Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Worldview: Violence in Syria intensifies

by Worldview Apr. 26, 2011


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The Syrian government has intensified its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. Today, witnesses in the city of Dara'a say they’ve heard gunfire. Human rights activists estimate that up to 25 people were killed in Dara’a on Monday after a military attack on protesters.

Yaser Tabbara is a Chicago lawyer who writes the blog Damascene Thoughts. He joins us to discuss the escalating violence in Syria.

Original post: Violence in Syria intensifies


Yaser Tabbara on Chicago Public Radio Discussing Sectarianism and Latest Developments in Syria

The Syrian government has intensified its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. Today, witnesses in the city of Dara'a say they’ve heard gunfire. Human rights activists estimate that up to 25 people were killed in Dara’a on Monday after a military attack on protesters.

Yaser Tabbara is a Chicago lawyer who writes the blog Damascene Thoughts. He joins us to discuss the escalating violence in Syria.

>> Listen to the program here

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Syrian Chicagoans Protesting for Syria - Saturday 4/23/11

The Chicago Tribune Covers Syrian-American Protest

With each news update, the dramatic series of events in the Middle East fueled a demonstration in downtown Chicago today that attracted about 300 demonstrators, many of them cheering on what they see as a democratic revolution sweeping across the Arab world.

First came the news that government soldiers in Syrian security forces had killed 11 more people Saturday after firing their weapons into crowds of mourners who were attending the funerals of the more than 100 protesters killed the day before.

Waving signs in Grant Park, the Chicago protesters began chanting “Bashar the butcher,” in protest of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s reaction to the bloody uprising that began there last month.

“That people are in a funeral, and their own government shoots them –- (this regime) has no respect for anything, they have no morals to stop them,” said Abdul Akhras, 64, of Burr Ridge, who moved from Syria in the 1980s and is now among the nearly 4,000 Syrians currently in Illinois.

“I’m really afraid that they’re going to crush everybody, no matter what the cost,” Akhras said. “If they have to kill a million people, they will kill a million people if that’s what it takes to stay in power.”

As the peaceful crowd’s energy increased, also voicing frustration at the violence against rebels in Libya, word filtered through that Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of Yemen, agreed to step down Saturday in response to ongoing protests in that country.

That triggered cries of joy that echoed through the park as curious passersby looked on.

Yaser Tabbara, a Syrian-American human rights lawyer, called on Syrians in the United States to join what he described as a “neo-pan Arabism” spreading across the world in the wake of the Middle East uprisings that include the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.

“One of the most amazing things about the pro-democracy movement that’s swept the Arab world entirely is that it has been non-ideological, non-Islamist, leaderless,” Tabbara said. “People are springing to action just in reaction to what’s happening in that part of the world. Enough is enough and the time is up for these decades-old fossilized dictators.”

Many in the crowd remained optimistic that new leadership and democracy would prevail in the region, despite the news that killings in Syria continued Saturday.

“These (dictators) try to be very brutal, and later on people will really wake up. It’s a natural cycle, no question. Otherwise there would be no justice,” said Abdul Tabara, 72, a Syrian living in Chicago. “We have these examples now –- Tunisia, Egypt –- so why not us?”

mecraig@tribune.com

Source: Chicago Tribune

Protest in Chicago to support Syria, and Libya April 23, 2011




Original post: Protest in Chicago to support Syria, and Libya April 23, 2011

Friday, April 22, 2011

Tabbara in Al Jazeera: Syria: Dissolving illusions of reform



As sporadic protests were sparked in the city of Daraa in Syria last month, many experts and commentators in the region were quick to dismiss a Syrian uprising. After all, Syria's young "reformer" president, Bashar Al-Assad, enjoyed a healthy measure of popularity and an even healthier measure of control.


Yet events on the ground have proven the contrary. In the city of Homs, a reported ten-thousand protesters (some say more) took to the streets and occupied Clock-Tower Square in the centre of town. Reminiscent of the images from Cairo's Tahrir Square, Syrian protesters pitched tents and declared their intention to stay and demonstrate, with some chanting, "a sit in, a sit-in, until the government falls!"


The unparallelled events that took place in Homs in the past few days have demonstrated the serious threat to the Assad regime. More importantly, the large numbers of Syrians who came out to demonstrate in the country's third-largest city have broken a threshold that many doubted could ever be amassed in Syria.


Today, Syrians from Damascus to Aleppo have seen evidence that the demonstrations have indeed reached a critical mass. Tens, if not hundreds, of YouTube videos confirm the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protesters in Homs. They also document the terrible moment when the regime's forces opened live fire on defenceless protesters.


Assad's infamous March 30 speech - or speech No. 1, as sarcastically dubbed by activists on Twitter - tested the loyalty of free-thinking Syrians to Assad.


Many who believed that the young president might in fact turn out to be a potential reformer, watched flabbergasted as the president warned the nation that anyone on the streets expressing any kind of dissent - albeit peaceful and moderate - is a traitor, a foreign agent or an Islamist with a puritan agenda to destroy Syria.


