“Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to dear, kind God! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones!”

The Brothers Karamazov

Waking up to a brand new day, to this flawed yet protected world of mine, I check the street I live in. Every single house is standing still, since there are no bombs falling through sky. People are outside, rushing somewhere, getting lost in daily life. Nobody puts a gun against someones head, against my head; my head is still at its right place, still hasn’t abandoned me yet. The “bell jar” that surrounds me is still there, being this transparent border between me and the rest of the world. Being completely safe and sound, I am all set, to get myself into trouble. I still hold the freedom of being open to this world where I reside, with all my possibilites, while somewhere, somebody is living in an extreme vulnerability, in complete chaos, where serenity doesn’t drop by. I encounter the Other’s trouble through a screen everyday, since this is what I intent, what i ask for: to get myself into trouble.

AJEnglish tweets on June 1st at 8.04 a.m: “Tortured and killed: Hamza al-Khateeb, age 13 – death in custody sparks further furious protests in Syria”. I follow the tweet till the end, and read the coverage. Hamza dissapears during a protest in Syria on 29th of April, and been held under Syrian custody until 24th of May, until returned dead to his family as just a body, that holds the marks of a horrible torture, reports Al Jazeera: “Hamza’s eyes were swollen and black and there were identical bullet wounds where he had apparently been shot through both arms, the bullets tearing a hole in his sides and lodging in his belly. On Hamza’s chest was a deep, dark burn mark. His neck was broken and his penis cut off.”

The famous nausea seizures me, real slow, making sure that I cannot get away with it. I have to go till the end, I shall take the burden on my own shoulders, so I dare to watch the censured video of the marks of the torture of Hamza’s violated body. Trying to collect the ghosts of this 13 year old’s existence, I curse to this nonsense, how on earth is it possible for the rest of us to move on?

Not being able “to die his own death”, his possibilities were taken away from him in hideousness. Hamza’s story drags me to Rilke, in whom I seek  shelter, yet not comfort:

“God everything is presented ready-made. One comes along, one finds a life all prepared, one only has to put it on. One wants to leave or is forced to; no strain:

Voilà votre mort, monseiur (Here is your death, sir)”

Hamza became the symbol of the Syrian uprising:

https://www.facebook.com/hamza.alshaheed?sk=wall

The article Hamza: Here Is Your Death appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

In the early hours of Saturday, Syrian troops and tanks entered Baniyas, a coastal city in the northwest of Syria located at the foot of the hill of Qalaat el-Marqab. Baniyas has been the centre of anti-regime protests for some time and as the report of the military operation emerged, electricity and communication was cut. Updates are coming from human rights activists on the scene.

More than 500 people are believed to have died since mid-March as a result of President Bashar al-Assad and his regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters. 8000 people have been jailed or gone missing so far.

According to the BBC, at least 21 people were reported killed in Homs, Hama and other cities Friday, in what protesters had named ‘day of defiance’. However, no reports can be verified independently since foreign journalists are not allowed to enter Syria.

As tanks rolled into the ‘bastion of the protestors’, residents formed human chains in an attempt to halt the procession, human rights activists told AFP. NOW Lebanon could report that tanks had also encircled the nearby town of Bayda while army ships patrolled offshore.

According to new agencies, activists have told that armed units were advancing on the Sunni Muslim areas but steering clear of the neighborhoods of the minority Alawite sect which the presidential family belongs to.

“Residents are reporting the sound of heavy gunfire and seeing Syrian navy boats off the Baniyas coast. Sunni and mixed neighborhoods are totally besieged now,” one rights campaigner, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters news agency.

This mornings development comes two days after a large convoy of military vehicles pulled out of Daraa, which had been under siege since April 25. Hundreds of families are said to have fled Baniyas in anticipation of attacks.

(Sources: BBC News, NOW Lebanon have contributed to this report)

Image provided by Ahmad Al Zoughbi

The article Military Tanks Storm City of Baniyas, Syria appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Made famous by the fact that Chandler from Friends once fled there to avoid an ex-girlfriend, Yemen is the latest Arab nation to be undergoing a revolution. The countries current dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh has ruled the nation since it was officially formed in 1990. However his career leads back much further then that, as he also served as the president of North Yemen for 12 years before the nations unified.

Saleh is another president with ties to the US, like Hosni Mubarak he has been supportive of a variety of US policies, and is still struggling with links to al-Qaeda operatives within the nation. This came to an abrupt end as Saleh made several furious statements blaming the US for the widespread protests in the Yemeni capital of Saana.

Much of the protest is concentrated at the University of Saana grounds in the capital city. Al Jazeera has reported the protests are daily now in the capital, with thousands demanding an end to the government’s reign. Yemeni protesters are frustrated with widespread corruption and nearly a third of the workforce is out of a job. More than 40 per cent of Yemen’s 23 million people live on less than two dollars a day.

The protests in Yemen have now been going on for weeks, with Saleh trying a number of tactits to end the protests in the capital. There have been reports of attacks from soliders resulting in the deaths of protestors, Saleh has tried blaming both the US and Israel for the protests, giving an impassioned speech against President Obama and has even attempted to propose a unity government.

Like Libya the future of the Yemen opposition movement will only be revealed through time – but it does seem possible that at least three large arab nations could overthrow long-standing dictators by utilizing the power of peaceful protest.

Photo Credit: Messay Shoakena – 2011 Messay

The article Yemen, Saana the Epic Center of the Protests appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.