Bahrains tragedie

Man kan læse side op og side ned om de forfærdelige ting, der er  sket i Bahrain siden myndighederne begyndte at slå oppositionen ned med tropper fra Saudi-Arabien, men nogle gange kan et enkelt fredeligt menneskes vidneudsagn være mere uhyggeligt end selv den mest skånselsløst udmalede rædselshistorie.

Mahmood Al-Yousif skriver:

I have been thoroughly depressed over the last few weeks. Everywhere around me bad news persists; people dancing over dead bodies and urging for more killings, people whom I thought to be friends started to regard me as a mortal enemy, people throw about choice terms like “traitor” and “unpatriotic” with vitriol and not much thought. What I previously heard as hesitant questions, whispered normally, enquiring whether a person was from “us” or “them” are now loud shouts of “he’s shi’i” and “she’s sunni” with pointed rigid fingers, blood-soaked eyes and wide open saber lined mouths not caring for the future of this country or its people.

Reason, it appears, has disappeared. The benefit of the doubt has no place.

Will a dialogue ameliorate these feelings? Will it put the country back on a reconciliatory track? Will we ever think of an inclusive “us” rather than solidify an already created and maintained cantons of rage?

I don’t know any more.

I’m just a simple Bahraini who’s now lost, and thoroughly disgusted.

Link: Lost & Disgusted

Syrien: Fortsat oprør og vold mod demonstranter

Demonstranterne kræver reformer, løsladelse af politiske fanger og ophævelse af den årelange nødretstilstand. Angry Arab rapporterer, at sammenholdet i den syriske regering er begyndt at slå revner: “The brutality of the regime is digging a bigger hole for itself“.

al-bab.com skriver Brian Whitaker, at Syrien meget vel kan være på vej mod den kant, regimerne i Tunesien og Egypten (og til dels Libyen) faldt ud over:

The “fear barrier” is an important consideration for both protesters and Arab regimes. The regimes’ basic calculation is that at any given time only a relatively small number of people are likely to cause trouble – because the rest will be too afraid. So long as the fear barrier remains, they can be reasonably confident of dealing with the situation.What we saw in Tunisia and Egypt was that once the fear barrier was broken large-scale protests erupted in numerous places and the security forces were no longer able to cope. One sign of the fear barrier breaking is when people start openly destroying images of the president – and this is now happening in Syria.

Syria, at the moment, appears to be on the cusp. It’s probably fair to say that the fear barrier has been well and truly broken in Deraa, and it is cracking but not quite broken in other parts of the country.

Considering that it is little more than a week since the first serious stirrings against the regime occurred in Syria, events seem to be moving quite fast.

At styret er ved at miste det greb, som folks frygt har givet det over situationen, antydes blandt andet af scener som denne, hvor præsident Bashar Assads billede bliver angrebet:

Jeg håber det bedste for befolkningen i Syrien. De fortjener bedre end de sidste mange års diktatur og ufrihed, og de fortjener også at komme fredeligt ud på den anden side af det her.

Statusmeddelelse

TUNISIA —->████████████████ : 100% done

EGYPT ——>████████████████ : 100% done

LIBYA ——->██████████████░░ : in progress

ALGERIA —->████░░░░░░░░░░░░ : in progress

YEMEN ——>██████░░░░░░░░░░ : in progress

BAHRAIN —>██████████░░░░░░ : in progress

IRAQ——–> █████░░░░░░░░░░░ : in progress

PALESTINE ->░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ : not yet!

Set på nettet …