Those mocking the division of the Syrian opposition and the masquerade committed by some who are affiliated with it in front of the Arab League headquarters, are forgetting that 16 Syrian civilians were killed with the bullets of the “security forces” on that same day, and that an equal number of victims fell the next. True, it was not an honorable sight, that in which Syrian youth appeared to be beating and insulting the delegation of the “coordination committee” in front of the League's headquarters. But at this level, one could easily point to the repercussions of the Baathist exclusionist education on the assailers, who were probably never accustomed to democratic dialogue, the divergence of opinions and the variety of positions without it spoiling the situation. In the coming years, it is likely that the Syrian community will pay the price for what was planted in it by the totalitarian regime in terms of attitudes, none of which features the recognition of the right of the other to express his viewpoint without him being slapped or seeing an egg thrown in his face. It is also likely that the Baathification of the Syrian community – in a way similar to its counterpart in Iraq – will take shapes that will be sustained following the regime's collapse, despite the fact that the emergence of change in Syria from within allows us to hope – even if in a modest way – that the Syrians will soon heal from the illnesses of the current rule. What is important is that what happened in Cairo is a mere side effect of what is happening in Syria, while the disputes between the opposition forces – although some of them do not deserve that name – do not constitute the core of the issue. Indeed, the real crime did not occur outside the League's headquarters the day before last. It is rather occurring every day, for the last eight months, out in the streets of the Syrian towns and cities, in the torture basements of the security branches and the prisons that are filled with tens of thousands of political detainees and opinion prisoners. What is also important at this level is that the Syrian regime did not bother looking into the implementation of any of the reformatory steps it announced (which is too late anyway), thus settling for the unleashing of its thugs on the streets to shoot at the citizens, in scenes never witnessed since the Rwanda massacres. Yet, the real crime resides in the spread of a shameful climate of collaboration between the Arab states and governments who are tolerating the Syrian regime's attacks against the community, the undermining of its values, the shredding of its fabric and its subjection to a difficult test to see how long it can tolerate the sectarian practices aiming at pushing the country toward open civil war. The real crime resides in the expansion of the Syrian authorities' practices into Lebanon, whose government decided to stand alongside President Bashar al-Assad's regime without any regard for its international commitments at the level of the rights of the refugees, who are being humiliated by the Lebanese apparatuses that are surrendering some of them to their Syrian “colleagues.” The real crime is being committed by Lebanese forces, as they are not hesitating to fuel the sectarian fears or threaten with the detonation of the situation in Lebanon to serve the Syrian authority, in a gamble which might eliminate the last elements ensuring the Lebanese society's cohesion. This denominational and sectarian instigation – on which several powers are insisting without it being limited to one political or sectarian group – is bound to have an impact on the Lebanese who know what the “leaders” are doing by tampering with the sectarian sensitivities, even after they refined their words. But all of that is the apparent facet of one major question: Do the Syrians and the Lebanese, among other populations in this part of the world, deserve to be treated as human beings who are aware of their political right? Or is the herd formation the best for them in the context of the deterrence of the imperialistic and Zionist projects?
