Excerpt:

The hactivist group Anonymous reacted angrily to the Internet shutdown yesterday in Syria, an act attributed to the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the civil war there. Anonymous basically declared war on the Syrian regime, saying it intends to obliterate “all Web assets belonging to the Assad regime that are NOT hosted in Syria,” starting today.

sharquaouia:

Uhhh, why is this not getting more media attention?

(via sharquaouia-deactivated20121015)

kawrage:

Everywhere in Chains: posters inspired by Rousseau’s “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains” 

(Source: africandigitalart.com)

Excerpt:

WikiLeaks’s Sarah Harrison later told reporters assembled at a London journalists’ club that the emails in part would expose relationships between the Syrian government and Western companies.

(via jayaprada)

cosmopolitan-fascist:

statedept:

Press Statement
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
May 26, 2012

---

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms yesterday’s massacre in the Syrian village of Haoula. United Nations observers have confirmed that dozens of men, women, and children were killed and hundreds more wounded in a vicious assault that involved a regime artillery and tank barrage on a residential neighborhood.

Those who perpetrated this atrocity must be identified and held to account. And the United States will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Asad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end.

We stand in solidarity with the Syrian people and the peaceful marchers in cities across Syria who have taken to the streets to denounce the massacre in Haoula.

That’s very nice but what say you, StateDept, to the children, women, and innocent people massacred by US troops like here and here?

It is not enough to engage in implicit neocolonization, you are ruining your human infrastructure and capital for these endless wars by having them listen to ultra racist calls for war against Islam by military commanders and sending troops on tours over and over again until they mentally break.

(Source: state.gov, via le-kif-kif)

monzer:

ما تنسوا وطنكم 

damasian1:

———-

 We will prevail.

Down with the dictator.

———-

Pray for Syria!

(Source: dandanashamiya)

(Source: pink-endesas)

  —-

  Scenes of devastation in Homs, Syria

(via damasian1)

hagooos:

إن الملوك بلاءُ حيثمآ حلّوا

إهداء إلى الملوك في العالم أجمعين

(Source: adab-arabi)

Ibn ʿumar narrated that the Prophet PBUH said “God bless our Levant and our Yemen. God bless our Levant and our Yemen.” So they asked: and our Najd, oh Prophet? The Prophet PBUH said: “God bless our Levant. God bless our Yemen.” The people repeated: And our Najd, oh Prophet?

Ibn ʿumar said: I think that at the third time he said: Earthquakes and deception/trials are there. And there shall apear the horn of Satan” - Bukhārī

BY ABUBAKR ⋅ JANUARY 18, 2012 

It’s always interesting to note what country is typically ‘forgotten’ when listing the Arab countries that protests erupted in 2011.

Sunni-Shia unity in Bahrain

‘Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen…’

or ‘Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen…’

The geniuses amongst you will notice that Syria and Bahrain are included in one list, while excluded in the other. The unfortunate truth of the matter is, when speaking to many Arabs about the Arab Revolutions, they will often either exclude Syria or Bahrain.

Why? More often than not, sectarianism.

We have all heard it before; “The Bahrainis aren’t democrats! It’s just the Shia protesting so that they can take over the country and turn it into Iran!”

Or, you have it the other way around; “Syria isn’t a revolution! It’s just Saudi backed Salafis who want to kill all the Alawis and Christians!”

Those who peddle in sectarianism are often the worst hypocrites. Whilst railing against Saudi oppression on the Shia of Qatif or Bahrain, they will repeat similar sectarian narratives against protesters in Syria. And vice versa.

What is most tragic is that the people whose  lives are on the line in both countries do reject these claims and recognize that their struggle against dictatorship and tyranny is a universal fight. Within the Syrian refugee camps of Turkey the refugees were adamant that their revolution was not sectarian. The people of ‘Sunni’ Jisr al-Shughour said that the Alawis were their brothers and many were just as oppressed as any Sunni. In Yemen, I witnessed many protesters carrying the flags of both Bahrain and Syria, supporting both in their uprisings.

And yet some continue to be blinded by their prejudices.

Looking across the  so-called “Arab World”, it’s easy to see sectarianism rearing its ugly head again. As soon as the Americans ‘withdrew’ from Iraq late last year, the Iraqi coalition government set about dividing itself on largely sectarian lines. ‘Sunni’ Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi was accused of being behind bomb attacks, he responded by fleeing to Kurdish northern Iraq, and painted himself as a martyr in the face of Nouri al-Maliki, a ‘Shia’ who many see as Iran’s puppet. Worse followed, with the apparent al-Qaeda attacks on the 22nd December that killed 69 people.

It should be remembered that  al-Qaeda attacks in Iraq target both Shia and Sunni. A particularly inspiring story was that of two Sunni soldiers, Lieutenant Nazham Faleh and Private Ali Ahmed Sabah, who gave their lives protecting a crowd of Shia pilgrims from a suicide bomber. And when al-Qaeda in Iraq was at its strongest, it was the Sunni Awakening Councils that really brought it down.

This idea that because we belong to different sects or religions, and thus we must enter into perpetual conflict is completely wrong. Sectarian hatred of the other is not an inherent, primordial part of Arab society. Sure, in times of strife and war the chances of intercommunal violence can unfortunately increase, but this need not be the norm.

A person is not sectarian merely by being part of a certain sect nor is the existence of different sects in a society inherently a bad thing. Quite the opposite, when there is peace in such a society, it shows a society at its zenith, one where all opinions are accepted, allowed and flourish together. No doubt, sectarianism in its negative sense, during times of war, has led to some of the worst atrocities in modern Arab history.

Those who peddle in sectarianism are often the worst hypocrites. Whilst railing against Saudi oppression on the Shia of Qatif or Bahrain, they will repeat similar sectarian narratives against protesters in Syria. And vice versa.

As I have said, and despite it being the widely held opinion, sectarianism is not the historical norm. The medieval Arab world did not witness the massacres of ‘heretics’ that Europe committed. This was because the concept simply did not gain much attention. There was no Pope, no central authority to direct and fan such flames. The ‘Mihna‘ of the 9th century, where the Caliph attempted to get scholars to agree to a statement of be considered heretics, failed and banished the widespread use of the term, and its associate takfir, until the 18th-19th century.

Unfortunately, the emergence of certain groups in that period brought forward the concept of takfir, and we are saddled with the consequences today.

But let’s not pretend that the causes are only internal. It is no coincidence that sectarianism emerged stronger with the concept of the nation-state. The colonial powers that directly established artificial states like Lebanon and Iraq employed old tricks like divide-and-rule (tricks that continue to this day – see post-war Iraqi Governing Council). The mentality of many of these colonialists can really be summed up in the words of a Jesuit missionary, Riccadonna, in 19th century Mount Lebanon, who disparaged the neighbourliness between Christian and Muslim villagers:

And that, to Mr. Riccadonna, was a bad thing.

It need not be this way. Sectarianism, the kind that is one of the many obstacles against an Arab nation from uniting and advancing, is a cancer that must be fought. And if you are one of the hypocrites that disagree with the freedom of others because of their sects, then shame on you.