SyriaComment.com
"There will a televised announcement tonight from London uniting ALL the strands of the opposition." This is what Deborah Amos of National Public Radio in the United States told me this morning. Deborah is in Damascus to report on the opposition; She was told this by "one of the chief "Damascus Spring" guys." As Deborah remarked, "If true, it should cause a huge stir here." Deborah has been following this story like a hawk. She was in London last week talking to Syrians.
If this story is true, it will go so some way to explain the recent crack down on the opposition: the inexplicable closing of the Attasi forum last Saturday, the killing of Khasnawi, the hushing up of several noted opposition members, etc. Opposition members of every stripe have been calling for the formation of a "broad national front" for months now. This means bringing together the secular opposition with the Islamic currents, particularly the Moslem Brotherhood in London.
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Friday, July 08, 2005
Syrian Opposition Unites - Deborah Amos reports
"There will a televised announcement tonight from London uniting ALL the strands of the opposition."
This is what Deborah Amos of National Public Radio in the United States told me this morning. Deborah is in Damascus to report on the opposition; She was told this by "one of the chief "Damascus Spring" guys." As Deborah remarked, "If true, it should cause a huge stir here." Deborah has been following this story like a hawk. She was in London last week talking to Syrians.
If this story is true, it will go so some way to explain the recent crack down on the opposition: the inexplicable closing of the Attasi forum last Saturday, the killing of Khasnawi, the hushing up of several noted opposition members, etc.
Opposition members of every stripe have been calling for the formation of a "broad national front" for months now. This means bringing together the secular opposition with the Islamic currents, particularly the Moslem Brotherhood in London.
Ever since President Bashar extended the Presidential term of Emile Lahoud in Lebanon, Syria has been going through a second Damascus Spring that was only halted a few weeks ago.
The opposition has been growing in numbers and in confident since UN resolution 1559 was passed and the debacle in Lebanon. Bashar opened up debate while US pressure was used to squeeze Syria out of Lebanon. More people were getting educated by the opposition members who were speaking out. The Lebanese press was important in educating people and riling them up, especially after it broke its silence over Syrian affairs, following the Hariri murder and Cedar uprising.
Everyone in Damascus has been visiting everyone else and speaking more frankly about things than they ever have before. Some parties, such as Riad al-Turk's, renamed themselves and tried to snaz up their programs to get in fighting trim. New parties have formed, most notably the old "Peoples Party" of Aleppo, which relaunched itself after having been closed in 1963.
The Kurdish Parties formed a unified committee that brought together four of the 12? 13? Kurdish parties in order to better coordinate their efforts. Khaznawi held talks with diplomats and Islamists in Europe.
The Muslim Brotherhood, based in London, has been revamping its program to align itself with the secular opposition. It has softened the purely "Islamic" nature of its program and reached out to secular opposition members by insisting it is for democracy and free elections. It now calls for the lifting of emergency rule, the legalization of all political parties, and the respect for human rights and separation of the judicial and executive branches of government. This retreat from a revolutionary program to one of republicanism and reform by the Muslim Brothers has been matched by most other parties. By becoming more "responsible" and less threatening to the general public, Syria's political parties are creating new possibilities and a general respect for liberal dialogue.
The readership of Syria's alternative press (all new in the last two years) and internet sites have been playing a growing role in educating and connecting people. Syria had only 5 bloggers in January - It now has over 60. It had no Arab bloggers last year. It now has many.
These are some signs of the growing activities of the "opposition," and growing political consciousness of Syrians in general as they discover that they can actually talk about politics openly after 40 years of repression and seek to reach out to each other in order to organize and play a larger roll in society.
If there is an announcement tonight that "all strands of the opposition have been united," it will only be a first step in building effective alternatives in Syria. The opposition will remain fragmented because they disagree about the future direction of Syria. It will remain weak because there are not many organized groups to unite.
All the same, the intellectual atmosphere in Syria has been going through a real tectonic shift. People are beginning to think differently about their future and about their own ability to change things. Bashar al-Asad has played a great roll in this. His basic belief that hearing different opinions and arguments from Syrians is good for the country - a point of view he expressed clearly when he first came to power - has shifted the ground under the Syrian state.
Regional and international events have also added to this intellectual watershed. The rapid collapse of the Baath regime in Iraq changed Syrian perceptions about the power of their own state and frightened them. Everyone has been saying that it is the duty of the state to engage with the opposition to rebuild trust between the citizenry and rulers in order to avoid a similar catastrophe in Syria. No longer do Syrians believe that silence is a form of strength, or that blind unity produces power. Only if citizens begin taking responsibility for the future of their country will things improve and governmental mistakes be corrected, rather than repeated.
The Cedar revolution in Lebanon has also played an important roll, as well as Syria's desire to engage in world markets and grow its economy. The Ministry of Planning's steady campaign to educate Syrians about the economic dangers they face in the future has also alerted Syrians to the need to get organized and press ahead with reform.
Ultimately, the emergence of an effective and responsible opposition will strengthen Syria. If the government can respond to it properly, it can also be good for those in power today.
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