Monday, December 31, 2012

Welcome 2013!

In the big scheme of things, today is nothing more than another date in a calendar. Yet, people give it great importance and treat it with reverence as if a period is truly ending and another one is starting. If we were on an island in the middle of nowhere, with no watches to tell the time or calendars to point out the date, would we know the difference? Would it even matter? The importance of bidding the old year farewell at parties and welcoming a new year in pomp and circumstance remains a mystery to me. Yet, I continue to join millions of celebrants in this senseless ritual. It might be that, deep down I believe that something good is about to manifest itself with one simple movement on a calendar. Maybe I need a symbolic action to revive my hope -- killed by the previous years -- that our world will have another chance at righting the wrongs or that my fate is truly embarking on a new path that might bring new people, new experiences, and new excitement.

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Monday, December 24, 2012

2012 The Year Of The Arab Woman

As this eventful year draws to a close, we are humbled by the heavy toll the Syrian people have paid and continue to pay for their freedom. As expected, President Bashar al-Assad has shown his willingness to sink the entire country in a bloodbath rather than admit his government’s failure to uphold a façade of peace and stability it was able to propagate for decades. Syrians face a bloody holiday season with no clear direction as to how their crisis will end or when. There is no telling who will be at the helm when it is all over, what shape will the country be in at that time, or who will be left alive of the civilian population to carry thenation through a healing process and back into prosperity.

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Monday, December 17, 2012

Syria: The Beginning of The End?

Bashar al-Assad must be finally seeing the writing on the wall: “You are done Mr. President!” One has to give him credit for staying the course and playing strongman for almost two years, a quality or vice many predicted he cannot pull off. Well, he did and he has survived so far the fate some of his Arab counterparts have faced. He remains in a position to negotiate his way out of the impasse. But, the clock is ticking, and his chances to step out with a saved face are fading by the second.

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Monday, December 10, 2012

The Millionth Red Line

We speak of red lines all the time as if they are hard, well-defined not-to-be-crossed lines because they will certainly bring undesirable consequences. We forget that the red line is a virtual line that often lives only in the head of its beholder, and can have any color of the rainbow or all its colors at once. It’s just agreed upon by society that we refer to it as the red line to suggest a halt, a “STOP!” It hardly ever brings this result; as people say it but rarely mean it if any.

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