Syria's Situations

         In early March of 2011, Syria was still considered to be a "kingdom of silence" compared to the rest of the Middle East thanks to strict security measures, a popular president, and religious diversity. Like most people in the Middle East at the time, Syrians were protesting. Syrian protests in particular started up after some students who were putting up anti-government graffiti got arrested and tortured. Then people across Syria decided to have large protests in the city of Daraa. The president, Assad, retaliated by having military forces, including aircraft and tanks, attack towns where protests were common. Now, after years of the Syrian government killing and torturing its own citizens and protesters fighting back, various superpowers around the world are trying to decide whether or not they should help the rebels. You may be asking yourself "But what does any of this have to do with an English class?" Well I'll tell you. Basically news providers are trying to tell you one of two things: Syrian rebels are bad, this is fact because we're ignorant or Syrian rebels are good, this is fact because we're ignorant. What these have in common, though, is that the Syrian rebels are all normal people, like you and me. The problem with that statement is that it's not true, there are various reports that show the Syrian rebels are backed by America's number one enemy Al Qaeda. So, that shows that the Syrian rebels are victims of the single story. The average American only hears that the poor Syrian rebels are being killed constantly, not that they may be teaming up with known terrorist groups. What I find the most interesting about all this nonsense going on in Syria and various superpowers' decisions is who supports what. Normally, Republicans are all for military intervention and Democrats aren't, but (as shown by the links above) known Democrat John Kerry supports intervention in Syria (he was a big player in Vietnam War protests) while known Republican John McCain is against intervention in Syria. Granted, everyone has their own opinion and what not, and just because you identify with one of the two major parties in a flawed system doesn't mean that you believe in all the ideals of who you identify with. Another interesting little tidbit is that the House of Commons recently rejected Prime Minister David Cameron's proposal to aide the United States in Syrian intervention. The last time the House of Commons and the Prime Minister/King/Queen disagreed on a declaration of war or peace was 231 years ago when King George III wanted to keep fighting the Americans.

Photograph of a Syrian protest