Poor Syria

First posted 26 February 2012

Few Australians will be familiar with the blogger, Syria Pioneer, even fewer with his actual name, Rami al-Sayad, but one day soon, hopefully, the world will be reminded of his most recent words directed at the international community.

“Baba Amr is facing a genocide right now, and I will never forgive you for your silence.”

Sadly those were the last words Syria Pioneer posted on his blog before another round of shelling killed him and other members of his family in his home city of Homs in Syria during the continued slaughter of his own people by Syrian leader, President Bashar al-Assad.

Baba Amr, for those who are still unawares, is a suburb in Syria’s third largest city, Homs, an ancient city that may very well have earned the wrath of Syria’s current rulers in the recent push for political pluralism to end four decades of Assad family rule, due to its religious diversity, its population consisting mostly of Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims, Alawite and Christian minorities. Such is the scale of the slaughter that this week Homs ran out of coffins.

The Assad family belongs to the Ba’th party, or so they claim, which is … well, I really can’t be bothered to go into it and I‘m confident you don’t give a shit either. Suffice it to say, the Ba’ths don’t like the other lot and I’m certain most of that is based on the premise that after four decades of absolute rule, anything other than the status quo is unlikely to be in the Assad family’s favour, full stop.

Who cares you might say, and I might agree, except for the fact that hundreds of innocent men, women and children are once again being murdered for no better reason than the pursuit of, or the maintenance of, political power.

The international community as nominated by Rami al-Sayad, one can construe, means governments of all colours and political persuasions, no matter how rich or poor, no matter how large or small, no matter how influential or how ineffectual, who ought to be interested, but obviously are not. It includes the United Nations, that nebulous body which purports to represent the interests of the world at large but which, as usual, is more representative of a much smaller but highly influential and powerful group of nations whose own interests are paramount, and which falls well short of sincere global representation or political conscience or, quite frankly, conscience of any sort.

In fact, in the absence of any other body with more than just a modicum of morality, the international community refers to us. That’s right … you and me. We are the only decent thing left of the international community. It is up to us to change what is happening to the population of Baba Amr, if we can, by whatever means. It is highly unlikely anyone else will go to the aid of the citizens of that place, such is the absence of political will of the traditional international community.

The traditional international community typically has no help and few words to offer. Assistance comes at a cost and generally a long term prohibitive one. So, unless someone puts an end to it, the slaughter will continue until such times as the protagonists have run out of victims, or one side runs out of the will to fight. At its end the battle will have cost more lives than we are willing to even think about. We’ll be glad it’s over, satisfied the dispute has been settled and gratified we were not forced to get involved.

We will sit back in our comfortable chairs and congratulate ourselves that we were not drawn into another conflict not of our own making or in our own backyard. Think Iraq, we will muse, how dreadful it was of our leaders to drag us into that war? Pointless! How many of our boys were lost in that useless conquest?

So what if Saddam Hussein had murdered close to 3 million of his own people in a 28-year tyranny during which we stood by mute and indifferent? Who cares if, by involving ourselves in the affairs of Iraq, we probably saved a few million more? We had no right to be there and we should never again contemplate interfering into the affairs of another sovereign nation.

No doubt we have no right to interfere in the Syrian dispute either. Nevertheless the words of Syria Pioneer echo clearly. He will never forgive us for our ignorance, our indolence and our indifference.

I wonder if we Australians were not so fortunate as to enjoy the security of a stable political system; if we were not so fortunate to live in a society that, despite its multi-cultural make-up, is largely without conflict; I wonder if we were not so fortunate as to be able to enjoy the benefits of complete religious freedom, whether we would, in that situation, appreciate so much the wisdom of the prudent non-interference in the affairs of another sovereign nation.

I wonder whether we would not be asking the same question posed by Rami al-Sayad, “Where are those who care? Why do they not help us? We are like them and our children are like their children. Why do they ignore our plight?”