Sunday 4 March 2012

Syria

I just wonder whether Mr Assad is such a bad bloke as he is portrayed in the press and I just wonder how long it would be, if the 'good guys' won, before we were wishing he was still around running the show.  It is all very well Cameron and the rest of the chattering classes getting their knickers in a twist about the death of a British journalist and some civilians in Homs but frankly this is what happens in a Civil war and, if one side chooses to fight it out in a City, then civilians will get killed.  It is a moot point incidentally whether the Syrian army should get the blame for the civilian casualties, I would have thought the rebels, who deliberately chose to fight their battle in a populated urban environment, are the real guilty party.

Still let's assume the rebels end up winning  it is odds on near certainty that the government which follows will make his regime look like a nursery school.  Why? Because this is the history of virtually every revolution, especially a revolution which is supported by the likes of Cameron, the Sunday Times, the Guardian et al, in other words by people whose chief distinguishing characteristic is a total lack of knowledge of history and a pathetic belief that all everyone wants is to live in a Western Democracy and respect each others human rights.   Well the bad news is that, based on the track record of 'liberal' revolutions, the last thing the eventual winners do is respect any ones human rights.

So just going back in history we will start off with the overthrow of that unspeakable tyrant, King Charles I.  Oddly the Civil war is still mistakenly taught in our schools as a sort of 'war of liberation' by the downtrodden masses against a tyrannical king which of course it was not.  The end result was the abolition of Parliament and the imposition of a military dictatorship. Moving on to the French Revolution, much supported by the liberal intelligentsia both here and in France, the benign and rather incompetent reign of Louis XVI was very soon replaced by the Reign of Terror, and the rule of extremists.  The same of course happened in the Russian Revolution and, nearer our time with the over throw of the Shah of Iran, widely welcomed by all 'right thinking people' in the BBC and in most of the press - the Guardian of course being particularly enthusiastic. The end result is that in Iran woman caught in adultery are routinely stoned to death, homosexuals are strung up and everyone lives in fear of the religious police. 

A friends of  son (an adventurous boy) is just back from a visit to Syria and gives a very different picture of what is happening in that country than that provided by our biased media.  In particular he tells me of the fear of the minority Christian population about what their future would be if the rebels where to win.  Assad's Syria  is tolerant of minorities and allowes women great freedom, aspects you would have thought would appeal to our chattering classes. So why are they so anxious that Mr Assad's regime would be toppled and replaced by rebels supported by those known tolerant regimes like the Saudis and, I almost forgot, Al Queda?             

 





 

1 comment:

  1. I have been to Syria, well me and the wife, we went in 2008 and visited Aleppo, Palmyra and finally Damascus. The pictures of Bashar and his father Hafez were fairly ubiquitous - especially in Damascus - but the country, compared to others in the region, was from a tourists view point a stable, beautiful and liberal one. We did see a few people wearing full face veils, but they were rare. We were able to buy and consume alcohol. Children went to school, men went to work... I remember asking numerous Syrians about their government, about Israel and about the Middle East and I did not meet a single person who said they were too afraid to talk. People expressed confidence in the future, they said Syria "is not Iran or Saudi Arabia" and people can wear what they want and believe what they want. The overwhelming impression was people were grateful not to be living in a war zone and quietly hoped Bashar would gradually reform the country. I totally agree with, sir, we should not expect let alone demand a "western democracy" be installed in Syria. As you allude to - for democracy to work the will of the majority must be respected and the needs of minorities must be protected.

    btw - I bet Vince Cable ain't your favourite person at the moment! I reckon you could tell him a thing or two - perhaps you should give him a private, night time view of the battlements!!!

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