Posts Tagged ‘Lebanon’s Arabic-language daily As-Safir’
Syrian poet and intellectual Adonis (real name Ali Ahmed Said) urged President Bashar al-Assad to end his crackdown on popular protests and cede power to his people, in an open letter published on Tuesday. This is an abridged translation from Arabic of the open letter published in the Lebanese daily Al-Safir.Apparently, the Syrian regime is being harassed by citizens in both the urban centers and from the remote countryside. The father Hafez el Assad came from the countryside and did his best to disseminate progress and economic plans toward the countryside.
The son Bashar has forgotten the countryside and that his family is from the countryside, while the middle class and old feudal families in the urban centers don’t like this newcomer among them.
The Assad clan and extended family have enjoyed the poisonous fruits of international financial capitalist system and relegated the common people to fend for themselves. The Assad clan might,most likely, go the distance to preserving their hold on power, even if Syria goes to hell.
What will change the regime in Syria is its current financial difficulties: The Syrian currency is no longer stable (the oligarchy transferred its hard currency outside the State), and the wealth of the nation cannot be transacted with foreign financial institutions.
The latest speech of Bashar didn’t bring anything new to resolving the volatile situation: He is reading from the same speech that Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Moubarak read before him.
Note 1: The poet Adonis, whose real name is Ali Ahmed Said, has for decades advocated secularism and free speech in the Arab world, often employing intense imagery. Born in the Syrian mountain town of Qassabin, Adonis — like the Assad family– is a Alawite Muslim, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that controls the Baath Party which has ruled Syria for nearly five decades.
Adonis Diaries 