Saudi Arabia halts aid to Lebanon, Al-Hilal crowned champion! Turki Al-Dakhil/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
The attractive headline was the answer a friend gave me days ago when I asked him about the day’s most important developments. He briefly answered, saying Saudi Arabia has halted its aid to Lebanon and Al-Hilal FC has won the Saudi Crown Prince Cup. Let’s move on though from Al-Hilal’s victory, which has become routine as this was the 11th time the club has won the cup. Let us talk about Lebanon which has always been a part of us and which we have always been a part of. The support which Lebanon receives from Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries is a lot more than mere ink on paper. Loyalists acknowledge this while prejudiced people deny it. Saudi Arabia has supported Lebanon through war and peace. Riyadh’s hand will always remain extended to the moderate and wise men in Lebanon in order to maintain whatever is left of state institutions and historical cultural values. Christian figures acknowledge that no Arab country helped as much as Saudi Arabia in protecting them against forced displacement. Riyadh did not bet on a certain sect in Lebanon but on the entire Lebanese people and supported the Lebanese state, which is the way to guarantee stability.
Political measure
The recent Saudi decision to halt a $3 billion program for military supplies to Lebanon is not directed against the good people of Lebanon, or against the Lebanese civilization. It falls within the context of political measures against a flagrant aggression practiced by unruly parties which do not believe in civil and state values. Riyadh’s hand will always remain extended to the moderate and wise men in Lebanon in order to maintain whatever is left of state institutions and historical cultural values, which some intend to destroy through a revolutionary and militant culture. The Lebanese people know Saudi King Salman very well. They remember his visits and they know how concerned he is over them. However, decisiveness is a must to confront hostile practices. King Salman is the king and master of decisiveness. Everyone knows that Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty is a serious matter, which is never taken lightly even when it comes to best friends.
Syria between two theaters
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/February 21/16
“This is amazing. We now congratulate each other for being granted asylum status. We rejoice if one of us finds a shelter for himself and his family. We rejoice if a child is still alive after being found in the rubble. We sometimes just wish to find our children’s corpses so that we can bury them.” This is how Syrian actress Yara Sabri summed up the current life of the Syrian people in a monodrama. She was playing the role of a Syrian woman fighting entrenched behind sandbags in a one-woman play called Under the Sky performed in the Dubai Community Theater & Arts Centre. Contrary to my expectations, the hall was packed with audience. I thought few people would want to watch a political play considering we have been watching political developments in Syria for five years now.People of Syria are artistic and culturally inclined. Art remains part of their lives wherever they go and live. After the war, they took with them their society consisting of writers, actors, actresses, artists and painters wherever they went. Sabri’s play was very impressive. You can hear some of the audience interacting and even crying as the play reopened everyone’s wounds. The man who sat next to me has lost more than 16 members of his family in Syria. Most of those watching the play had lost near and dear ones. Tragedy has struck almost the entire Syrian population. In the play Under the Sky – written by Fadia Dalla and directed by Maher Salibi – we do not see anything about ISIS and about sectarian battles. A woman sitting next to me said this is how Syria used to be for all the Syrian people before the regime ripped it apart and decided to destroy it and displace its people.
No war on terror
The regime has tried and actually succeeded at picturing its confrontation with the majority of the Syrian people as war against terror and a struggle exported to Syria as a religious project. However, the story of the Syrian revolution is like the Libyan and the Yemeni revolutions. It’s the story of the people who could no longer tolerate a life under the rule of violent security and military regimes. The play reminds us how, before the Syrian revolution, people rejoiced if the bread they received was not rotten. It shows how the regime kept people preoccupied with earning a living, putting food on the table and how it afflicted them with torment. This is why the Syrian people revolted. They did not revolt out of religious or ideological grudges. We can see the difference between popular sympathy and international carelessness, which has allowed Syria to become the worst tragedy we’ve known since World War II. Do the people know the scale of the tragedy committed against millions of Syrian people? Dalla’s black comedy, with this funny yet painful script, gives us mixed emotions. In one of the scenes, Sabri grabs her phone and takes different pictures of herself while carrying a rifle. “Maybe someone will see this photo and like it (on Facebook),” she says. The scene is followed by moments of silence as she recalls others’ sufferings and says: “What about those drowning in the sea? How will they see how many likes they have on their photos?” People in Arab countries and the rest of the world certainly sympathize a lot with the Syrian people. However, this sympathy is not being reflected on the ground due to the official opportunist stances by governments. Therefore we can see the difference between popular sympathy and international carelessness, which has allowed Syria to become the worst tragedy we’ve known since World War II. As long as there is continuous rejection of the wrong status quo, the Syrian cause will not be buried despite the life of displacement and exile and the huge flow of refugees. This is why the war failed to impose what the regime wants.Whenever we ask ourselves whether the Syrian people can resist and remain steadfast, we realize that with this spirit and persistence, they’re actually capable of overcoming their ordeal and that no matter how successful Assad is at displacing whoever is left of the Syrian people, he will not succeed at planting despair.