With this speech, Bashar metaphorically shot himself in the foot, and consequently lost much of his base. More demonstrators took to the streets in defiance.


Speech No. 2, more unrest


Assad then gives speech No. 2 a few days ago. In a subtle attempt to emphasise his supposed position of power, and his self-perceived popularity, he avoids addressing the Syrian people directly and instead lectures his newly appointed cabinet on national TV.


He ironically directs the cabinet to be more responsive to the demands of Syrian citizens, and asks the cabinet to set a concrete time line for ending 50-year-old emergency laws in the country. Once again, missing the mark by about two weeks, Assad attempts to make "concessions," that are too little too late. This speech, once again, fails to placate the quickly escalating demands of the rapidly maturing revolution.


On Tuesday, the government announced that the emergency law in the country was finally revoked. With the same breath, the interior minister threatened that though the emergency law - which had previously outlawed demonstrations - was no longer in effect, demonstrators who still insisted on protesting would be severely punished.


In a demonstration of the brutality of the regime, just hours before the emergency law was lifted, the peaceful sit-in of thousands of protesters in Homs was violently crushed, with at least two demonstrators killed by security forces.


The regime's insidious mix of carrot-and-stick tactics with violent repression methods has made it resoundingly clear that the regime has little faith in the intelligence and self-determination of the Syrian people.



The government seems to think that hollow concessions, followed by violent threats, will either serve to convince the people of Syria that the regime is in fact reasonable and has its interest at heart, while simultaneously scaring off more determined Syrians with the threat of violent reprisals.


Needless to say, the Syrian people have seen through this schizophrenic modus operandi of the regime, and have come to the conclusion that the notion of real reform being enacted by a government that has shot down - in cold blood - peaceful citizens of the state, is now impossible. The popular credibility which 'Bashar the reformer' once amassed, is quickly dissolving.


The pro-democracy movement is snowballing in numbers and in demands. What was inconceivable a mere month ago is now looking inevitable: Syrians are starting to fathom the possibility of an alternative to Bashar and his regime. The now famous slogan, "the people demand the downfall of the regime," which has been chanted in Homs, will now undoubtedly be echoed across the country.


The people of Syria are coming to the harsh realisation that reform cannot be handed down from an authoritarian regime. That change can only come if the people demand it, by taking to the streets in the spirit of the Tunisians and Egyptians that came before them.


M. Yaser Tabbara is a Syrian American civil rights lawyer and activist. He is currently the president of Project Mobilize, a Chicago based political action organisation.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.


Source: Al Jazeera

Friday, April 1, 2011

Bashar's Missed Opportunity

The eyes of the entire world were on Assad to see him learn from the teachable mistakes of those who fell before him and wisely opt to safeguard his power - not by defiance and brutality - but by putting his nation on the track of freedom and modernity while preserving its principled stances on foreign policy in the region.

He did the opposite.

Bashar's much anticipated speech followed two simple themes: First, any dissent is a criminal form of conspiring against his person, Syria and the "resistance." Consequently, anyone who expresses any disagreement is an agent of the West and the American-Israeli imperialist project in the Middle East.

In Syria, the pervasive culture of resistance has coopeted any discourse on the revolution. It has made simple, non-ideological demands for the rights of the Syrian people to be free mutually exclusive with taking a stand against imperialism.

Bashar's second theme was stoking the fear of sectarianism, effectively saying that if I'm not in brutal control civil war will ensue.

Much like the neo-conservative agenda of rallying Americans to justify the Iraq war, Bashar appealed to the fear of instability and the threat of conspiracy against Syria.

The reaction by his pseudo-parliament reinforced his very delusion, or perhaps cynicism. After all, he himself has revealed repeatedly to western media how little faith he has in his own people and their ability and "readiness" for democracy. How can they when he has made sure to reinforce a culture of fear and gullibility in his people? Fear of the unknown, of state security, of potential sectarianism, of instability, of fear itself. Or embarrassing gullibility that has constructed a personality-cult country that worships the oppressor.

Instead, Bashar should have appealed to the sense of hope and unity of Syria. The hope in a generation that can make out of Syria a power to be reckoned with, through political reforms that enforce civil society and true development. To end a personality cult and start reforming the culture in the direction of institutions and civil society. He should have appealed to the sense of unity in Syrians which predated him and his father and was the reason for a successful revolution against the French in the forties when all Syrian factions fought shoulder to shoulder to liberate Syria. He should have affirmed that principled resistance and freedom for Syrians can and should co-exist simultaneously.

Assad missed a golden opportunity to save what's left of his credibility with free thinking Syrians. He in effect expanded the opposition populist base and made it more mainstream by alienating those without an agenda. He polarized and divided Syrians more than ever before.

What started on March 15th had lit a spark of a revolution in Syria that is much bigger than what took place since. It's a revolution of the oppressed against fear and gullibility. It's a revolution of the state of mind of many Syrians.