Will we ever be ready? Will the day ever come?

Mass burial for the victims of the Houla Massacre, Syria - May 29, 2012 — Mass burial for the victims of the Houla Massacre, Syria – May 29, 2012

When will we ever be ready to act right, not just speak it, and make that the norm?

All political considerations aside, I simply cannot believe that ten thousand years after the emergence of the first city states, five thousand years after the invention of the first alphabet and the introduction of the first legal code, more than sixty years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and close to 10 years since the formulation of the Responsibility to Protect, world leaders still lack the political will to stand up to mass murder, to say “no,” to prevent it from happening when the signs are there, and to quickly stop it when it occurs and bring the culprits to justice.

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The Real Red Line for Human Rights Activists

This charter was adopted by all members of the UN, why should it be naive to pressure them into respecting it?

At end of the day, this is what really needs to matter most in the minds, hearts and what goes for soul of human rights and prodemocracy activists all over the world:

that we still live in a world where decision-makers everywhere are still at ease with the use of mass murder as an acceptable instrument of advancing or fending for one’s interests, and where massive human rights violations are still subject to neglect if the perpetrators are powerful enough to “cause trouble” beyond their borders.

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The reason for my current pessimism

There is a lot of rational people out there, on the right and left, whose political analysis of the various unfolding crises around us can be often astute. But at this stage, they all seem to be missing something – the underlying trend that is driving everything: the idea that when crimes perpetrated by the ruling elite anywhere go unpunished in this day and age, they invite chaos on a grand-scale, one that poses an existential threat to us all. What worked in the 18^th, 19^th and even the 20^th centuries will not work now. No nation’s a fortress, and no people are immune from the fallouts of the myriad unfolding and seemingly localized crises.

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EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime

EXCLUSIVE: Gruesome Syria photos may prove torture by Assad regime – CNN.com.

David Crane has been working tirelessly on behalf of the Syrian people since the early days of the revolution. With the help of his students and colleagues, he has been documenting on a daily basis each reported violation and war crime that has taken place in Syria as a result of Assad’s campaign of terror – his genocide in fact. We all owe a debt of gratitude to David Crane, irrespective of how the politics of this conflict pan out. I am honored to call him friend.