The Gruesome And The Gathering - editorial
Posted on March 25, 2012 by A21B
By: Thaer Almani
Many terms created by the whole spectrum from grassroots activists to self-claimed political experts are surrounding around the situation in Syria. From ‘crimes against humanity’ over ‘orchestrated genocide’ to ‘civil war’ a shower of explanations is flooding the readers and interested ones daily via the global media.
Forget all those bloomy definitions. Simply imagine the biggest hostage-taking of the human history. The Assad clan is keeping more than twenty million people as hostages. Having only the choice between fleeing from their home country or accepting the arbitrariness of the ruling minority consisting of a few families and their well-trained security staff committing all the crimes against humanity in blind loyalty.
As a citizen you have normally besides your obligations your basic rights, in some countries more than in others but generally spoken you have the possibilities at least to raise your voice publicly, to organize yourself together with other ones, to demand your rights. The Syrians don’t have those rights or even the chance to stand for them without risk to become arrested, tortured, killed Detainment, blackmailing, collective punishment – the catalogue of cruelties is enormous. Even if you’re able to leave the country you’re all but in the safe haven. The regime embassies are tracking you in case you raise the voice too loud against the authoritarian system. I’ve heard it so many times up till now: ‘I’m not afraid about me. I’m afraid about my family members still being inside.’ The threatening aren’t very subtle, in contrary, often they are very direct. Last week I met a young Syrian, in the beginning of the twenties, on the first sight a typical young guy you meet, find on the streets or in the cafes almost everywhere. He told me being arrested for some weeks in Palmyra, one of the regime’s infamous torture prisons. Simply the look of the scars all over his arms gave me the goosebumps. His only ‘crime’ was being against the murderous politics in his home country. He was not a member of the ominous ‘armed gangs’ Assad is mentioning on every occasion. He had carried no guns or something with him while he protested with others. He was just one of the more than twenty million hostages demanding help. And he had great luck to get out of the torture machine inside unlike many others being now here in Europe in apparent safety.
http://mar15.info/2012/03/the-gruesome-and-the-gathering/