Dr. Radwan Ziadeh, my dear colleague and good friend and one of the main figures behind the Damascus Declaration and the more recent Damascus-Beirut Declaration has recently been slapped with atravel ban on account of his continuous involvement in civil society activities around the region and the world. Continue reading “A Tale of Mayhem Foretold II!”
Author: Ammar
A Syrian dreamer & dissident, not necessarily in that order.
A Tale of Mayhem Foretold!
To all those who thought I am raving mad when I told them that the adventurist streak of the Assads runs so deep inside of them that we will be hard pressed to distinguish it from a serious death-wish, I say: do you believe me now? You still don’t? Well say hello to the Popular Committee for the Liberation of the Golan, an organization whose official presence has just beenannouncedand whose founders, made up of lawyers, activists and former MPs of Golanese descent, describe it as “political military organization” that will deploy “whatever means necessary” to get back the Golan. Continue reading “A Tale of Mayhem Foretold!”
الحرية والممارسة
27 حزيران، 2006 / مدونة “أقوال وأفكار”
عندما لا يهتم الناس بممارسة حريتهم، فهم بذلك يفسحون المجال لأولئك الذين يرغبون بالتجبّر، فالطغاة نشيطون ومثابرون ودائماً على أهبة لتكريس أنفسهم بإسم كل الآلهة، سواء كانت دينية أو رمزية، ليقيدوا الناس النوام. فولتير، 1694-1778 Continue reading “الحرية والممارسة”
Democratize but Stabilize
First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.
No one can any longer deny that there is a real and serious need for a concerted well-coordinated multilateral approach to the processes of development, modernization and democratization in the Broader Middle Eat and North Africa Region. Quick fixes are indeed impossible, but a need to shake the status quo is, nonetheless, quite urgent. If the UNDP reports of 2002-4 have served to elucidate anything, it is the necessity of drastic changes in policies in the region, but few of the existing leaders seem willing and/or capable of this. National interest considerations are not at stake here for them, it is their parochial interests, and, in typical cynical human fashion, they tend to override all other considerations. Continue reading “Democratize but Stabilize”
