria from harm by providing the layers below Assad the opportunity to transition the country while it protects all Syrians from violence and more importantly from the Islamists ever hijacking a nascent democracy.
The formula was rejected by some and intrigued others. The year 2007 is not 2011 and it behooves us today to re-open that file instead of waiting for Jimmy Carter and John Kerry, in their zest to pursue peace at any cost, to impose upon the region an order that would perpetually subject the women of Syria to the prisons of the Islamists and more importantly to another Gaza in the Golan Heights. These Arab Revolutions are crying out “This is not about religion but about freedom and human rights”, yet some still find ways to inject the Muslim Brotherhood on the basis of faulty analysis.
Say no to peace with Assad
There is nothing in common between the gray-haired, bearded men screaming for Israel’s destruction and the young Arab man on the street screaming for economic justice and equality and the Islamist formula, which has tested badly in many parts of the world, will certainly not sway our youths from their determination to sing Britney Spears, watch Hollywood on-demand movies, and marry on their own terms. The Islamists are organized, but popular they are not.
These Arab revolutions are not about the Palestinians, land swaps, peace, Jerusalem, settlements, or even water. It’s about our freedom, our dignity, and our future. The dictators kept pointing to Jerusalem but the youths in the Arab world kept pointing to the food on their tables. Who would have thought Jerusalem would cause the downfall of tyrants?
Peace is magical but selling a signed document with a dictator as peace is unconscionable. The peace Israelis want and we Syrians need can only happen if we agree to it in a train station already linking Damascus to Jerusalem. No paper, no ceremony, and no intent will bring glory to those in pursuit of peace unless its purpose is perpetually guaranteed by mechanisms supported by democratic institutions. Real peace can only happen between two free peoples, equally motivated by their economic and social needs. Democracy in Syria is the path to real peace.
Arab and Farsi dissidents seeking freedom, democracy, human rights and the respect of the law in their own countries were called dreamers. With these revolutions, it turned out we are the realists. We know the root cause of the ills of our societies and they are certainly not resolved by sending a US ambassador to Damascus to legitimize terror and oppression against our people, or by seeking peace with our violent dictator, or by empowering Islamists as some US senators are doing. In light of what is going on today, how unwise are these decisions?
A free and democratic Syria is the antidote to the violence Assad has been procreating and will continue to procreate for generations to come. The opportunity is here, the tide is on the right side of history; let us both not waste it again by fantasizing over peace with Assad.
COMMENTS
Dear Mr Ghadry
I find your notion of young women as a driving force for revolution very intriguing. I am currently looking for an interesting research topic that links to the mounting opposition in Syria and was therefore wondering if there exists some literature on this topic already. Are there womens organizations absorbing and articulating the increasing resentments of these young women?
Thank you very much
S. Schmid
The very great change that occurred in the Middle East halfway through the 20th century is not often acknowledged. This ancient region had in recent times large populations of Jews, Greeks, Christian, Muslims, Armenians and other peoples and was evolving into a rich and promising culture. All this came to an abrupt disintegration with the advent of Nasser and his policies and the mass departure of these peoples. The region has gone backwards since with poor levels of economic activity, poor educational systems, rampant corruption, and whole countries run as family businesses by despots.
S H Cohen
(cohenshcohen.com)
Good observation. What Nasser brought was deformed Arabism not based on national interests but on centered self-interests and Arab “Lebensraumism” adopted from the experiences of Germany of 1933 whose goal was to again harm the Jews. What Austria was to Germany back then is what Israel is to Ba’athism and Nasserism today. A space to re-occupy on some historical basis. In Syria, we also call it Greater Syria but it is “Lebensraumism” in hiding. To reach its goals, Arab dictators must first subjugate the masses to obedience, so Nasser rounded them like sheep with his oratory skills and the Arab dictators who followed him drove them to the barn so to speak.
My father worked with Nasser in support of UAR of 1958. He later recanted and wrote a book on it called the “Black Book”. It was one of the first dissension against Nasser in the Arab world. The book came out in 1963 and Nasser put a price on my father’s head. It was the beginning of arrogant and violent dictatorships in the Arab world, which yielded Assad and Qaddafi in 1970,
These revolutions are about taking them back. But Arab dictators gave birth, as a result of their policies, to a dark horse called extremism in Islam and we must make sure this new evil, dressed in religiousity, does not choke us again.