English Articles/Interview

Non-offical translation

Syria: The rebels of the Syrian city Homs

Syria in April. Omar is a rebel of the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA). My son Frederic and I have met him in a dark back room in Damascus. On 27 February, he fled with his comrades from Baba Amr, the district of Homs, which was their stronghold for months. He wants to return to Homs. In order to avenge his younger brother, who has died in his arms.

Omar had joined the rebels early. He has seen how the army had fired on peaceful demonstrators. Even children were killed. Not specifically, but that doesn´t matter. He estimates the number of his comrades in Baba Amr to about 2000. Ten percent were deserters. Also Frenchmen, British, Americans and Iraqis were there. As consultants and trainer.

I have asked him about the open letter of "Human Rights Watch" (HRW), which accuses the rebels of torture, taking hostages and killing of Syrian civilians. Omar replied that the FSA only kidnaps people, to have a tool for pressure to demand the release of prisoners.

They normally do not kill civilians, but only traitors. You will not be tortured, but "hard interrogated". Once they are convicted, they are executed. In his presence, 20 Alawite collaborators were "executed".  By headshot or by the cutting through the throat.

Although he had heard from relatives that Assad still has 50 to 60 percent behind him in the rest of the country. But he does not care about the majority.  Assad is a man of Israel. He will always fight him.

The next day we met with Rana, a 22-year-old student of history, near the Umayyad Mosque. She wants to continue demonstrate in the suburbs of Damascus. While their demos are getting smaller and smaller. She has no other choice.

Their protests were always peaceful. The FSA was mostly in the background to protect the demonstrators. Their fighters had fired only when the demonstrators were in safety. Now much is out of control.

Rana feels left alone. The most people in Damascus and Aleppo are for Assad. The leader of the opposition in exile, Ghalioun, is just a media puppet that no one takes seriously. Only NATO could topple Assad. That this will cost the lives of people is accepted by her. However, the intervention will not come, because Assad is an ally of the United States and Israel.

Together with Sharif, a Sunni engineer, we drive to Homs two days later. The city is still the most important, but perhaps also the last stronghold of the insurgency. Sharif has said that the rebels had taken advantage of the withdrawal of the Syrian army during the visit of the Arab observer, by the violation of the agreement. The government had then vowed to never again engage in such wholesale services.

Since then, the government controls only about 25 percent of the city. In particular, the Alawite district and Baba Amr. 50 percent are controlled by the FSA, 25 percent are no man?s land. After multiple checkpoints of the regime, where we were controlled, we reached the neighborhood of El Waer. We are in no man?s land.

Frédéric is filming. Behind us, a white Corolla appears. He passed us and blocks the onward journey. The driver gets out and pulls his gun. He asked, with thin lips, what we are filming here. "The damage to the city", replied Sharif pale. Through the car window, I asked the young rebel, to show us the worst destruction. Puzzled, he gives us a sign to follow him.

Sinan, a FSA fighter, conducts us through the almost deserted ghost town. About 60 percent of people fled from the violence of both sides. He brings to us to refugee families in in miserable abandoned homes. They were not able to save anything except their life, a few blankets, tin pots and a tiny gas stove.

On the way to a hospital, we stopped at a deserted restaurant. The hospital is only 300 meters away. But the military situation is uncertain. Sinan tries to explore whether the road is free by phone. From the roof of the inn, we see the silhouette of the bombed Baba Amr. From the rebel district Khaldia, clouds of smoke rise in the sky.

The neighborhood is under attack. But the FSA is active, too. After a bullet strikes the area alongside us by one of their snipers (FSA), we retreat to the ground floor of the building. Above us we heard the hum of a Syrian drone. A few hundred meters away, where the sniper was suspected by us, grenades have suddenly hit this area in quick succession.

Sharif urges us to go. We do not need to go too far, to see the wounded or dead. At the exit to Damascus, the military stops all vehicles. The road is shelled by rebels. Some cars turn back, others continue in the convoy. We need to go to Damascus. The smoking Homs is not an option, although Sinan had offered us to stay with him.

In our Hyundai, we try to make us as small as possible. Again and again, Sharif touches his earlobe, asking Allah for help. When do we finally arrive in Damascus? We tap the shoulder of Sharif, as the outlines of the city appear after 90 minutes. "Allah Shukur Alhamdullah - thank God, not me", he mutters.

In Damascus, life goes on as usual ? although this can be hardly imagined by anyone in the West. Streets and shops are crowded. The war seems far away. Only occasionally major barriers reminiscent to the four major bomb attacks at the buildings of the security authorities.

Sharif thaws slowly. He has friends on both sides. The conflict makes him deeply sad. Already, not only the government troops, but also the FSA are "killing their own people". Of the 9,000 dead, at least the half goes to the account of the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA). Even women and children were killed by the rebels. In Homs, Alawite and Shiite civilians are getting mercilessly tortured. The Western media reports turn the situation upside down.

