The Syrian regime's disregard for historical and contextual applicability to its predicament explains its violence.
A GOOD PIECE
Bassam Haddad
Al-Jazeera
"....Political regimes address the protests as though they mysteriously erupted, or are solely caused by some external conspiracy. As if these "plots" or "infiltrators" were absent, all would be well for the majority of the people.
This neglect of history, or perhaps even amnesia, is nothing new, though it is quite duplicitous when it is exercised by a regime that built a significant part of its nationalist credentials on a legitimate critique of the unprincipled regional policy of the United States and Israel....
By adopting similar tactics, the Syrian regime makes a farce out of its deployment of anti-imperialist nationalist credentials, whether or not people took them fully to heart in the first place.
When Syrian authorities or their supporters get fixated exclusively on micro-level events on the ground (eg, who shot whom first in this or that instance, and how some officers were injured or killed), they replicate the mantra of US or Israeli officials towards similar micro-level events in the region while ignoring the deplorable structural violence they unleashed on populations of the region over a period of several decades, directly or by proxy.
It is the same with dictatorships, except it is even worse in these latter cases - because foreign states are not expected to prioritise the welfare of other populations, while rulers are obligated to protect their own people.[A frequent chant in Syria: Only a Traitor Kills His Own People!]...
Rationalising violence
All manner of nationalist credentials, whether observers consider them exaggerated or underappreciated, are lost by definition when the state kills its own people in open view.
The retort about this being the work of infiltrators does not account for the overwhelming majority of the killings.
It's a diversion....
Furthermore, we are no longer living in an age where mass atrocities can be isolated from the larger public, local or global.
Claims of this or that party can be easily confirmed or dismissed by the myriad of videos and documented accounts of events that are ubiquitously available either in real time or minutes after their occurrence....
Syria's state-run media epitomises this state of affairs, often reporting events that befit a satirical show more than a news outfit, surpassing the farce one encounters on Fox News in the United States.
Add that to the behaviour and tactics of the security forces, and we have a grim picture of any future in Syria in which these institutions of information and coercion persist.
One wonders, is this how the Syrian regime is planning to restore Arab land (Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian) stolen by Israel?
No wonder Israeli officials (and press) were more terrified by Egypt's democratic revolt than the persistence of autocratic regimes in Syria and elsewhere in the Arab world.
But there is good news: in due time, the uprisings across the Arab world will surely reverse the amnesia of the powerful in the region, whether they are dictatorial or apartheid states, or even super-powers."
A GOOD PIECE
Bassam Haddad
Al-Jazeera
"....Political regimes address the protests as though they mysteriously erupted, or are solely caused by some external conspiracy. As if these "plots" or "infiltrators" were absent, all would be well for the majority of the people.
This neglect of history, or perhaps even amnesia, is nothing new, though it is quite duplicitous when it is exercised by a regime that built a significant part of its nationalist credentials on a legitimate critique of the unprincipled regional policy of the United States and Israel....
By adopting similar tactics, the Syrian regime makes a farce out of its deployment of anti-imperialist nationalist credentials, whether or not people took them fully to heart in the first place.
When Syrian authorities or their supporters get fixated exclusively on micro-level events on the ground (eg, who shot whom first in this or that instance, and how some officers were injured or killed), they replicate the mantra of US or Israeli officials towards similar micro-level events in the region while ignoring the deplorable structural violence they unleashed on populations of the region over a period of several decades, directly or by proxy.
It is the same with dictatorships, except it is even worse in these latter cases - because foreign states are not expected to prioritise the welfare of other populations, while rulers are obligated to protect their own people.[A frequent chant in Syria: Only a Traitor Kills His Own People!]...
Rationalising violence
All manner of nationalist credentials, whether observers consider them exaggerated or underappreciated, are lost by definition when the state kills its own people in open view.
The retort about this being the work of infiltrators does not account for the overwhelming majority of the killings.
It's a diversion....
Furthermore, we are no longer living in an age where mass atrocities can be isolated from the larger public, local or global.
Claims of this or that party can be easily confirmed or dismissed by the myriad of videos and documented accounts of events that are ubiquitously available either in real time or minutes after their occurrence....
Syria's state-run media epitomises this state of affairs, often reporting events that befit a satirical show more than a news outfit, surpassing the farce one encounters on Fox News in the United States.
Add that to the behaviour and tactics of the security forces, and we have a grim picture of any future in Syria in which these institutions of information and coercion persist.
One wonders, is this how the Syrian regime is planning to restore Arab land (Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian) stolen by Israel?
No wonder Israeli officials (and press) were more terrified by Egypt's democratic revolt than the persistence of autocratic regimes in Syria and elsewhere in the Arab world.
But there is good news: in due time, the uprisings across the Arab world will surely reverse the amnesia of the powerful in the region, whether they are dictatorial or apartheid states, or even super-powers."
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