Source: WHAT IS GOING ON IN SYRIA TODAY

The “Arab Spring” in Syria is but a dream

Nabil Fayyad is a Syrian intellectual of Shafi’i Sunni origin. A pharmacist by profession, he undertook advanced studies in theology, Syriac and Hebrew at Kaslik‘s Holy Spirit University. He studied the Talmud and translated it into Arabic. His research focuses on the Jewish origins of Islam. A respected author, his work has been the subject of two doctoral theses in Germany. He strongly criticized both the Syrian dictatorship and religious extremism, incurring the wrath of both. In 2004 he was imprisoned by the Syrian secret services and was released a few months later only due to international action. In 2008 he was the subject of a fatwa for his book on Aisha: “The Prophet’s wife is eating her children.” Nabil Fayyad is an opponent of the regime and a prominent figure of the revolution in Syria. He gives us in poignant language his disappointment at the hijacking of the Syrian revolution by extremist movements leading Syria to sectarianism and chaos.

No, this is not my kind of revolution!

“Oh, we were very romantic! We were dreamers, too! We expected the Arab Spring to invade our country from all sides, from south to north, from east to west. We were expecting freedom that had been stolen from us for the last fifty years!
I remember with a tug at my heartstrings the beginning of the movement in Syria! It was Daraa, and we applauded Daraa and its young men; and then it was Homs and its new clock where thousands of citizens of all faiths were thronging, calling for nightmare for the resignation of the governor, who was a real nightmare for their lives.
And then, without warning, without respite, the beautiful movement fell apart, once Ramadan was over (…)
Previously, Iyad, an activist from Homs, on the coordination committee of İnshaat district, visited me with his girlfriend every week to discuss endlessly. We talked and talked about the future. Iyad with his long hair and his Buddhist faith was my dream for change in free Syria.
Arourism appeared!
(Sheikh Arour is a Salafist cleric who tirelessly teaches hatred of others on the Salafist Al Wissal channel, funded by Saudi Arabia.)
The young people disappeared from the Nasiriyah airport, poor and faithful to the core, they whose whole concern was to take me gently when I criticized the regime, they suddenly became the leaders of the Free Syrian Army.
And battalions appeared, sectarian by name and content! Then came the slaughter of innocents according to their identity card! Coarse, puritanical language spread, which just reminds us of the late Bin Laden and his henchman Al Zawahiri!
Adolescents filled opposition television screens presenting themselves to viewers as if they were so many Robespierres, Dantons, or Voltaires, but in language as prosaic as their faces and studded with pea-sized Qur’anic quotations to match their brains!
There are old retired army officers proclaiming their dissent from the armed forces in language that Salafism makes outdated! Under the banner of “freedom” all the Christians are expelled from old Homs! And under this same banner, old Sunni Homs is destroyed! Alawites become the targets of kidnapping and flaying alive whilst the perpetrators shout, “Syria wants freedom!”

http://www.thevoiceofreason.de/article/120