Frederic and I stay silent, although we are able to confirm Sharif´s portrayal in part. In Damascus refugee homes, we have met completely broken people who were brutally tortured and wounded by the rebels of Homs. That is the tragedy of civil war, says Sharif, brave freedom fighters become terrorists. Whether the West knows that it supports desperados in Syria?

The rebels took the wrong track. They have left democracy and freedom, but only for hatred and revenge. Because they have never achieved to bring the whole nation behind them, differently than the Tunisian and Egyptian insurgents. Syria threatens to break up by this increasingly sectarian revolution.

How many Syrians, he still dreams of democracy. But that is what Assad is trying to impose now. Of course, he would have had to start with the reforms much earlier. But better now than never! Syria is significant in terms of democracy, human and women?s rights, and much further than e.g. Saudi Arabia.

At the beginning of the uprising, the government has made serious mistakes. However, the rebels were armed from the beginning. In just the first three months, over 200 soldiers and policemen were killed. He visited one of the funerals. These soldiers are children of Syria, too.

The next day, we visit the Greek-Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III. The sober argumentative church leaders understands himself as advocates of religious tolerance in Syria. The coexistence of Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Druze, and Ismailis is a high democratic value. With the foreign support for the revolution, this value is threatened existentially.

The West must stop fueling the conflict. One should not confuse Bashar al-Assad with his father (Hafez al-Assad). The majority of the people are standing behind him. He is astonished by the ?stereotyped / one-sided? false reporting of foreign media. Much was made up.

The country needs to be reformed, in fact. The new constitution by Assad is "an important step". As a Christian, he calls for a speedy silence of the guns. But this time on both sides. And he calls for an "all-party dialogue". Violence is no solution. Meanwhile, the rebels killed more civilians than the state security forces.

Gregory has written a moving peace manifesto, a desperate "cry for help": We must settle before it is too late. On the last evening we visit the tiny St. Theresa Church in Bab Tuma. On the gallery, young Iraqi Christians sing Arabic church songs of beguiling beauty.

In silence we listen. With hundreds of thousands of fellow believers, these young people have fled from the chaos in Iran to Syria. Where should they escape, when even Syria sinks in chaos?

The writer is the author of the book: Islamic Bogeyman? Ten theses against hatred

 

 

 

 

 

The West doesnt want democracy in Syria

The Middle East expert and former member of the German Bundestag for the CDU party, Juergen Todenhoefer (Jürgen Todenhöfer), has sharply criticized the one-sided coverage of many media about the conflict in Syria. The known German publicist Juergen Todenhoefer (Todenhöfer) accuses the governments of Europe and the United States, that they aren`t really interested in a democracy for Syria.

For example, Mr. Todenhoefer has said in a new interview about the situation within Syria that "the biggest resistance to democratic reforms in Syria comes currently out of the Western policy". The 71-year-old former politician and author Juergen Todenhoefer (Todenhöfer) was in Syria and also at the so-called "strongholds" of the "uprising" last year.

In addition to his last statements that, at least, the half of all reports about the situation in Syria are false, Todenhoefer again blames the media and also the Western governments in his new interview for the Catholic Sunday-newspaper in Germany - e.g. that they aren´t really interested to resolve the situation democratically and peacefully.

The German journalist Todenhoefer (Todenhöfer) is also convinced that the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom he has met in the Syrian capital in last November, is seriously interested in reforms. Todenhoefer certifies serious the willing of President al-Assad for serious reforms in Syria. He said about this, for example, that he has "the impression, that al-Assad really wants to transform Syria into the direction of democracy".

The German publicist also believes that the Syrian President al-Assad apparently tries to get at the top of the reform movement in Syria, against the opposition of the enduring forces in this country of the Middle East.

In his latest interview with the German Catholic Sunday-newspaper, Todenhoefer (Jürgen Todenhöfer) has also said, that "al-Assad is not the typical macho-dictator as he is portrayed in the West".

Instead, he had experienced the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad as a quiet man, who argues rationally. Mr. Todenhoefer underlines this with his experiences of the two-hour conversation with the Syrian president al-Assad. In his two-hour conversation with al-Assad, so Todenhoefer, the Syrian president has also answered critically statements and questions with great objectivity.

The German former politician Todenhoefer seems convinced that the West had taken the side of the so-called Syrian external opposition, because the West hopes that this eliminates the Syrian President al-Assad and the Syrian government, the main ally of Iran.

Juergen Todenhoefer (Jürgen Todenhöfer) speaks true words when he says, that the Syrian President al-Assad could introduce a perfect democracy in Syria tomorrow, but as long as he is an ally of Iran, the United States (and other Western governments) would always find a reason to fight him.

The new constitution for Syria, which was put to vote by the Syrian President al-Assad at the end of February this year, and formally puts an end to the decades of autocratic rule of the Baath Socialist Party in Syria, is a positive step for Todenhoefer.

