Of dignity

By OTW

The scorching is complete. Syria, the country that was never allowed to become what it could, to realize what its people, as human beings; deserve, and to achieve what its history, as a cradle of civilization, entitles it to accomplish, now lies in ruins. The collective consciousness of its people is gravely injured by the unimaginable horrors, hate, apathy, and lies they lived through over the past six years. Its land lies littered with the ruins of cities and neighborhoods that once were. Its soul, having survived millenniums, is now broken by the countless premeditated murder-by-torture that took precious lives. The pain is immense for the atrocities are so colossal and beyond belief, which is exactly what the perpetrators wanted.

The despot who perpetrated these crimes against humanity has fulfilled the unambiguous “Assad or we burn the country” threat plastered by his goons on the walls of Syria. For more than six years, they, and their ever expanding list of partners in savagery besieged and indiscriminately bombed our cities and neighborhoods, with intent to obliterate not only their livelihood, but their cultural heritage and culture itself. They tortured the young and the old among us, more often with the intent to kill both their bodies and spirit as well as ours. They forced into refuge millions of children, women, men, and elderly. They kidnapped our young men at gunpoint and forced them under threat of death to become cannon fodder for their war on our humanity, our dignity, and our inalienable rights.

The savage and vulgar Assad Klan won. Their threat, malevolent as their leader and his enablers, reprehensible as their words and deeds, appalling as their defense of barbarism, and immoral as their existence, is no longer a threat but a reality. He remains, despite of the enormity of well documented crimes against humanity including murder by torture, use of chemical weapons, and many other forms of war crimes, he perpetrated. But the country, with all hope it promised during the peaceful protests of 2011, is now ashes. Syrians and Syria are paying the price of defying the brutal regime, or rejecting the authoritarian imperial dreams of its Russian backer, and of objecting to the hegemony and the hateful vengeance of a nationalistic, anti-Arab, religiously dressed, ideology of the despotic regressive rulers in Iran. The price for wanting a “Syria”, where human dignity is respected and not “Assad’s Syria” (سورية الأسد) , where the dignity of every Syrian was molested on daily basis for nearly half a century, has been immense.

The universal declaration of human rights starts with a preamble clarifying the ethical and humanistic foundation of the declaration. That preamble starts with “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”

It wasn’t haphazardly that Syrians spontaneously named their peaceful revolution of 2011 the “revolution of dignity”. Dignity and the recognition of the fact that it is an inherent characteristic of humanity, are foundations upon which human rights are built. Without recognition of dignity, there is no value to rights, no benefit can be expected from laws, no ethical or human justifications for a state, or a homeland. For forty years, the Assads and their security goons robbed and molested the dignity of Syrians.

It wasn’t haphazard as well that one of the earliest responses of the Assad regime to the challenge from Syrians asking for recognition of their inherent dignity in having its thugs trample on the backs of the young men of the Baidha village, willfully assaulting the victims’ dignity, and demonstrating that this regime is ready to murder all Syrians before recognizing the inalienable right to have rights. It isn’t also arbitrary that Assad regime thugs, and their partners in the counter revolution, independent of their banners, have murdered by torture tens or perhaps of thousand Syrians . The main objective of torture is to destroy the will that demands recognition of the dignity inherent in humanity.

I have no doubt that being the “revolution of dignity” places the orphaned Syrian Revolution at the forefront of revolutions for human rights. I have no doubt that its enemies, be they the Assads,  Iran backed terrorist sectarian militias and agents in the region, the Putin regime, the suspect counter-revolutionary Islamist  thugs and terrorists, and the loyalists and mouthpieces of this belligerent unholy alliance will be among those history will curse as an affront to our humanity. While the conversion of Syria from a promising nascent democratic state into the barbaric state of the Assads was rife with crimes against humanity, its defenders perpetrated far more atrocities, to-date; with impunity.

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