Heretical Democracy!

I was recently asked, both as “an activist and a thinker,” how I would choose to define certain basic terms such as democracy and civil society. Well, below is my attempt at defining democracy, comments and corrections are appreciated:

Democracy is a system of governance that is meant to facilitate continuous interplay and negotiations, both direct and indirect, between various interest groups, regardless of how they are defined, be it on the basis of ethnicity, religion, tribe, gender, profession, sexual orientation and/or age, within the framework of a specific entity, state and/or a region, with the aim of achieving: 1) a greater respect for the basic human rights and freedoms of all, 2) a periodic, peaceful and transparent transfer of power, 3) rule of law, and 4) public accountability. Continue reading “Heretical Democracy!” →

Euphoria Turns to Panic!

For all the blows that the Mehlis investigation has supposedly received and for all those commentators so willing to declare that the French and Americans have backed off for now, leaving the door open for a potential deal with the regime, the popular mood in Syria has grown grim once again.

The stories propagated by the “recantant witness” seem like distant memories now. Their chief protagonist seems to have already sunk back into oblivion. The euphoria he inspired seems to have dissipated all too quickly, somehow. But then, it was never really a genuine expression of anything other than despair. Continue reading “Euphoria Turns to Panic!” →

A Heretical Eschatology!

As the clock ticks away and we slowly but surely approach the date of December 15, on which Detlev Mehlis is scheduled to give his final report, final for him as the chief investigator, or final in the sense of the investigation itself, or both, ideological and sentimental interpretations of what it is likely to happen, of what it is actually involved, and of what could the potential outcome of it will likely be, will predominate, nullifying any attempt at making sense of anything really, at this stage.

Continue reading “A Heretical Eschatology!” →