Avaaz reports that in the past 19 months at least 28,000 – 80,000 Syrians – if not more – have vanished into thin air, ‘disappeared’ by the Syrian government forces and militia as a deliberate strategy to terrorise the population at large. No one is safe – from women and men out food shopping to entire families, including 3 year old children… You can listen to a harrowing report on the situation here.
Imagine your concern when one child goes missing in your neighbourhood or city. Then multiply that concern and keep on multiplying until you live in a society where everyone knows someone – directly or indirectly – who has disappeared…
In the midst of this colossal human tragedy, there are those despicables who are busy defending the Syrian regime (and the Islamic regime of Iran) and trivialising the deaths and disappearances.
To them I say this: stop for a moment. Don’t concern yourself with the Syrian government/Islamic regime of Iran party line or that of the USA or Britain. Don’t even concern yourself with the Free Syrian Army. Instead think of the mothers, fathers, lovers, children vanished into thin air and the innumerable waiting anxiously for news of them – often without any hope of their return.
The people of Syria have to be supported and the death dealers stopped now. Sign Avaaz’s petition to stop the death dealers now.
In the ‘words’ of Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat whose hands were broken earlier this year by Al-Asaad’s thugs:
I’m not thinking of “being the government”. I’m thinking of “what can we do about this situation that will actually do some good?”
This petition is not a bad thing. I do support it. But even if it is 100% successful, it will still have virtually no effect in the short term. It COULD lessen the likelihood of the current Syrian government winning the war – but that’s at best a median-term effect. It will not prevent a single disappearance or reduce the likelihood of disappearances occuring, which is what you are decrying.
Governments ARE made of people, and targetting those people to try and change their minds is a worthwhile endeavour. It is also, often, tilting at windmills. To stop a government from doing something you find morally or otherwise reprehensible, you must use leverage. And to do that, you need to decide how much leverage you are going to need, and how much you’re willing to pay to get it. And where to draw the line, as to what you’re NOT willing to pay.
I support stopping this. The question, however, is HOW. Asking the Syrian government is unlikely to produce a solution. Sanctions would take years…which only leaves military force.
I for one am not willing to spend American lives on this, given the results of “regime-change” so far.
You miss the point of my entry. You are still thinking as if you are the US government. Can you think as a person instead please. Not bombs, not economic sanctions and regime change from above, but people power and resistance. See my next blog post on Malala’s lessons for what I mean.
– Etienne De La Boetie
I also wonder how it is that humans can turn weapons on their neighbors, or come in the night to “disappear” them — in the service of what? Self-abjection?