-----------------------The Arab World's Only Republican Monarchy---------------------
With autocratic regimes tumbling around the region, well-educated young Syrians want - and deserve - a taste of freedom.
Ribal al-Assad
(Director of the Organization for Democracy and Freedom in Syria)
Al-Jazeera
"With the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes gone and street protests roiling cities from Algiers to Tehran, many people are now wondering which domino might fall next. Syria, whose secular, militarised dictatorship most closely resembles the fallen regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, may not be next in line - but appears nonetheless to be approaching a tipping point.
Of course, the old "domino theory" of international relations was merely a crude way of emphasising that different parts of any region are linked to each other. For today’s Arab world, a better metaphor might be a chessboard, from which the removal of even a pawn inevitably alters the relationships among all other pieces.
Today, as protests mount and multiply, the government of every Arab state in the Middle East and North Africa probably believes that, if left to its own devices, it can contain internal dissent.
In Syria, it seems inevitable that protest may soon crack the regime's brittle political immobility. Most ordinary Syrians face extremely difficult economic and social conditions, including high unemployment, rising food prices, constraints on personal freedom, and endemic corruption. These factors are no different from those that brought people to the streets in North Africa and the Middle East. What began as protests over living conditions became full-scale demands for freedom and democracy.......
The regime must appreciate that, despite its best efforts, Syrians have been watching events in the region with as much interest as the rest of the world. Syria's people may have no predilection for violence - but the birth of freedom, once witnessed, is not easily forgotten – or trumped by state handouts and vacuous statements by a distant, self-isolated leadership.
People said the Berlin Wall would not fall. They said that Mubarak would not stand down. And still some say that Syria cannot change. But Syria will change, and I, like my compatriots, pray that when change comes, it is peaceful and harmonious."
Ribal al-Assad
(Director of the Organization for Democracy and Freedom in Syria)
Al-Jazeera
"With the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes gone and street protests roiling cities from Algiers to Tehran, many people are now wondering which domino might fall next. Syria, whose secular, militarised dictatorship most closely resembles the fallen regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, may not be next in line - but appears nonetheless to be approaching a tipping point.
Of course, the old "domino theory" of international relations was merely a crude way of emphasising that different parts of any region are linked to each other. For today’s Arab world, a better metaphor might be a chessboard, from which the removal of even a pawn inevitably alters the relationships among all other pieces.
Today, as protests mount and multiply, the government of every Arab state in the Middle East and North Africa probably believes that, if left to its own devices, it can contain internal dissent.
In Syria, it seems inevitable that protest may soon crack the regime's brittle political immobility. Most ordinary Syrians face extremely difficult economic and social conditions, including high unemployment, rising food prices, constraints on personal freedom, and endemic corruption. These factors are no different from those that brought people to the streets in North Africa and the Middle East. What began as protests over living conditions became full-scale demands for freedom and democracy.......
The regime must appreciate that, despite its best efforts, Syrians have been watching events in the region with as much interest as the rest of the world. Syria's people may have no predilection for violence - but the birth of freedom, once witnessed, is not easily forgotten – or trumped by state handouts and vacuous statements by a distant, self-isolated leadership.
People said the Berlin Wall would not fall. They said that Mubarak would not stand down. And still some say that Syria cannot change. But Syria will change, and I, like my compatriots, pray that when change comes, it is peaceful and harmonious."
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