Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The Syrian opposition need to rise to the occasion

Today I read a post from a Syrian activist that goes 

“Interesting that G8 mentions Al-Qaeda by name but not Hezbollah”

My answer:      
Hezbollah and Iran are part of the “game of nations” which makes them predictable players.
A good example is what happened during the run for the presidential election in Iran. The Ayatollah establishment read well the national and international pulse and concluded that it is time to release popular steam and entice the West to some flexibility as to economic sanctions. They allowed the weakest and most conservative of reformers to run for the elections. In parallel they allowed the conservative voice to be split over many conservative candidates. That is a smart move.

On the other hand al-Qaeda is a loose entity. It is the scarecrow that allows Obama and Putin to work out a new cold war style agreement. Once again it will be at the expense of the Arab renaissance. It is a sort of flash back to the sixties/seventies cold war scenario of limited and contained struggles within delimited borders of influence between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Remember the Prague Spring, Pinochet, Apartheid, and Cuba. Remember in the Arab world the demise of Arab nationalist civil movements by military dictatorship or Islamic movements backed by the U.S. for some and the Soviet Union for others.

My answer to the Arab intelligentsia, stop blaming your enemies for being good strategists!
The Syrian oppositions need NOW to think out of the box and adopt an effective strategy.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

The doom of free speech in Lebanon

Today, 9 June 2013, members of INTIMAA, a group of Lebanese Shia opposed to Hezbollah policies arrived to the Iranian embassy to hold a sit to protest against Hezbollah armed intervention in Syria. The organizers of the event had applied for and got an official authorization from the Security Forces who were informed of the time and place of the demonstration. Before getting out of the car, a group of Hezbollah members dressed in black shirt Iranian Batheej style, forbade the media photographers from approaching the scene and attacked the group hitting them with sticks. Then they started shooting killing one person. The security forces did not interfere to protect the civilians, and by 8 PM the Security Forces had not sent investigators to the hospital where the wounded were treated. The army issued a statement declaring that there were clashed between two groups without any clarification.
Lebanon guarantees free speech to Shias to protest in front of the Turkish embassy and close the airport road, and gives the right to various civil society groups to protest in freedom square. But it is forbidden for any Shia person or group to take any position against Hezbollah or Iran and the governmental institution will not protect the freedom of Shias to speak against Iran.
It is permitted for religious fascism to control the Shia community, it is an internal story and no governmental or political institutions will support the dissidents.
The so called West takes clear position against Sunni fundamentalism and calls them terrorists while Shia fundamentalism is acceptable and tolerated as deals under the table are under way with Iran.
This morning, I heard a journalist and analyst I respect equating the responsibility between all Lebanese factions. This might be true as to political strategies, but if we do not point the finger at armed factions outside the control of the government as the primary source of destruction of the rule of law we are dooming the country.
The Lebanese Christian communities lived a situation close to the actual Shia experience during the early eighties when the status quo armed forces forbade dissent within the regions they controlled forcing those who did not agree to be banned from the country.

I am dreading the time when Sunni fundamentalism resort to institutional armed actions, wins over moderation, and takes control of the Sunni Lebanese community by force, shutting down voices of reason.