Almost a year following the eruption of the Syrian revolution and the increase of the regime's brutality and violence towards the civilians – after Bashar al-Assad and his regime showed arrogance and deployed the thugs and army to besiege the Syrian provinces and towns which refused to succumb to him before the accomplishment of their legitimate demands – I was on a business trip to the Dubai Emirate to attend an event. That morning, I sat in the lobby of a hotel to have my morning coffee, next to two Gulf nationals who were talking to a realtor with a Syrian accent. He was extremely elegant and very eloquent. While talking to the two individuals about the high prices of real estate property in the city, one of them spontaneously asked him about what was happening in Syria. All of a sudden, he became tongue-tied, relinquished his fake “elegance," and started casting accusations against the revolution and those supporting it, considering that those who dubbed themselves revolutionaries were mere armed terrorist gangs and conspirators. He might have even said “infiltrators." It thus seemed to me that the speaker was a thug in all the meaning of the word. So I stopped sipping my coffee and began eavesdropping and listening to what they were saying out of journalistic curiosity. I could not contain the turmoil that erupted inside of me and pushed me to respond to him regardless of the outcome, after I noticed that his guests' responses were weak and interrogatory, even idiotic, and after they failed to answer him the way they should have. I thus intervened without getting permission at a junction point of the attack, even described his statements as being an act of thuggery, especially since he completely disregarded the killing of women and children, the prevention of any access to electricity and food by the cities hosting rebelling population, and the besieging of these cities with tanks and aircrafts. The Syrian realtor – or maybe investor – stuttered, and I said to him: Trust me, I am talking with a purely Arab heart, and I have nothing to do with the Gulf political positions in one of the states of which he is working. He said he did not care whether the regime stayed or left, but that he was concerned about Syria, the nation and the mother, to which I responded by assuring that these were the exact statements of the regime's men, one way or the other. I then left them to their conversation, still thinking about their talk and feeling distraught. Last Friday, a Saudi colleague in Jeddah invited me to his home, where I found a group of journalists from Arab countries engaged in a debate following the end of the Islamic Solidarity Conference and the suspension of Syria's membership. We quickly tackled Egypt's future under the Muslim Brotherhood group, and launched an in-depth discussion regarding Syria and the necessity for Al-Assad to leave to end the bloodshed and ensure the people's victory. Among the guests was a Syrian from Latakia, who agreed a little – even if with some reservations – with what was being said. Nonetheless, he continued to oppose anything that would affect the regime's stay in power, and even had the boldness to defend Al-Assad's regime and Hezbollah's positions, while expressing fears over Syria in the post-Assad stage and downplaying the importance of the defections, regardless of their extent. He even accused the revolutionaries of including armed gangs conspiring against Syria. But when I besieged him with questions, he repeated what was said by that realtor with whom I spoke in Dubai, saying that the regime did not care whether it were to stay or go, but rather about Syria as a nation. At which point I told him he was another thug, with another profession, in another Gulf city. A week ago, I met in my office at the newspaper a Syrian journalist who was able to flee to Beirut and from there to Riyadh, and who had been working throughout the past years in the Syrian News Agency SANA. He spoke with great pain as he choked back tears about what he saw in terms of bloody crimes committed by the regime's thugs, expressing disappointment toward the positions of some journalists practicing thuggery and the lies and deception they were spreading to defend the regime despite the corpses and dismembered bodies seen throughout Syria. And if the Twitter account registered in the name of Syrian artist Samer al-Masri is real, the latter is playing a major role in exposing the thugs of the Syrian arts scene and their defeatist positions vis-à-vis the revolution, considering that they have not yet been moved by the slaughtering of children, the killing and raping of women and the torturing of the elderly. Al-Masri thus reveals that the lists of shame are long, and has started enumerating some of the names standing against the revolution and expressing solidarity with the regime on his account. At this level, he wonders about the positions of some Syrian journalists working in Gulf states and tackling everything but Syria, as though not seeing what was happening in their country, as they even abstain from condemning the regime's crimes. What is certain is that the Gulf states have been adopting a clear stand in support of the Syrian people since the eruption of the revolution, and must take into account the presence of some among the latter thugs and beneficiaries who are working against the choices of their people. And so that my statements are not interpreted as being an act of instigation against the latter, their honesty, lies and hypocrisy must be checked to see whether they truly do not care if the regime were to stay or go, as they shamelessly remain silent vis-à-vis a murderous regime that is killing the innocent in mass genocides, the last of which was the Ezzaz massacre, and still defend it with a horrendous political dissimulation. Syria is achieving victory and the people have overcome Moscow's and Beijing's veto and the defeatist foreign positions. They are now carrying the banner of sacrifices, regardless of the extent of defections, to the point where the regime has started to collapse along with all the opportunists and thugs that are dormant in the Gulf states under numerous titles! [email protected] twitter | @JameelTheyabi
