What Revolution???

            If I didn’t have access to the news and someone asked me if there was anti government sentiment in Syria I would laugh at them.  Since Friday Aleppo has seen only mass support for Bashar Assad, the president of Syria. The roads are clogged with people driving their cars, plastered with pictures of the president, around playing loud patriotic music, honking their horns and shouting chants in support of Bashar. It’s actually rather annoying since they tend to continue well past my bed time. Luckily, I do have access to the news, so I have seen, heard and read about what is happening in many parts of Syria. People are demanding justice and large government reforms, and as of yesterday it seems they may be getting what they want.

            The whole situation is very confusing to me. I see and read about mass protests in other parts of Syria, and then see hundreds maybe thousands of people in Aleppo loudly showing their support for the president. Also while watching a report on Aljazeera the other day I noticed they made a point of saying that even in Daraa while people were protesting for reforms they WERE NOT calling for Bashar to step down. It seems he really is quite popular, and from what I have read it seems like he does actually want to make reforms, but there is some question as to how much control he really has.

Another interesting thing is that while I have seen mass showings of support for the president. The media, even beloved Aljazeera, as been slow to publish anything about support for the president, and even when they do it is at the bottom of an article about people being killed in a protest against the government. On Friday night while watching Aljazeera on TV there was a protest against Aljazeera in Damascus for not showing the whole story, and hundreds of people threatened to storm the offices of Aljazeera if they didn’t start to report on both sides of the story. I can’t pretend that I have and real idea of on what’s going on here, but it does look an awful lot like the media wanted Syria to be like Egypt so they made it look like that as much as possible and ignored everything else. Which is not very responsible journalism if you ask me.

The last thing that has confused me are the stories coming out of Latakia. This is a port town that is rather heterogeneous compared to most other small towns in Syria. There were large protests there for reforms in government, but the state run news claimed there were also unknown people shooting randomly at protesters and security forces alike, and this is why the security forces had to open fire. It is also why the army was called up to intervene in Latakia. The director of my school told me his sister lives in Latakia and she said a lot of this was true. He told me bashar’s uncle who was sent to Paris while ago has been trying to cause problems, and sectarian strife in the hopes claiming power in Syria later on.

            I cannot verify the truth of anything I have written here except for the support I have seen with my own eyes in Aleppo, and even then I have no way of knowing what the true motivation behind that show of support is. If I have learned anything from the last few days its that all major news agencies are also businesses and as unbiased as they claim to be everything must be taken with a grain of salt, because you never really know whose truth they are reporting, and why.

            For all the worriers I am completely safe and sound, I actually spent all of Saturday in Turkey, which was fun and weird. The idea of driving over a border and suddenly not understanding anything I read or hear is very bizarre. We went to Ghazziantep, which is a very nice little city, and I had a lovely day with my Arabic teacher eating the best Baklawa (baklava) I’ve ever had, and wandering around the city. I think we are going to Antakia (another city in Turkey) next Friday, so we shall see how it compares. Also last Friday I went on a field trip to Kassab a small town in the mountains, and had an awesome day playing in the woods, speaking Arabic and making new friends. So besides political strife things are definitely looking up for me in Syria.