As the serious charges leveled against Michel Kilo indicate, and as the crackdown against democracy activists continues, culminating in the arrest of Anwar al-Bunni a few hours ago, one thing is becoming clear: the Assad regime is throwing the glove in the face of the international community and all its resolutions. Continue reading “Our Way or the Lions’ Way?”
Category: Syrian Politics
The Zoology of Crackdowns!
First, I promise to return to the issue of Identity, Integration & Introspection and my talk on Capitol Hill very soon. But for now, I would like to address the current situation in Syria.
Indeed, the arrest of Michel Kilo did not come as a unique occurrence, but was immediately followed by a series of summonses to other activists who, not too long ago, had signed a petition calling on the Syrian regime to normalize its relations with Lebanon, including demarcating borders, establishing diplomatic relations and freeing all Lebanese political prisoners in Syria jails, and accounting for the missing. These summonses could, of course, easily turn into arrests seeing that this is indeed what happened to Michel. Continue reading “The Zoology of Crackdowns!”
The Quandary!
Ahmadinejad of Iran is with us because a certain large percentage of the Iranian population thought he can create jobs ad improve their livelihood.
The Syrian people had hopes in Bashar, because they, too, believed he can improve their living conditions. Rights were not the main thing on their minds.
Indeed, and in such desperate economic times, people across our haggard region seem willing to err again and again by backing existing regimes, for all their dismal human rights records and all their corrupt practices and authoritarian predilections, so long as these regimes seem to represent the more viable promise of a better future in the economic sense. Continue reading “The Quandary!”
Whose Syria Is It?
The Muslim Brotherhood was not making so much trouble before the arrival of Hafiz Assad to power, and Syrian society was not as religious 40 years ago as it is today. Oh yeah, leave it to a socialist nationalist secular regime to drive a rich country into poverty and knock a relatively open society back into the maze of sectarian belongings and traditional piety. Continue reading “Whose Syria Is It?”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 