Of course, this new Constitution for Syria comes too late, but as Todenhoefer also said in his latest interview about Syria, this Constitution is in their approaches further than any Constitution of the allies of the West in the Arab world.

Understandable, Mr. Todenhoefer isn´t convinced that the newly registered parties in Syria have enough time to prepare themselves for the general election in Mai. But this topic seems to have changed in the last week. It seems that this general election will be postponed.

For the German publicist Todenhoefer (Todenhöfer), the civil war within Syria is no "popular uprising". Todenhoefer is convinced after his visits, talks and impressions, that this "Syrian civil war" is not a "popular uprising" and that the sold image about the situation in Syria by Western media is false.

Mr. Todenhoefer said about this, that "the people in the West believe, that a whole nation have risen against a Arab dictator in Syria, just like it happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya". The truth is, so Mr. Todenhoefer, that the Syrian President al-Assad and his opponents have a high percentage of the Syrian population behind them.

The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has probably still more Syrians behind him, as Juergen Todenhoefer also has stated. As many other people in and outside Syria, Mr. Todenhoefer is also not able to recognize a unified (external) Syrian opposition.

"There are peaceful protesters against al-Assad, and there are also armed rebels, Syrian and foreign,"he has analyzed. "There are still internal Syrian opposition parties in Syria which are looking for real political solutions", so Todenhoefer.

The external Syrian opposition (e.g. the dubious "Syrian National Council" / SNC), which is courted and also supported by the West, only plays a totally minor role in Syria, like the German author Todenhoefer also has said in his interview.

A solution of the Syrian conflict could be a national dialogue. A national dialogue was offered by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to his opponents several times in the last 13 months.

The Syrian President "al-Assad is willing to negotiate on the condition, that the rebels lay down their arms"; which is totally understandable. This is also a legitimate demand in the opinion of the German journalist Todenhoefer (Todenhöfer). However, the Syrian government must also cease all hostilities.

Source: www.katholische-sonntagszeitung.de

 

23.01.2012

Deutsche Welle

Talking German

tinyurl.com/84rhhdu

 

 

 

 

SZ Magazin

UNAUTHORISED TRANSLATION

Peoples in Uprising

The Denied Freedom

After the explosive eruption of the French Revolution in 1789 and the countless bloody setbacks, France needed 80 years to become a real democracy. In the case of Germany 130 years had to pass. And it took 222 years until the French Revolution reached the Arab world.

Freedom, equality, fraternity, and the introduction of democracy into the Arab world were never part of Western objectives. "Freedom" never meant "freedom from us". When the West could no longer colonize Arabia, it started to support monarchies and authoritarian rulers who were willing to adapt their foreign policies in exchange for weapons and money; governments that nipped every democratic movement in the bud. Until the beginning of 2011 the West has shamefully helped Arab dictators in oppressing their own people.

The West further used their security apparatus as torture outposts. Terror suspects - often innocent - were secretly transferred to North Africa as the respective dictators were considered better torturers. The dungeons of Muammar Qaddafi were until recently particularly popular torture sites. In return for his torture-services some of Qaddafi's fanciest desires were satisfied. Sarkozy supplied him with the dream vehicle of all mafia bosses, an armored, stealth-like Mercedes. Tony Blair sent a Libyan regime-opponent to his doom, and Germany equipped him with the latest weapons; as did other NATO countries and also Russia. One of these weapons transformed our car in Libya into a fireball and killed my friend Abdul Latif.

Abdul Latif al-Hadi al Jaaki, a cheerful businessman from Benghazi, was our host in March 2011. His favorite line was: "Why not?" And that was also his response when I asked him whether we could drive from Benghazi to Brega, a Libyan oil town located 190 km south of Benghazi. Gaddafis troops had occupied Brega for days, but allegedly the city was now freed.

We had left Benghazi at noon. Abdul Latif wanted to show us how a front-line city, which had been in the hands of Qaddafi's troops for several days, looked like. We should never find out.

25 kilometers before Brega, in the "Valley of Flames" we came across five, partly still flickering, burned out civilian cars. We got out to take some photographs, when suddenly the inferno started. First, a ground-to-ground missile hit our car that Abdul Latif had just entered again. Then a hail of rockets rained down on me and my companions, the German video-journalist Julia Leeb and the young Libyan Yusuf, as if Qaddafi's soldiers were attempting to eliminate an entire army. The barrage with anti-aircraft shells, grenades and rockets lasted for three hours. A sand dune, behind which we had buckled, offered us cover and ultimately saved our lives. At nightfall we could finally flee through the desert, direction Benghazi.

In the end of November I returned to the "Valley of Flames". On the former battleground, I found numerous grenades and rocket hulls, many originating from western production. Qaddafi had obviously used his arms imports from the East and the West against his own people, and against the people who witnessed this.

