Category: Facebook & Twitter

Selections of Status Updates, Notes, Comments and Tweets made since 2009, a year which coincided with the gradual discovery by Arab and Middle Eastern activists of the potential of Facebook and Twitter as tools for social and political activism.

Doctor: Syria snipers targeting pregnant women and children in “death game”

Doctor: Syria snipers targeting pregnant women and children in “death game” – CBS News.

Let’s not mince words here, this kind of sadistic behavior comes as another indication that what’s happening in Syria is not a civil war but a genocide, a genocide that has inspired desperate resistance and has been exploited by different regional actors, and Al-Qaeda, to further their particular agendas. But it is GENOCIDE. This is what Obama is ignoring. In the age of “Never Again” and R2P and Genocide Prevention Bureaus, a genocide is unfolding and no one gives a damn. Global Order has lost its relevance, so prepare to live in a jungle.

The struggle for Syria’s soul

The struggle for Syria’s soul.

In her first article for NOW, my daughter Oula travels down memory lane to discuss the competition between Islamists and Baathists for control over Syria’s children’s minds and souls using the country’s educational system, a competition which, she argues convincingly, paved the way for the current showdown on the ground. Our struggle for liberty is “herculean,” indeed.

SPIEGEL Interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad

SPIEGEL Interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Today he is interrogated by a journalist, tomorrow, it will be the turn of a prosecutor. But, for now, you gotta admit, he looks more presidential than Obama, which doesn’t say much really. My cat looks more presidential than Obama at this stage, why can’t a rat?

Popular Revolution

Facebook: October 9, 2013

Indeed, a popular revolution is supposed to take us to a better place, it just cannot do so in two years, or even two decades. Perhaps in two generations we might find ourselves inching closer to where we want to be. Meanwhile there is still plenty of suffering ahead. That’s the nature of revolutions and historical awakenings: first the worst comes and reigns for a while, and so long as it keeps making us yearn for an imagined better past, whether the one immediately preceding the revolution, or one sunk in the deepest recesses of history, it will stay. But once we begin to truly yearn for a better future based on ideals and dreams that are not so clearly defined, that’s when things begin to get better, and the revolution begins to yield its real fruits. This might sound like idealistic nonsense at this stage, but it also happens to be one of those basic lessons of history when revolutions are concerned, at least, as far as I can tell.