PoliticsSyria: Revolution: Spontaneously organized protests

BBC News MiddleEast  (Apr22,2k11)

22 April 2011 Last updated at 11:40 ET

Syria's spontaneously 

organised protests

by Kim GhattasBBC News, Beirut

While the Syrian army deployed overnight to the restive city of
Homs, preparations were under way in dozens of towns and
cities across Syria to make this Friday's protests the biggest yet.

Small committees in neighbourhoods and mosques - formed over
the last few weeks - came together discreetly to plan when and
where to protest.

Meanwhile, an informal army of cyber activists swung into action --
sharing information between the towns to keep the momentum going.

On Twitter, the account of @SyRevoSlogans, created on 18 April,
offered a flood of slogans for people to use during demonstrations
across the country -- many suggested by fellow Twitter users.

User @syrianjasmine spread news of "thugs'' being bussed into the
town of Daraya, while @wissamtarif kept track of student protests
and arbitrary detentions in the capital Damascus.

The Facebook page of 'Syrian Revolution 2011', with its 120,000
followers, called on people to take to the streets for Friday protests.
It said they have no excuse not to join now that the barrier of fear
has fallen.

With almost no foreign reporters allowed into Syria, it called on
anyone with pictures or videos to send them to
Syriarage@gmail.com. International media can contact the page
to confirm details or talk to eyewitnesses, it adds.

These are the two layers of the movement - the people on the
ground who organise day-to-day events at a local level; and the
online community which helps give the protests a sense of
cohesion on a national level.

"Those of us online are not actually organising the demonstrations,
but helping people on the ground to stay connected," said one cyber
activist in Damascus, speaking to the BBC on Skype. He asked to
not to be named for safety reasons.

"We help the people in Deraa, for example, to know that they're
not alone in their demonstrations," he added.
....

Several of the dissidents - who requested anonymity - agreed that while

connecting with religious networks was important, their movement was 

secular.   They reject the traditional opposition groups and figures, such 

as the Muslim Brotherhood and Rifaat al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad's 

uncle.

....

Please click-up and read the whole article! -- Owlb

PoliticsSyria: Religious Conservatives: Secular govt represses conservative Islamist movements

A major shift in policy has become belatedly apparent in Syria, under Pres. Bashar al-Assad.  The policy, while not altering Syria's foreign policy of alliance with Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon (terrorist orgs), the policy nevertheless seeks to stem the rising influence thru-out Syrian society of activist women who wear the face veil, wear it even as teachers in public school classrooms.  Altho the veiled women's movement holds its own secretive assemblies with female leaders preaching and community-building, the emancipatory side of their endeavours for fellow women and the expansion of their roles is countervailed by their subservience to the conservative Sunni Islamist male leadership -- speak of being unequally yoked.

Thus, the movement as a whole may be said to have contradictory features that will perhaps reveal themselves more dramatically in the future among Syria's conservative Islamists. Male and female, they are the vanguard of Sunni revitalization in recent years.  Syria is populated by a Sunni majority, while its governing elite belongs to the minority Alawite sect which has a stake in a secularist political philosophy -- an echo of Turkey appears in this particular dynamic between Sunnis and Alawite-sponsored Syrian secularism.

As the domestic Islamists became comfortable with their rising status, the Assad govt has clearly decided now to clamp down on what it feared coud squeeze secularists out of public life and government.

Kareem Fahim reports in New York Times, "Syria's solidarity with Islamists ends at home" (Sept3,2k10), regarding the significance of the shift.

In summary:  Syria is shifting to a secularist policy in domestic relations with conservative Islamists who are more active in society, with a strong contingent of women, even female teachers in public schools who insist on wearing their face-veils in the classrooms (not the Taliban burqa which veils the entire female body, but the niqba which veils only the face.  The govt has removed 1,000 of the veiled teachers from the classroom to administrative jobs, enforcing a veil-less teaching corps to interact directly with students.

-- Politicarp

PS:  Welcome back to our page editor, Owlb.  He's also refWr+t's General Editor for all 5 of our mainpages.

PoliticsSyria: Economics: Syria's Bashar Assad advances economy, while clinging to autoritarianism and alliances with Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran

Under the title "Reforms transform Syrian economy, but not politics," by Associated Press via Yahoo! News, we get an updated bird's-eye view of a country usually seen from an Israeli perspective in much of the English-speaking world. But AP is claiming that the anti-Israeli identity has receded as the raison d'etre of Syria's current regime. Yes, the new entrepreneurs are "licensed" on the basis of polite intrigues and sycophancy by the govt sponsorsponsorship[, one imagines. Neverthless, the evidence of wealth has given Damascus and other urban centers a conspicuous cafe-life. Tho, of course, the gap between the rich (including now the new money), and the poor with the same old, same old, remains.

We need a better look at the universities and education. Are they increasing and receiving more students? What disciplines are growth zones of thawt in Syria? How are hospitals and the medical profession, with its specialists, faring?

While technically the Syrian state is still at war with Israel, one doesn't see Syria as planning and spending for that eventuality, if its putting money into hospitals and universities, and educating a new generation in a wide spectrum of professions.

One wonders how the ancient Christian communities of this country are faring these days.

