I hear ya. The first thing I had to do when I got together with my Berlin chum was to smooth some ruffled feathers because I'd obliquely criticized her unreservedly pro-protestor perspective. This unconsciously aligned her with the dominant western narrative which is very much the same old evil, self-serving, colonialist shit. Once we'd caught up it was clear to see she'd come to that position innocently enough. Pro-democracy supporters had approached her soon after she arrived and poured some pretty fresh and shocking stories into her ear and supported them with unpleasant cellphone vids of ongoing events. Who wouldn't align themselves with such earnest, desperate youth?
I realized I had to be very careful to avoid cynicism vis their efforts. Perhaps they're manipulated dupes, I don't know. There are certainly grounds for dissatisfaction with the regime, let' not fuck about there, a full-on police state apparatus, a small elite holding near monopolies over key resources, hardly a pretence of political representation. No death squads - that I know of - but lots of torture and spurious imprisonment.
Chuck in...an excitable young population stoked significantly by digitally transmitted news of the putative Arab Spring - hence the regime's regular shutting down of intertube and cellphone webs. Add a good dollop of international intrigue with any number of international actors - notionally Iran, Israel, Lebanon and the good ol' USA, but France and Britain might have horses in that one too, as well as sufficiently capable Syrian exiles - providing logistical and organizational support for armed provocations against the state and we have my current understanding of events there.
I'm interested in rumors Bashir's brother is leading the current repression, perhaps he got the father's psychopath gene rather than the optometrist. The current operation against this northern village is horribly similar to the modus op of the suppression of Hama in the 1980s, circling and isolating the 'infected' zone then bloodily sorting out those remaining inside. Which is why so much of the population has suddenly gone shopping in Turkey. For the foreseeable future, I'm guessing.
For all my appetite for revolution, I should prefer to see a controlled and incremental easing of the current regime, rather than a descent into an anarchy which plays right into the hands of western interests. This may sound funny but there remains a great deal of 'innocence' in the culture there, by which I mean it is relatively untainted by the ersatz culture of global capital. And if it all goes messily to shit, that will be lost and that would be sort of like another noble species going extinct or something. Another ancient alternative to our western ways would be lost, bad for us all really.
(editted by Merowe for clarity)
