Freedom is to possess others by the magnetic pull of love, and to captivate someone who hates you until they love you without hating you. Freedom carries a duty we must pay: not betraying our noble morals and the higher values we believe in and adopt, and not uttering words that blaspheme the homeland or crushing hearts that soar with us under the same sky—before our eyes overflow with tears of sorrow. For what? The forces that draw up justifications and practices throughout history without any sense of noble or generous creation—acting for their own interests—are not the true measure of a genuine concern for our freedom and exposed democracy. We must recognize that their concern is not about defending the will and freedom of our peoples; the matter is, first and last, the security of the Zionist entity. Cloaked in the misleading garments of freedom, democracy, and human rights, this concern permits the violation of everything honorable, resistant, noble, valuable, and opposing the Anglo-Zionist project.
Demanding reform, fighting corruption, and achieving justice—across political, social, economic, even religious and educational spheres—is a popular, national, and legitimate demand. Most important, it must be continuous, and the authority emanating from the people must respond without delay or pretext, with honesty and transparency. These are lofty, noble, and necessary demands—but the means and methods must be morally productive, not destructive; they must proceed through respectable, sincere, honourable, polite, and pure channels, not by relying on the enemies of the homeland and nation. Rather, they must rest on a purely national argument that allows us to preserve the safety, security, dignity, unity, and brotherhood of our people—while realizing that brazenness can sometimes be astonishingly beautiful! The demand to overthrow the regime in Syria is, without doubt, a clearly Zionist demand, because it is the demand of the enemies of the nation, the enemies of Arabism, the enemies of the cause, and the enemies of the resistance and opposition — a Zionist-American demand that every American administration has worked on to bring Syria to its knees, both regime and people. This has been evident since the notorious era of George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice up to the present day, aiming to change Syria’s policy of resistance and opposition to the Anglo-Zionist project and the Zionist occupation. That resistant policy united Syria with Lebanese and Palestinian resistance and with those honorable people around the Arab, Islamic and international worlds who support them. What is desired is the overthrow of the Arab-national, liberationist bearer of our nation’s causes, under the mask of America’s love for us and fascination with our peoples (and oh, if only America did not love us). We will gain nothing from such infatuation other than pain and more calamities, if we do not grasp the reality of this false love and what hides behind it.
Where was America’s and the West’s zeal and the outcry of human-rights organizations (which the Zionists hold by the throat) from Sykes–Picot to the division and dispersion of Palestine, the displacement of its people, and the implantation of the Zionist entity in the heart of our nation? Where was this Western and American chivalry in the face of the ongoing Israeli massacres, countless from Deir Yassin to Sabra and Shatila, passing through Qana I and Qana II and the massacres of the refugee camps? What about the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of spreading democracy and the disgusting practices (Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay)? Also the attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the violation of the sanctities and holy places of Arabs and Muslims, and the insults to our religious symbols in Palestine, America, Denmark and across the West. What about the thousands of prisoners in the occupation’s jails? The continuous wars on Lebanon and air raids on Pakistan… the destruction of Somalia and the division of Sudan, and the ongoing occupation of Arab lands? Where was American and Western indignation, and the shrill voices of human-rights organizations, about all the above and more? They come today to build for us tall towers and imaginary palaces as far as the eye can see, in the name of freedom and people’s rights—while concealing far worse motives!
O Syrians, let us be frank with ourselves with a living conscience and search carefully for what drives our actions and our reactions. Let us start from the principle that freedom does not mean skinning ourselves alive and replacing our skin with the fabric of our enemies. Freedom means holding on to the warmth and scent of the soil of our homeland, cleansing our pores of the dust of dependency, sectarianism, and tribalism, and burying all kinds of sedition. Freedom, reform, and justice begin when we remove from our cells the genes of unconscious submission to the West and its terms that serve its interests and objectives. Let this be a brilliant historical moment in which we are reborn; let us attune ourselves to the voices of truth and justice, and let respect, love, and peace between us be our home and refuge so we may soar to high horizons.
We—the Syrian people in all our sects, denominations and affiliations—are pioneers of Arab nationalism, freedom and unity, bearers of the banner of struggle, resistance and opposition. Despite our yearning for reform, fighting corruption, freedom and justice, however much the authority errs against us, no naïve person among us can adopt the demands of the enemies of the homeland, Arabism, and the nation. We are a people who read well—let us seek a way of thinking, execution, and management that leads us to seriousness and real earnestness through a new, mature, and contemporary jurisprudence in dealings between the people and the authority, and toward genuine, honest reform. Our Arab Syrian people will not allow the enemies of the nation to tear apart and split its being, nor will it enable the Zionists to attain security and stability. All our Palestine will return to us by God’s grace. Our Syrian land will not weep; our Syria and our Sham will remain above all—and the plains and hills of our Arab nation will be united again, God willing. O homeland—my world, you!
1 May 2011
Author: Imad al-Din Judat Dalati
