Is there any doubt left that something is indeed boiling in the country? Continue reading “M’enfin Oui, C’est Fini!”
Quoted by the Associated Press
“We will know in the next few days whether this regime is committing suicide or whether it still has some survival instincts left,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, an analyst who returned recently from a six-month fellowship at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
Michel Kilo, a pro-democracy activist, said Assad’s focus on the economy shows he is a proponent of the “Chinese model,” a reference to that country’s policy of liberalizing the economy while resisting political change.
Abdulhamid said the conference will likely aim to give Syrians a socio-economic package that will appeal to the grass roots.
“It’s the strategy of somebody desperately clinging to power,” he said. “There is so much lack of skill and know-how and so much corruption that they really cannot implement a good package.”
Special to The Daily Star
Syria has been abuzz with all sorts of nasty and hopeful rumors regarding the Baath Party congress that will begin today. Some predict that a virtual coup will take place as a result. Others, claiming to present a more sober assessment of the potential outcome, assert that only a few, albeit important, reform measures will be adopted. But these measures, they argue, are simply bound to pave the way for more critical developments in the years to come. “Years” being the operative word here. Continue reading “Some thoughts on a mundane Baath event”
Special to The Daily Star
On May 24, at around 6:00 am, the Syrian authorities arrested all eight members of the board of directors of the Jamal Atasi Forum for Democratic Dialogue in Syria. The forum was the only tolerated independent political forum left in the country, and the only one to survive the earlier crackdown on political dissent that the regime organized in 2001, putting an end to the so-called “Damascus spring.” Continue reading “Mr. Assad, take down our wall”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 