Solidarity with the Syrian revolution
By Nureddin Sabir
Editor, Redress Information & Analysis
To date, more than 400 people from all over the world have signed the declaration of support for the Syrian people’s struggle against dictatorship and genocide.
If you have not already signed it, please do so here and follow this up by taking part in the Global Day of Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution on 31 May.
Of course, declarations of support and days of actions are no match for the tanks, bombs and bullets of the Bashar Assad regime. But they at least show the Syrian people that they are not alone and that people of conscience the world over stand shoulder to shoulder with them. These gestures also provide a platform around which to mobilize and organize in order expose the Syrian regime for the criminal outfit that it is.
Murder, fiction and imaginary conspiracies
While on the face of it one would have thought that Assad’s indiscriminate murder of his people and wanton destruction of his country say all that needs to be said about him and his regime, it is amazing how short some people’s memories can be even when we are talking about a conflict that is only just over two years old.
How easy it is for some to forget that it was ordinary Syrians who demonstrated in the streets of Deraa, Homs, Hama and other towns to demand their basic civil and political rights.
Even now, when upwards of 60,000 Syrians have been murdered, there are those in the West who continue to cling onto the fiction of Assad being a bulwark against Israel, and the entire Syrian revolution being nothing more than an “imperialist-Zionist conspiracy”.
How easy it is for some to forget that it was ordinary Syrians who demonstrated in the streets of Deraa, Homs, Hama and other towns to demand their basic civil and political rights. They were not armed and their demonstrations were entirely peaceful. But the regime responded with sniper fire and by gunning down protesters – even at cemeteries, murdering innocent people while they were burying their innocent, murdered relatives and friends.
And how easy it is for some to fall for that mother of all fictions: that the Assad regime is in any way a foe, rather than a silent friend, of Israel.
Israel’s silent friend
Take, for instance, the fact that Assad markets – or shall we say prostitutes – himself as the best guarantor of Israel’s security.
In May 2011, Rami Makhlouf, a businessman, confidant and cousin of Assad, invoked Israel’s security in a last-ditch effort to win US and Israeli support for the regime.
Makhlouf told the New York Times in a three-hour interview that Assad’s sectarian Alawite regime was the best guarantor of Israel’s security on the northern border. “If there is no stability here, there’s no way there will be stability in Israel… No way, and nobody can guarantee what will happen after, God forbid, anything happens to this regime,” he told the paper.
…since succeeding his father in 2000, Bashar Assad has told the Israelis they can keep the Golan in return for persuading the Americans that his regime is good for Israel. In fact, Bashar has never – not once – raised the issue of the occupied Golan Heights at any international forum.
That is not surprising, and it is consistent with the Assad family’s history of cowardice and treason.
In the 1967 Arab-Israeli war Bashar Assad’s father, Hafez, abandoned the Golan Heights to the Israelis without a fight, and then tried to sell this to his people as a victory because, he said, though the territory has been lost, the regime was still in power. And since succeeding his father in 2000, Bashar has told the Israelis they can keep the Golan in return for persuading the Americans that his regime is good for Israel.
In fact, Bashar has never – not once – raised the issue of the occupied Golan Heights at any international forum. Nor has he prepared any contingency for the liberation of the territory by force if necessary. His army, which is commanded almost exclusively by relatives and others from his Alawite sect – all selected according to their loyalty to the regime and not their competence – has just one purpose: to keep the Assad family in power. The only times Syrian tanks and warplanes have been in action in the last 30 years have been to kill Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians.
For freedom and justice
Assad’s days are numbered. Soon Aleppo, Homs, Hama and all of Syria will be liberated. The Syrian people will be free – free to exercise their inalienable civil and political rights and free at last to liberate the Golan Heights from the terrorists and colonists of the Zionist entity.
But freedom and justice have never been cheap. Along our path to liberation there will be many rivers of blood to cross and mountains of propaganda, disinformation and lies to demolish.
In the meantime, let us all – freedom-loving people in all corners of the world – stand as one with the brave people of Syria by publicly declaring our support for them and by participating in the Global Day of Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution on 31 May.
