The Assad Inside Us All...

If you think that what is happening in Syria is simply a struggle for democracy and human rights, then think again. The uprising in Syria is a battle for the soul of the country, and through that, for the soul of the entire Arab world. Whether your particular flavour is Egyptian, Tunisian, Libyan or Yemeni, the schism in the Arab psyche is at risk of tearing this part of the world even farther apart - or healing those divisions. I'm a Syrian, but when I support the revolution I'm not just cursing some mysterious and spiteful 'Other' that has attacked my country, whatever the hell that concept means today (if ever it meant anything before), instead I feel that I am cursing that aspect of my personality, the aspect that is evil, that is a scoundrel, and that will spit on anything you think is holy. I don't think I necessarily want to get rid of that part of me, but I need to put it under control. Otherwise I will live like a beast, shunned by all men and civilised life.

I think the same applies to Syria as a nation today. The soldier that tears down a minaret, or presses his boot down on the neck of a man old enough to be his father, cursing him and asking him to call Bashar his "god", did not come from another country, nor was he given some pills or horrible medicine to make him an animal. He came from within us. We produced him, nurtured him and allowed him to become what he is today through our own silence. Complicity through silence...it is an interesting thought, but is that really it? I'll leave that to you to think about as you drink your coffee in the comfort of your own home. The people who have already answered that question don't have internet access and are too busy oppressing or being oppressed. They don't read blogs but rather they are making a history that we can then blog about. So again, who is this soldier, thug or paramilitary?

The answer is that he's a bastard, our bastard, and we will remember ourselves every time we gaze upon his face and see our features. He will have our eyebrows, our cheekbones or our laugh. We hate him because he is a bastard, and that very label has a sting that we equally hate and relish. His eyes reflect an evil glee at the suffering of others, and that glee is what we feel when we see our neighbours suffer. That evil we see in Bashar al Assad is the evil we all keep hidden deep inside us...if it frightens us, then that is good - it should. But should we try to eliminate this dark aspect of our natures? To tie it down? To live in godliness? I imagine that life would be so very dull if ever we were to kill that hidden Assad inside us. If we lose him, we might also loose that path to this state of godliness that we created and now seek so fervently. It is like living in a world where everybody is a virgin when they get married...