The same thing will happen with Germany's current arms exports to other dictators of Arabia, who are supposedly our "strategic partners". Still today ruthless Arab dictators are supported by the West in the oppression of their people.

                                                    The period of tolerance

For decades, the Arab nations have suffered humiliations and injustices from their post-colonial rulers. Occasional uprisings against this system of injustice were effortlessly and brutally defeated by the mighty powers. In Iraq, Syria, Libya and Algeria. Many Arabs came to terms with the situation eventually, a few even benefited from these power structures. The people of Arabia had to endure 222 burdensome years of colonialism, post colonialism and dictatorship. I could never comprehend this patience.

I have been traveling throughout the Arab world for the past 50 years; it almost became my second home. In 1960 I witnessed the Algerian war in both Algier and Constantine and in 1961 the Tunisian-French bloody crisis of Bizerta.  I crossed the Algerian Sahara with a camel-caravan, and wrote a book about the war in Iraq on the fringes of the Moroccan desert. Countless times I visited Syria and Egypt, especially, during the last decade; nothing indicated the approaching tempest.

                                  The resurrection of the powerless

Eventually, - an unbearable degree of frustration and humiliation had accumulated long before - the suicide of a vegetable-vendor and the murder of a blogger led to a volcano-like eruption of built-up bitterness first in Tunisia, then in Egypt.

Suddenly and miraculously a "revolutionary atmosphere" erupted like a wildfire within the community of some 100, 1000 or 10,000 powerless - an un-known and rationally inexplicable feeling of irresistible, collective might. The democratic virus and its comforting fever had taken hold of the people and would not let loose.

Abdul Latif once told me smiling that all of a sudden the hope was much greater than the fear. Despite the fact that the insurgents almost never had the majority, the majority of the people is rarely revolutionary. Their euphoric spirit for victory spread like a wildfire, like an epidemic from city to city, from country to country. Revolutions know no boundaries. Like a firestorm, a tornado, a tsunami the previously powerless, humiliated and ignored confronted their rulers and marveled at their own sudden courage and strength.

I had considered the revolution in Tunisia an exception. But when hundreds of thousands started to take the streets also in Egypt and demanded freedom and democracy, I felt that the moment, which I had been awaiting, had finally come. The Arab world had decided to throw off the yoke of dictatorship. I immediately flew to Cairo. Since then, I've spent a total of four months in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Libya and Syria. Mostly, on the side of the rebels. I also traveled to Gaza and Lampedusa.

A lot of things I knew from the European revolutions repeated themselves. Even the symbols and photographs of flag-waving children and adolescents were similar. On the Habib-Bourguiba-Boulevard in Tunis, on the Tahrir-Square in Cairo and on the Liberation Square in Benghazi.

Even the excesses were similar. Not uncommonly - as in Libya -rebels destroyed monuments, palaces and priceless pieces of art in their rush of victory, forgetting that they were the owners now. When they massacred Qaddafi like a stray-dog, they, for a small moment in time, did not differ from their tyrants. The revolutionaries of the French Revolution had betrayed their ideals in a similar manner.

The Irrationality of the Revolution

Like all revolutions, the Arab one is, with its magic-mystical and almost religious force and effect, like miracle. Even if nobody readily admits it, no one really understands what happened, neither the rulers nor the revolutionaries. Hardly anyone can precisely explain what has happened and is still happening in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria.

The French physician Gustave Le Bon was the first to rationally dissect the "psychology of the masses"; the result is beyond any rational logic. Like the "peaceful revolution" in the German Democratic Republic (DDR) or the "miracle of reunification." Didn't we also at that time feel that something was happening way beyond all reason?

This religious-like rush of the masses overwhelms almost all political leaders in a revolution. Only a few succeed in surfing on the miraculous wave of a revolution and ultimately in proclaiming themselves "father of the revolution" or "father of reunification"; regardless what their mindset was just before the events unfolded.

In early March I was in Rabat, and met with the Moroccan opposition leader Abdelilah Ben Kiran in his humble office. While we were sipping a delicious cup of mint-tea I asked him whether he could explain what was happening in the Arab world. The likeable man with a gray three-day-beard laughed and said that he had no idea. He had hoped I could explain it to him; after all, it was me, who had been an eyewitness to the revolution in Egypt. Maybe he was just being extremely modest about. In the meantime he has won the parliamentary elections and has been assigned by King Mohammad VI to form the new government. Has his king understood the revolution?

The Inevitability of the Democratic Revolution

Rulers like the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt, who fail to recognize the mass-psychological dynamics of a democratic revolution in time and thus react reluctantly, stand without any chance. They will simply get swept away by the hurricane-like force of the insurgent masses. Almost all sovereigns generally overestimate their power.