Politics: Diplomacy: Speaker of USA House of Reps visits Syria's Prez, against Prez Bush's foreign policy

International Herald Tribune, an English language edition published in Paris, carries a report by Hassan M. Fattah, "Pelosi meets Syrian president despite Bush criticism" (Apr4,2k7). In her representations, Pelosi conveyed a new ambiguity in the official American view, having stopped off in Israel first and bringing to Prez Assad of Syria the impression that Israel was softening on the issue of Israeli-Syrian peace talks in future. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert had to put a statement on his website to correct Pelosi's misrepresentation by ambiguation:

"The prime minister emphasized that although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, that country continues to be part of the axis of evil and a force that encourages terror in the entire Middle East," the statement said.

It went on to list several preconditions for talks.

"In order to conduct serious and genuine peace negotiations, Syria must cease its support of terror, cease its sponsoring of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, refrain from providing weapons to Hezbollah and bringing about the destabilizing of Lebanon, cease its support of terror in Iraq, and relinquish the strategic ties it is building with the extremist regime in Iran," the statement said.

Picking up after Pelosi's mess and after her elbowing out the constitutional role of the President and the Secretary of State (in this case of course Mdme Condoleeza Rice), Pelosi attempted to take over USA foreign policy and diplomacy. Why Pelosi arrogates this extra-constitutional role to herself is not motivated by any clear interest of the USA, nor for that matter, of Israel. In one stroke, Pelosi anointed herself Queen of Congressional meddling. Needless to say, the manoeuvre did not please Prez Bush.

DAMASCUS: Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, met here Wednesday with President Bashar al-Assad and discussed the situations in Iraq and Lebanon and the prospect for peace talks between Syria and Israel.

Pelosi, the third-ranking elected official in the United States after the president and the vice president, is the most senior American politician to visit the country since relations between the United States and Syria faltered in 2003. Her visit has been criticized by President George W. Bush and other administration officials, who have sought to isolate Syria diplomatically.

The visit is being seen as a strong signal of re-engagement with Syria by the United States, and appears to have raised the profile of Assad internationally. But it remains unclear how the development is being received by other countries in the Middle East that have uneasy relations with Syria.

A Canadian mag's online website, Maisonneuve in an article by mediascout Philip Trencer in his typically twisted way, remains all too apt with a telling metaphor:

The legislative branch of the US government is in revolt against the executive branch, and the rebellion is playing out today in Damascus, where House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a flagrant and very symbolic repudiation of the White House’s hardline stance against a government accused of backing the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups.

NorthAmerica/MidEast > USA/Israel/Syria

President George W. Bush, well known by now for his administration’s resistance to diplomatic relations with antagonistic countries, pulled no punches in his criticism of Pelosi’s move. The visit will “lead the Assad government to believe they’re part of the mainstream of the international community, when in fact they are a state sponsor of terror,” he told a press conference in the Rose Garden yesterday. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid shot back, saying Bush “should become in tune with the fact that he is the president of the United States, not the king of the United States, and he has another branch of government … to deal with.” Meanwhile, Pelosi, who in Damascus yesterday shunned her usual business-suit look in favour of a flower-patterned head scarf and black abaya robe, said the visit was meant to “hopefully build some confidence” between Syria and the US.

Pelosi’s trip can be interpreted as either a symbolic rejection of Bush White House policy, or an attempt by Congress to launch its own foreign policy, or both.

If Trencer had originated the metaphor, I may not have paused to reflect as deeply as I have attempted; but Trencer's metaphor originates with US Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, like Nancy Pelosi over in the House, Democrats both, both now sitting in the catbirds' seats. Reid has a sl+t edge over Pelosi as to constitionality. The US Constitution mandates the Senate to advise and consent to the Executive branch's initiatives on Foreign Policy, but not to control it. Reid, too, in my judgment verbally overstepped the Senate's role. And, of course, there's quite a difference between a strong Presidency as provided by the US Constitution and the world's kings (being a king does not determine political powers in all monarchies, as in the case of Her Majesty, Canada's Queen, Elizabeth II.

More to the point, the US office of President is constitutionally designed non-PrimeMinsiterial strength with a stipulated length of time in that office, with regular 4-year elections. There is a check and balance in a non-executive role for the Senate on Foreign Policy, but that does not include usurping the President's final say. The House of Representatives has no such check-and -balance role on Foreign Policy, but is nowadays attempting under the Democrat majority there to usurp the President's constitutional function by controlling the funding of any Foreign Relations program. Yet even that is far less than what Mrs Pelosi arrogated to herself in making representations abroad to Assad and wiping out the Israeli position on any possible future peace talks with Syria.

However, even with all these caveats, it must be added that just a few days before Speaker Pelosi's jaunt, three Republican members of the House of Representatives made their own extra-constitutional foreign-relations power-mongering jaunts to Syria, also having met with Assad before Speaker Pelosi even landed in Israel, let alone Syria. Fortunately, for these usurping Republicans there was no additional dangerous indelicacy in regard to Israel. Republican Party discipline has broken down irretrievably in the House.

So, President Bush or no, Secretary of State Rice or no, onlookers-citizens like me seem to have make the adjustment necessary to live with the power-fact that various persons of both parties in the House, including its Speaker, with the support at least of the ranking Democrat in the Senate, have pulled off a Foreign Policy coup, extra-constitutional tho it be; and the US now has opened to terrorism-supporting Syria.