Mamdouh Bitar, Bahloul
In 2013, my friend Bahloul wrote an article in which he said: “I want to say it honestly and frankly: the authorities must leave. There are various forms of departure… including departure from the main centers of power, followed by a gradual and peaceful eradication of the Ba’ath Party. Within the context of this eradication, it is possible for the Ba’ath Party to develop and assume its proper place in the state and society. It may become a leader… not by virtue of Article 8, but rather by virtue of free elections. The other form of eradication is similar to the Iraqi form… well-known to everyone and requires no explanation.”
Failure to remove the regime from power in the first place will lead to a catastrophe. This catastrophe will be represented by the increasing presence of the Brotherhood on the political scene and, ultimately, their usurpation of all political roles, not just the important ones, but all of them. Then the Syrian people will have to wait a full century to get rid of the Brotherhood. Then Syria will truly become Kandahar. Before Afghanistan turned into Kandahar, it was not as primitive as some imagine, and Somalia was not as primitive either. The Islamic fundamentalist movement has turned both countries into a desert where nothing grows but killing and whose only product is violence. Why doesn’t this apply to Syria? The Syrian people will have to deal with an aggressive, invading and totalitarian fundamentalist religious movement, which establishes a single relationship that it deems appropriate with the other and the self, the features of which are determined by the sword. This movement evokes the features of the present from the “Rashdid” past at best, where there was violence, spoils and doctrine, and where jihad will be for the sake of God, i.e. for the sake of the clergy and not for the sake of humanity, using an inspiring divine superiority centered around the Messenger, the Book and the Sunnah, a divine superiority inflated around a pile of intellectual and behavioral rot. This superiority increasingly proves its purity by distancing itself from reason and logic. The further it distances itself and inflates itself, the purer it becomes… Prepare against them whatever force you can… And who asks who they are?? They are the polytheists and atheists among the Syrian people. The Brotherhood will not be able to direct the invasion convoys abroad, since the outside can twist their necks with lightning speed. Prepare against them whatever force you can, to terrorize your enemy. The enemy here is everyone who has a different thought or opinion. The democracy that we fear will become the Shura that we fear. Our problem will not be denouncing imprisonment, torture, and the violation of human dignity, but rather our job will be to count the dead infidels hanging on the gallows, since the so-called Islamic democracy does not see any existence of equality. The Brotherhood also has an article similar to Article 8. The Brotherhood also has an article similar to Article 3. The Brotherhood also has a sacred rule imported from heaven, like the rule of the holy Qardaha family. Wherever they tread, we kneel and kiss. May God fall, but Bashar will not fall. We are facing a terrifying situation. It is a form of continuation of the current situation, except that it is more ferocious, violent, aggressive, and extreme. Dictatorship, corruption, family, dictatorship… etc. It is the natural extension of the current situation… from brotherhood to Brotherhood. The failure of the current situation in its false struggle against the more primitive current is due to the fact that this situation does not represent a real alternative to the situation that awaits us and which we do not want to await. The great maze is in choosing the slippery slope and preferring it over the gutter… This slippery slope will inevitably lead to the gutter, whether anyone likes it or not! And whoever does not want the gutter must end the slippery slope. The fundamentalist threat is present and future. The current situation is like a snowball, growing larger and larger the more it rolls. Major fundamentalism is not a substitute for minor fundamentalism, and minor fundamentalism will lead to major fundamentalism. The only promising alternative is a decisive confrontation with fundamentalisms—a civil state for the state and society. Anything beyond that is nothing but a slide from bad to worse, and bad will lead to worse. This is the dynamic and inevitability of history, which the bad must recognize, understand, and comprehend, so that the situation does not deteriorate to a worse state. This transformation is not in the interest of the bad, nor is it in the interest of the good, but is exclusively in the interest of the worse. Once this is realized and understood, the only option left for the bad guys is to truly gradually move toward a civilian situation that will protect them first… The only thing left is for the authorities to truly gradually move toward the civilian movement and open up to it, not as a trick, but as a reality. They must positively accept the first form of departure… It is one of the few remaining opportunities, after the authorities lost many winning cards through unparalleled stupidity. They must turn against themselves, in order to prevent the country from spiraling into the worst!
In the end, it can be said that if the decaying regime had listened to what Bahloul wrote in 2013, Syria would not have reached this point!