Rulers, like the kings of Morocco and Jordan, who are trying to prevent the force of the collision through clever concessions may win valuable survival-time. But even to them the following applies: If they do not face up to free elections or confine themselves to representative roles like the ones of constitutional monarchs, then the magic-mystical fascination of the democratic revolution will eventually banish them.

All those dictators, who rely exclusively on military force, like the ex-revolutionary Muammar Qaddafi, are without a chance. The revolution devours its own inventors.  "Zanga, Zanga," alley by alley that is how Qaddafi wanted to drive out the rebels. But the rebels did expel him, alley by alley.

 

And even in countries where autocratic regimes sustain due to a combination of brute force and material concessions  - as in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain - the powerless, humiliated and the voiceless will never forget the uplifting self-confidence they have gained. The revolutionary spark will continue to glow in the hearts of all Arabs. A Syrian businessman told me: "Whatever the outcome of the revolution, nothing will ever be the same again."

Democracy is the most successful form of government in today´s industrial and media age. The rigid autocratic structures of the pre-industrial era do not live up to the challenges of our new industrial world. Never have I become more aware of this fact than during those four months that I experienced the fight of the Arabs for democracy.

Every day the Arabs see the freedom of the others on the international television channels and ask themselves: "Where is our freedom". Even the highly in dept, tottering and faltering Western democracies and their at times incapable political elites still depict a dream-model; because, there human beings are citizens and not just subjects; because, there is not only social decline, but also societal advancement  - even without corruption.

Even if the turnover of the Arab world should take decades or even longer, just as it did in Europe, the time of unelected, self-appointed rulers, kings or sultans is coming to a definite end. There is no space for them on the global stage of world politics. The triumph of democracy is unstoppable.

 

The new Arab democracies will carry on with a lot of the old - often masqued behind a new name. And they will not always be in line with our constitutional concepts. New forms of government seldom succeed in simply shaking off the injustices of the past.

 

Democracy can also not necessarily guarantee quick achievements. But democracy has a decisive advantage over authoritarian forms of rule: it provides an outlet for frustration. In a democracy there is always an alternative to the barbarism of a bloody revolution, and this is the peaceful voting out of the rulers - electoral defeat instead of 50,000 dead as in Libya.

 

The Revolutionaries

The Arab revolution is mainly beard by the unemployed, academic youth that faces no prospects and has quite often acquired its ideals and education in the West. Some of the young revolutionaries I met at the peak of the Egyptian revolution on the Tahrir Square even spoke German; and apparently, they were also watching German television. One of them called out in German to my companions and me in the very midst of the chaotic masses: "Thank you Mr. Todenhoefer for sharing our revolution with us". I was totally astonished. Just a weak earlier he had watched the German political talk show "Maybrit Illner", where the discussion revolved around Egypt.

The media have turned our world into a very small place; at least the Arab world knows the West quite well. Young Arabs regularly informed me about the latest results of Germany's first football division during the demonstrations.

The revolutionary youth gets its support from the lower classes of the suburbs. For them, the dissolution of traditional structures and urbanization has led to an ever-increasing impoverishment. Although the ruling class, who previously considered them the "plebs", is now courting them, the impoverished of the suburbs ultimately preferred to ally with the academic youth, who also often face unemployment. They had been neglected for too long by those in power. The democratic revolution is - as even "Fürst" Metternich found out - also a war of the poor against the rich.

Just a few days before the Egyptian parliamentary elections in late November, I returned once again to the Tahrir-Square in Cairo. I then nearly only met members of the lower classes, who were nostalgically longing for those moments of unlimited power - those days in February '11, when they - the nameless, the faceless, the insignificant - overthrew the "Pharaoh" Mubarak.

The Arab revolution is steered - like the one 222 years ago - by yet mostly unknown opinion leaders. They are a small bourgeois elite, young intellectuals, doctors or engineers that are often supported form the outside, by expatriates, but also by interested foreign powers. In Cairo, young doctors erected temporary hospitals in the heart of Tahrir Square, providing first aid to the injured protesters and encouraging them. A young Libyan postgraduate student of law organized my press conference with the rebels of Benghazi. In Damascus, I talked until late into the night with a young artist, who regularly commutes between Europe and Syria, conveying messages of the rebels to the exiled opposition.

These small elites lead the way, deliver rousing slogans, organize demonstrations, and maintain the contacts with the media and with foreign countries. A nation rarely starts its revolution by its own. Without the leadership of this small elite the masses would be without orientation - and without a chance. The people would have a dream, but would not know how to realize it.

Extremist terrorist splitter groups like Al Qaeda, which for years were presented to us as the most dangerous opponents of the authoritarian rulers of Arabia  - and hence legitimized our support for those regimes - had no part in these rebellions. A young Libyan rebel laughed at me when I said that he looked like an Al-Qaeda fighter. He told me that, although, he was growing a beard as he barely had time to sleep, never mind to shave, he would rather not want to be compared to the criminals of Al Qaeda, none of the rebels would.

