The first and foremost thing that must be said is that the people of Syria, who have resisted an utterly vicious military repression of their aspirations for nearly a year, are some of the bravest people on the planet. Day after day the government of the Assad dynasty find new
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RedBedHead: Year One Of The Egyptian Revolution
There will be gobs and gobs of text filling the pages, websites and on air coverage today about the 1 year anniversary of the start of the Egyptian revolution. A lot of it, particularly in North America, will be stupid, low level stuff – fears of the Islamists taking power,
Continue readingDrive-by Planet: Bashar al-Assad: denial and defiance
Things have changed in Syria since the British-born wife of Bashar al-Assad was the subject of a flattering Vogue article titled Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert. It began: “Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic–the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies…” Quite the opener. Even then,
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Gruending On Christians In Syria
Former MP and Politics & Pulpit author takes a look at the dilemma facing Syrian Christians: The Scottish writer William Dalrymple says that Syria has been a kind of oasis for Christians in the Middle East. But Syrian Christians are now faced with a painful choice. They can offer support
Continue readingExcited Delirium: WWIII: War on Syria Begins With No-Fly Zone
The announcement of a no-fly zone over Syria pushes the world closer to the brink of WWIII.
Continue readingLife...A Small Spark Between Two Eternities: Canada Goes to War (Again)
Mr Harper wants to go to war again (Iran) and again (Syria)
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Free Egypt, Free Syria from Regina
Protesters are clashing with authorities in Egypt’s Tahrir Square again. This video’s screenshot amazed me. Occupy Regina supported the Freedom for Syria rally in Victoria Park today.
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Occupy Regina Marches with Free Syria Rally
A Free Syria Rally was in Victoria Park today, so the Occupy Regina protesters participated in denouncing the violence against Syrian civilians who have been disappearing by the thousands when they stand up to their oppressive government. A comment on the Occupy Regina facebook page: a HUGE thank you to
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: GOP Foreign Policy Debate: Iran, Covert Ops, and Sanctions
While most of the CBS GOP Presidential Nomination debate on foreign policy in South Carolina was predictably following the standard script, there was one issue that somewhat surprised me. That is, the extent to which multiple candidates were very empha…
Continue readingArt Threat: #Jan25: A soundtrack of the revolution – Q&A with Syrian-American hip-hop artist Omar Offendum
Omar Offendum almost his train of thought when he saw a video post on his Facebook wall, mid Skype interview, of his song #Jan25 being played in Tahrir Square. It was July, months after the whirlwind revolution that brought down Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak, but the as protests in the Middle East persist, Offendum’s […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.
– The Halifax Chronicle Herald pushes back against the Cons’ and Libs’ anti-Bloc witch-hunt:
For partisan reasons, involvement with the Bloc has become a game of political football. The Tories and Grits feel …
A lesson in hypocrisy from King Abdullah
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has condemned Syria’s Assad regime for its suppression of pro-democracy dissenters and withdrawn his ambassador. This is a very civilized thing to do in the face of the brutality taking place in that country.Coming from Abd…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Taking Sides In Syria
The article below is a reprint of a longer article by Simon Assaf, a British-Lebanese socialist, that will appear in the upcoming issue of the British magazine Socialist Review. It’s an excellent overview of the history of Syria from its founding foll…
Continue readingWorld Headlines Review: Egypt Rejects IMF, Revolution Lurches Forward
by Jonathan Rashad Egyptians have evaded a great pitfall in their quest for freedom, democracy and sovereignty in their rejection this week of loan proposals from the IMF. Nations across the world, especially in Africa, have time and again during periods of turmoil been tempted into bailouts and loan deals
Continue readingRedBedHead: NATO Has Already Lost In Libya
I’m certainly not one to believe that imperialist agendas, hideous in life, won’t rise zombie-like from the grave. The present air war by NATO to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is proof enough of that. The failure of NATO in Afghanistan, after ten …
Continue readingMontreal Simon: The Gay Girl in Damascus Who Wasn’t
It was a compelling story. A young Syrian-American lesbian blogging about life and love in the darkness of a police state, only to be kidnapped.
Arraf wrote a blog called “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” a mixture of erotic prose and updates abou…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Syria’s Torture and Murder of Its Children
Despite this being an age of almost instant communication and information, it has become very easy for us to isolate ourselves from the larger world, ensconced as we are in our protective shell of flat-screen televisions, blu-ray players, and myriad ot…
Continue readinggay persons of color: Syrian lesbian blogger abducted in Damascus (update)
Fellow blogger, Amina Araf, who writes the popular A Gay Girl in Damascus under the pseudonym, Amina Abdallah, was reportedly kidnapped by armed men on Monday night. Holding dual American and Syrian citizenship, Ms. Araf has over the past few weeks des…
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Harper, Hypocrisy, Syria, and Degrees of Freedom
Yesterday I lifted my head from some work to watch the Ottawa journalists in Twitter filling us all in on John Baird’s first press conference as the majority Conservative government’s Foreign Affairs minister. They noted he read from the speech: very odd. It was a signal of a new degree of hypocritical oddity now besetting […]
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