Syria

What is going on in Syria? Why do we hear the words Revolution and Freedom and see all those images of killed children, burned families, murdered men, destroyed cities, and on and on? Is this for real?

The Syrian Revolution started in March 2011 when a group of boys ages 9-13 wrote some graffiti on the walls of their school in the town of Daraa. The boys had daringly written: "The People Want the Regime to Fall".The kids had gotten inspiration from hearing that other Arab countries were reaching out for freedom and their regimes actually fell to the voices and protests of their people. What happened in Syria would turn out to be different and worse, much worse than any rational person would ever imagine. The small group of boys got arrested in the middle of the night while they were at home sleeping. They got violently taken from their beds to the cries and begging please of their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. Nearly all the boys were returned a week or so later, thrown onto their families' door steps, their dead bodies dumped, unrecognizable from extreme torture and inhumane conditions. Hamza Al-Khateeb was one of these boys. He was 13 and was mutilated severely, castrated alive, and suffered to die. 

The Syrian regime was expecting compliance and for their every day to go on like always. This particular instance of civil resistance and their reaction really was nothing out of the ordinary to them. 30 years earlier in Hama in 1982 3-400 men had begun planning for an actual coup of the Assad regime and when the government found out they retaliated right away and began killing men and boys and raping women. The official number of killed males is around 20,000, but locals say the number is closer to double that. The people had gotten killed quickly and mercilessly at a rate of 700-1,000 males pr. day for a month. And then it was over. Silence filled the air and people were stuck in fear for the next three decades until a group of kids followed their guts and wrote on those school walls what millions of Syrians have been hoping forever would happen.

Nobody, but mindless people, like to live like followers and mistreated, suppressed inhabitants -and the Syrian people are not different. Yes, fear can terrorize and freeze you - until a certain point. That point was reached when the Assad regime lashed their disgusting anger and need for total power over those young boys with dreams of free air and free thoughts. The men of Daraa began protesting back then in March 2011 and people began picking up on their bravery and the inexcusable deaths of those boys (and soon so many more innocent souls to come) and came out in rallies. Non-violent resistance for the world. For the world to see and hear -except the world did not want to hear nor did the world want to listen and see... Most of those rallies were actually highly instrumented with cars circling around on the look out for regime scouts and killers and most took place at night. Many took place in broad daylight and many rallies, peaceful, chanting groups of people asking for freedom, were literally met by machine guns being fired directly at them. The bravery of the Syrian people has turned out to be a lesson for the whole world to learn from. The protests still take place, but now they are not asking for the regime to please give them rights or make new elections. Now they are demanding the sitting ruler to get off and get lost and for freedom and democracy to be the basis for their country.
The Syrian People's Revolution for Freedom has really mostly been led by the children. The children have been the most sensitive victims and the cruelest receivers of the regime's anger, yet, the people of Syria are determined to not let fear rule them anymore, but freedom and pride. While the people of Syria love moderation and believe in civil resistance and the voices and acts of non-violence, then young men and defectors from the Syrian army began organizing their own army back in July called the Free Syrian Army. FSA was initially barely armed, but they were determined to do everything possible and more to defend their women, children, and families. Women were by that point being raped while their fathers and family members were forced to watch, boys and men were detained and sexually molested and raped for the sake of humiliation and destruction of the individual, snipers became a feature everywhere, targeting children playing on their porches or pregnant women inside their homes. I am not even making this up, that's the sad part....

Syrians are a very moderate people. However, if the world keeps on watching, then at some point something will click and radical forces will start being welcomed into the country to protect and defend their people from the vengeful, hateful regime sitting now. Let's not get to that point. Please, make your free voice heard and support the Syrians in getting democracy and getting some peace of mind.