The revolution just pushed the terrorists aside, as far as they even had the courage to come out of their hideouts. This was not only a rebellion against dictators, but also against terrorists who dare to speak on behalf of the Muslim world, and against the distorted images of the West and its carefully cultivated "Boogeyman" Islam.

 

The Influence of the Media

The speed and impact of revolutions get greatly accelerated by the modern media. Even during the French Revolution hundreds of mushrooming newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, posters, wall posters and cartoons played a major role. Already back then there was talk about the age of the press.

Today the power of the media is even bigger. In North Africa the revolution relies primarily on television, which is much more significant for the ?Arabellion? than the Internet. In Libya, for example, the Internet was completely shut down during the revolution. Organization and communication took place via cell phones, mosques and television.  During the day people demonstrated and at night they watched "Reality Revolution TV" on satellite channels - while occasionally zapping over to broadcasts of European Champions League games or other "important" Football games.
The widespread notion in the West that the Egyptian revolution was a Facebook revolution creates loud laughter, especially, among young Egyptians. At the very beginning of the uprising, Facebook was playing an important, communication-facilitating role. But without Facebook one would have communicated by means of mobile phones, flyers or by using word of mouth propaganda. As in all subsequent mass demonstrations, Facebook turned out to be only one of many means of communication - however, it was the only medium of communication that made a global, profitable marketing campaign out of it.

Incomparably bigger was the importance of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. They were the main drivers of the "Arabellion" - and are fully aware of their role. Just like the Amir of Qatar, the engine behind Aljazeera, who has become the great weapons supplier of the Arab revolution. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are no longer just rapporteurs, but engines, whips of the revolutions ? as long as these are not directed against the Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia. May I add that Qatar is primarily a geostrategic American base, and only secondarily a tiny Arab country with some hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.

Together with some Western media networks, these two Arab TV stations function like fire accelerants, like magnifying multipliers depicting the rebellion much bigger and more powerful than it actually is. On a daily basis they pound their revolutionary messages and reports in a campaign-like manner into the homes of the people of the Arab world. They are often the driving, but more often the exaggerating force behind the revolution, sometimes out of sheer idealism, but mostly out of power-political calculus. The revolution thrives on media-based enhancement, on exaggeration, on the demonization of the oppressors and on the simplistic classification between good and evil.

The unjust may expect neither justice, nor objectivity and by no means any truthfulness. As in war, the truth becomes the first casualty in a revolution; it is bent without any restraint. Tales of horror and atrocity are booming, if necessary, they get staged. Revolutionary propaganda is always one-sided; crimes are always committed by the other side only. The crimes of one's own making are ignored or reattributed to the other side. YouTube videos that would never be admitted as evidence in any reputable court of law are treated as irrefutable and genuine truths. Regretfully, they sometimes are true.

Revolutions are the high time of the storytellers, the "Hakawatis"; today, as much as in times of the French Revolution. The pockets of the Gaddafi soldiers were never filled with Viagra, as the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Moreno Ocampo and the US-American UN Ambassador Susan Rice had claimed. Murderers and rapists do not need Viagra. And thus the rumor about Viagra disappeared from the headlines after it had served its initial purpose and the NATO was able to destroy Qaddafi's tanks at the gates of Benghazi. Just like the Kuwaiti "Baby- incubator-lie" before the Second Gulf War broke out.

During the four weeks I spent in Syria in June and November, I have experienced so many false reports that I could write a book about them. One day in November I visited the local general hospital in the city of Homs as Aljazeera had repeatedly reported about five civilian deaths. Yet the doctors had no knowledge of any casualties or wounded on that particular day. Nor did the other hospitals in the city. When I pointed out the false report to one of the doctors he abruptly ended the interview without any further comment. Aljazeera has long ago become a media world power. Maybe this great man just felt indifferent about their false reports. After all, countless innocents died in his presence on other days. Senselessly murdered by whichever side.
In November, the world press reported on an alleged humanitarian catastrophe in Homs. But as I had seen the market stalls of Homs full with meat, vegetables and fruit during exactly those days, I during a later visit to the city mentioned this strange message to a revolutionary. He laughed out loud and claimed that Aljazeera could not be blamed. It was he and his friends who had spread this story.

In December, the world press communicated that Syria had banned the use of iPhones. I therefore called a person in Damascus of whom I knew that he had an iPhone. He told me ironically that the story was not true. So he would have to continue denying further false reports on his iPhone!

The Syrian government is partly guilty for this information chaos. The peak of false reporting and YouTube videos started only when they banned the foreign press from entering the country. And unfortunately, the credibility of the reports of the Syrian state television is by no means higher than that of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya

The Role of the Regional and the Superpowers

The regional- and the superpowers almost always try to chime in the cycle of revolutions and to steer it, in order to ultimately have their say in the determination of the winner.

