Through my Eyes: How the Security Forces stirred my appetite for a revolution

By a Syrian activist

Damascus, March 2, 2001

The authorities in my country were really trying to be creative in dealing with the sit-ins that dozens of Syrians have held, in solidarity with the revolutions sweeping across the Arab world.

Sometimes, they would deploy thugs in plain clothes, some women among them. The latter took off their belts and, along with the others, beat up the demonstrators. This made me smile – for, it seems, the authorities think it’s inappropriate to let female thugs wield a baton.

For those who don’t know, the demonstrators – intellectuals, activists and university students – did not hit back; not just because these were peaceful, non-violent sit-ins but also because the participants are part of a gentle, polite elite.

A few days later, the demonstrators were able to carry banners and cheer for a couple of hours without any brutish intervention, but only in the presence of the same police officers who showed up in the previous sit-in and now clasped around the protestors like a bracelet around a wrist!

“They will devour you alive”

The next protest, however, was left to the riot police. One officer warned that the cannibals, as he described them, would “devour you (the demonstrators) alive”.

Security officers had a go at us too, dispersing us with thick sticks, and screaming insults.

In an ironic riposte to the riot police being described as cannibals, the demonstrators launched a Facebook campaign against the officer who came up with the offensive, racist description (Shawaya in Arabic). They demanded that he should avoid using such politically incorrect language and stick to terms like thugs.

No one’s surprised by what happened in any case. We’ve been there many times before. The surprise, however, was that the security officers used such a range of repressive measures in such a short space of time to thwart the protesters.

In the last sit-in, one police officer tried to outsmart the demonstrators, shouting that they had been infected by the same virus as the Egyptian and Tunisian protestors. Now that was a big surprise!

The Tunisian-Egyptian virus

In Tunis and Egypt, the very first demonstrations numbered thousands; while our sit-ins did not exceed a few dozen people. There, they demanded the fall of the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes, but here we just demanded the fall of the Libyan regime! In that sense, we were calling for no more or less than the whole world has been calling for.

Even the embattled Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi forgot about his worries and personal scandals, for a while, to suggest in a public statement that Gaddafi was heading for a fall.

Astonishment quickly followed surprise when we heard official Syrian statements affirming that Syria was not Egypt nor Tunis, Libya, Yemen or Bahrain… So why, then, are we treated like rebels as soon as we hit the streets?

And if this is not a country edging towards revolution, why do the authorities stage what seems like a counter-revolution in response to peaceful sit-ins comprising a few tens of individuals?

The authorities’ actions spark a strange feeling – a feeling that’s very hard to identify or describe instantly. It requires a thoughtful pause.

Really, it stirs one’s appetite for a revolution.