It is difficult at this stage to determine the identity of the masterminds exploiting the current turmoil in the Middle East in a satisfactory manner, because the processes involved are not transparent and there are too many contradictory conspiracy theories out there to help make sense of anything, including ones that assert that the entire development called the Arab Spring is actually a phenomenon engineered by the “masterminds.”
A mention in the Daily Beast:
“To Assad, the rallies spurred by the Islam-bashing film were heaven-sent: they have given credence to his claims that the Arab Spring is at heart an Islamist spring and that al Qaeda and its affiliates will be empowered as a result,” says Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian activist based in America. “Meanwhile, the rallies have also distracted international attention from the current mayhem unfolding in Syria, and they might give pause to any calls for intervention.”
The groundwork for Egypt and Tunisia’s days of rage took years. In isolated Syria, there is much grassroots work to be done.
Ammar Abdulhamid, guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 February 2011 11.00 GMT.
A “day of rage” called for by Syrian opposition members living abroad and scheduled for last Friday and Saturday came and went: the only mass presence detected on the streets of major cities in Syria was that of security forces. Continue reading “Syria is not ready for an uprising”
A selection of tweets related to the Egyptian Revolution, I have excluded most retweets as well as tweets in Arabic or tweets that simply link to articles and news reports. Most tweets reflect personal thoughts of information obtained from monitoring reports from the ground sent by in-country activists and journalists.
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 