Largely surprised by the events in Tunisia and Egypt, the United States in particular have identified the Arab spring as a unique opportunity to reshape the Middle East according to their ideas. Their primary goal is not democracy, but the enforcement and protection of their own interests - in a pro-American "Greater Middle East". Allies such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have thus nothing to fear from the West. Democratic movements against these dictatorships may continue to be bludgeoned.

The West behaves quite differently, when it is about revolutions against declared enemies, and it can thus work off its "rogue list", as in the case of Qaddafi and also Assad. Then the West can again be the apparitor of human rights.  "Holy alliances" are formed in defense of democracy, just as the great European powers in the 19th Century established "holy alliances" in the defense of monarchy.  With the same fake fervor. Revolution and intervention merge into one dirty business; and above all hovers the lie.

Even when major powers help the revolutionaries to bring upon victory, they often rob them of the revolution at the end. They don´t ever care about the freedom of the oppressed, the "wretched of the earth".

The Tough Process of Democratization

The revolutionaries rarely succeed in the first attempt to realize their dreams of freedom, dignity, employment and prosperity. Only rarely they realize that for that a revolution at the top of the state is not sufficient, but a revolution in people's minds is also required.

It takes decades, centuries, to learn true democracy, rule of law, separation of powers and human rights - and often much longer to reap its fruits. Revolutions are only a small step on the long road to a democratic constitutional state. Democrats of the West are even today still searching for the "true democracy".

For 200 years also Europe had to endure setbacks, destructions, blood and tears. Whoever hailed the success of the Arab revolution or wrote it off as a failure after just a few months, knows nothing about the long revolutionary history of our own continent. Arabia will not attain in a few months for what the West needed generations.

The Arab democracies will always be threatened to relapse into authoritarianism once the revolutionary hangover sets in. Just like the democracies of the Western world. Democracy must be lived and defended anew every day. The populist dictatorship is the most dangerous enemy of all democracies, its eternal companion, and its constant shadow. Even Germany has not shaken off this shadow for good.

There are alternatives to the bloody and barbaric misery of a revolution. The threatened Arab rulers need to position themselves at the top of the movement for democracy and dare to start a revolution from the top. The kings of Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Jordan and even Syria's President Bashar Assad still have this chance. But for how much longer?

Shortly before my return to Germany in early December I once more walked over the Square of Liberation in Benghazi. It was decorated with hundreds of flags and thousands of pictures of fallen rebels. The eyes of Abdul Latif looked questioningly down on me from several posters. On a huge, towering billboard I read: "We have a dream"; although, only few people speak English in Libya.

Ahmed, the brother of Abdul Latif, gently pulled my sleeve: "Tell your friends who have designed this beautiful English poster that this dream is ours. Our dead have given their life for an Arab revolution, not an American."


The writer is the author of the book "Boogeyman: Islam"

 

 

 

 

FAZ

UNAUTHORISED TRANSLATION

The Syrian Knot

by Dr. Jürgen Todenhöfer

With the generous support from Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, the Arab revolution has reached all of Syria.  The Syrians have discovered their right to political participation and they are not going to abandon it again.  The triumph of democracy is unstoppable; also in Syria.  And that is good.

The need for democratic transformation is essentially accepted, even amongst the government and the insurgents. The ultimate and only question is, whether there will be democracy with or without Assad.

 Also, Assad meanwhile refers to the democracy for Syria as "compulsory". He wants to, as he told me, introduce it gradually, "from scratch".  This would be by means of parliamentary elections in spring, and the development of a new constitution and subsequent presidential elections. The insurgents, however, want democracy immediately and without Assad.

The President´s chances to reshape the country from the top have diminished in the last months due to the slowness of his reforms and the harsh actions of the security forces. The support for Assad was considerably greater during my visit in June compared to my following one in November.

Nonetheless, the Syrian Revolution differs fundamentally from the ones in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya:

1) the majority of Syrians still differentiates between Assad and the regime, as incomprehensible this might sound to some Westerns.

Many Syrians still have hope that Assad will lead the country towards democracy, without a civil war.

2) Unlike Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the President still gets to a great extend the support of the army. The number of defectors gets overestimated in the West. The behavior of the army, however, is a crucial factor during revolutions.

 

Syria is not simply a case of a popular uprising against a hateful ruler. The frontline is much more complicated:

 

·         In the interior countless young people have been demonstrating  peacefully for months risking their lives in their struggle against dictatorship.

·         At the same time hundreds of thousands have been demonstrating in favor of Assad- and in favor for democracy- in the urban centers of Damascus and Aleppo; many ordered, many voluntarily.

·         Guerrilla commandos have formed in the cities of Daraa, Homs, Hama and Idlib taking action against the security forces with heavy weaponry. According to the government, they are increasingly killing civilians, mostly Alawites. These statements are confirmed with concrete examples by inner Syrian opposition politicians, who themselves spent years in the dungeons of Bashar Assad´s father. Fact or Fiction?

