"CHOICES WE HATE TO CHOOSE FROM" 7th December 2011

The situation in Syria has as some may put it “gone on for too long” while demonstrations continue to surge across the country Assad’s regime has shown no mercy in its on going crackdown on the popular uprising. Of course let’s not forget that this all began with peaceful demonstrations, which simply called for reform but were quickly met with excessive brutality. From protesters being shot down in the street, to mass arrest campaigns where those detained would be subject to torture and humiliation, a clear message that silencing the demands was more the road the “ruling elite” had decided to go down. The demands then changed, Syrian citizens who took to the streets were now not only calling for an end to Bashar Al Assad’s stand in power, but the wide variety of messages that were chanted and sometimes sang in these protests, made it very clear that the demonstrators sought a total end to the Ba’ath parties rule in all its departments. This didn’t keep the regime from continuing its rampage on its own people but instead elevated the situation to what we see today, which is tens of thousands of detainees who we can not say are fortunate to those 4000+ that have been killed, because as many protesters have conveyed “we would rather die than get caught”. The army was soon deployed into residential areas throughout Syria and went on to play a big role in the crackdown, accompanied by security forces and secret police placing up checkpoints and patrols, even army tanks in any area that witnessed any sort of criticism whatsoever, Syria soon started to look more like a prison.

While all this went on Syrian State TV and privately owned Duniyah TV relayed the government’s claim of new laws that contributed to “the reform program” that Bashar al Assad himself was supposedly determined to implement. The Media War began: Assad was not only a reformer answering the peoples calls for democracy, but also took on the largest group of saboteurs ever witnessed by mankind, 64,400 terrorists to be exact. Indirectly claiming that anyone who took part in these demonstrations or any anti Assad practice was a smack out terrorist. Footage after footage after footage of unarmed demonstrators shot in the street did not slow this down in anyway, but on the contrary: the more we learned of peaceful uprising on the protesters part, the more the regime emphasized on this as being a conspiracy led by western governments who invested in (Syrian) armed gangs and terrorist groups inside the country. The idea was argued daily, Syrians disputing on whether these groups actually existed, some arguing: “how would the government lie about something like this, is that possible, would they get away with it” and on the other side an argument that reflected confidence saying “anything this regime says is a lie”

Now the situation is rapidly peaking, with tens of civilians killed everyday and Arab and Western countries failing to put a stop to the violence Syrians are becoming more hopeless to the idea of protection from a external source. Speaking to a resident from Homs I was told: “we are being attacked with tanks and machine guns, thousands of soldiers roam our streets opening fire on anyone who even whispers, our children are targets and our women abducted. They are provoking us” he said he went on stressing, “If we are considered traitors to call for international intervention are we suppose to sit and watch Assad kill us one by one? No, We will retaliate, we will not wait for them to come to us as our women and children are here with us No, we will go to them” he said with hesitation in his voice. Munir made it clear to me that he supported peaceful transition but saw no hope, he said that he had now decided to join the FSA (Free Syrian Army) even though he is no soldier he see’s it as the right thing to do given the failure of international and Arab efforts to protect the Syrian people.

Another man from Homs who lost a relative in a massacre that took place in the Zahra area Tuesday of Deir Belbeh, who also claims arming himself for protection said “we did not want this, we have been peaceful and we have died doing so, the choices we have been given were given to us by Assad and his mafia, we have two choices” he said “either we depend on NATO because the Arab Nations will not do anything or we fight for ourselves” The fact that he had chosen to arm himself gave me the clear assumption that he refused any intervention from the west but left me to wonder: taking part in a civilian resistance would ultimately give those disputing the regime’s honesty on “Armed groups & Terrorists” some strong ground, I couldn’t help but admire the fact that these people were willing to give Assad and his regime a chance to say “see I told you there were armed groups” for what they considered their dignity, and not allowing a western interference in Syria.

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