The situation in Homs is getting from day to day more worse. Assad's army and his security forces who haven't deserved their title any longer behaving themselves like mercenaries and professional killers try to pull out all the stops to intimidate the inhabitants, to provoke the protesters and to eliminate defected soldiers. Not even shying away from using rocket propelled grenades (RPG's) and other forms of heavy artillery they devastate complete districts like Baba Amr and Bab Sbaa.
Today tweets reached us about attacks from Free Syrian Army (FSA) soldiers on districts with a predominant Alawi population as a reaction on the continuing shelling of the raided areas they are hiding at. I was very confused about the posts: Soldiers who refused to follow the orders to kill the own population and therefore risking their own lives and those of their families as well are knowing what they're doing. With the moment of defection their social consciousness returned fully being suddenly more aware than ever that for their decisions and deeds no longer the higher ranks are to blame for if failing. This newly gained responsibility includes also a clear mind and an enormous discipline not to commit an act of desperation. Fortunately those rumors were soon refuted by local activists assuring that only the regime thugs are trying to incite sectarian tensions - the main goal of Bashar al-Assad to justify his bloody crackdown. Reports, pictures and footages document the unity between the different religious groups in their common battle against the regime, Muslims and Christians praying together respecting each other; on the other side the regime loyalists aren't only Alawites or Shiites. It's not a question in what way you believe in God. It's a question if you are for or against the dreary dictator.
Despite full-bodied announcements granting visas to international journalists nothing has happened so far. Assad knows that it would be simply impossible to welcome the free press delegations at Damascus airport only to drive them to carefully selected places presenting them a shiny happy world. It won't work because every halfway investigative nature would point with his finger on an unfoldered Syria map demanding: 'This interests us .. we want to visit Homs.' And in the digital age of GPS systems even in your mobile the trick of the Potyomkin village isn't realisable ..
As long as no journalist is able to enter officially the actual world's capital of resistance against tyranny we have to rely on reports 'inofficial' visitors publish. Several times journalists could enter on adventurous ways the city facing the tragical reality and the epic resiliance of the citizens. The last one who was able to visit Homs wasn't even a full-time newsman but an English professor at the American University of Beirut. On his two days motorcycle trip he used the chance for a stopover. His record about his sometimes very spooky experiences was released some days ago in the FP magazine:
He had great luck not only to meet someone showing him the shelled districts but most of all not being dispelled or in the worser case arrested. Anything like that can happen in Assad's Syria where the civilians' wall of fear is torn down since nearly eight months but the disposal of the regime loyals has increasingly grown. It's still a matter of life and death whom you can trust. Especially the coordinating activists live with the permanent threat being caught from the infamous mukhabarat facing in the case of detainment undescribeable torture to reveal their social platform passwords or the names of their companions. One of those courageous activists from Homs described the gruesome reality down in the streets in an article from the award-winning writer Razan Zeitouneh released yesterday on the Jadaliyya website:
In the light of all those described events nearly unimagineable for us who enjoyed the privilege growing up in stable democracies it appears like a miracle that the sieged protesting civilians not have given up their non-violent struggle for freedom and dignity. And the Homsees weren't the Homsees if they haven't got the right answer to the random regime terror. Since months their rally scheme follows an extremely creative choreography, the chants vary daily reacting subtle and countering to the tyrant's moves and measures. Here is an example for their inventive abilities, token in a footage two days ago at night before Eid al-Adha:
What could we learn from them? Many things if we look closer to: That you may have more power in you than you believe. That your creative potential won't let you down if urgently needed. That your humor is the best self-protection against getting mad. That you should never surrender as long as you fight for the right case. And that your faith is the central pillar granting you rear cover in desperate situations.
Nobody can predict when exactly the regime will fall. But its' fall is inevitable. The sooner the better for the strangled city's suffering people who most of all are in need for a cease-fire, the withdrawal of all regime forces and the restored supply of food and water before the humanitarian crisis is turning into a humanitarian catastrophe.
Homs proved that it can stand up to all that...! I have insiders in Homs assuring me that they never felt like brothers and sisters as they do today...!!! :')
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