 

·         The Syrian army proceeds mercilessly against these guerrilla commandos, whose financial resources are obscure.

·         Simultaneously, police units and intelligence agencies try to keep the peaceful protesters under control. In doing so they often use totally unacceptable violence.

 

·         The war is getting dirtier with every day. Also, because both sides in the meantime try to pin the blame for their murders.

 

·         It is all getting even more complicated by the mere fact that the internal Syrian opposition and the opposition in exile differ on key issues. The internal Syrian opposition, which is relatively outspoken since the beginning of the revolution -is in favor of a peaceful democratic transformation, while parts of the opposition in exile favor a military intervention by the NATO - similar to the one in Libya.

 

How truthful is the information we get here in the West on the complexity of the situation in Syria? The media opinion leaders Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya come from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two avowed dictatorships. Shouldn't we raise certain doubts whether democracy is really their primary concern? Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the closest military allies of the United States.  Shouldn't at least the question be allowed whether this is not about something completely different, something much larger - the reorganization of the Middle East according to US ideas?

It is rather strange that of all the "Arab League", a club of dictators allied with the US, is now presented as the spearhead of the movement for democracy. 

This reinforces the suspicion that Syria is part of a great political power re-shuffle in the Middle East, where a coldly calculating West is exploiting the Syrian revolution.

Nevertheless, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya were indeed courageous pioneers for freedom and resistance in both Afghanistan and Iraq. One can only be curious to see which position they will take when the democratic tsunami will one day reach their countries.

The statements of Western politicians on the events in Syria that I read on a daily basis don´t do justice to the realities I have experienced there for four weeks.  Whenever I was going through the international online reports in the evenings, it seemed to me as if was I was reading narratives from another planet.   Everyone has a right to an own opinion, but none to his own facts.

According to my personal experiences in Damascus, Daraa, Homs and Hama at least half of the reports on Syria are simply false - almost like before the Iraq war. Unfortunately, this also means, that many of the horrible news messages are true.

The Syrian government is partly guilty of this information meltdown. Who shuts out the international press is not allowed to complain about false reports; besides, the credibility of the Syrian state television is similarly low. But what about the foreign embassies, aren't they compelled to inform their governments objectively? And aren't governments duty-bound to tell their public the truth? Why has the truth to be the first casualty in a war?

The Syrian knot is still solvable. Paradoxically, it is Bashar Assad, who could most likely achieve a peaceful transition towards democracy, because he still has the power and still holds the authority among the majority of the population. However, the regime and especially the despised secret services have lost all trust. The Syrians don´t want to have anything to do with them.

The guerrilla commandos whose methods differ little from those of the state's security services, have also forfeited their trust amongst many Syrians. They robbed the revolution of its innocence and they have also harmed the peaceful demonstrators who have the historical merit of having initiated the process of democratization.

Assad hasn't much time left to peacefully resolve the Syrian knot. His window of opportunity is almost closed. What should he do?

1) He has to face up to presidential elections in near time, taking the full risk of loosing office. But this also comes with the opportunity to win democratic legitimization. Everyone must have the right to line up against him. Ultimately, Assad has to detach himself from the current system.

2) He must enforce an immediate ceasefire with the armed guerrillas and withdraw his tanks from the rebel strongholds. The killing must stop. The chances for a peaceful resolution diminish with each person killed; a small universe dies.

3) He must initiate a fair dialogue between the Syrian inner-opposition and the opposition in exile with the ultimate goal of national reconciliation and the transformation of the country into a democratic state under the rule of law. The exiled opposition has no right not evade this dialogue. They also bear responsibility for Syria.

The West must also revise its politics. During this revolutionary turmoil of the Arab world it should act as a mediator not as an agitator. Many Syrians perceive the position of the West as unfair. This is because it overlooks everything that it heavily criticizes in Syria in the case of friendly dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, because it abuses the Syrian longing for democracy for the pursuit of its interest-driven-politics, and because its current sanctions have senselessly destroyed the existence of hundreds of thousands of Syrian low-income workers.

Where are the western foreign policy makers - like once Kissinger, Genscher and Bahr - who would board a plane and try to defuse the problems on the ground through shrewd negotiations? The doors for such talks are wide open in Damascus.

The goal of far-sighted Western politics should be to help that:

 

• All countries of  the Arab world, including our buddy-dictatorships, get to enjoy the freedoms of a constitutional democracy and the rule of law in a few years from now.

 

• This transition to democracy is realized without bloodshed, but through negotiations and elections.

 

• The Arab world finally also becomes free in the formulation of its foreign policies - free from Western domination. After centuries of colonialism and post-colonialism the West should finally become a friend and partner of the Arab world.

 

The attempt to transform Arabia by means of a series of remote-controlled civil wars and interventions is the most dangerous of all solutions.  For the Middle East and for us.

 

 

 

I am not a terrorist. I am a child .