MOON OVER SYRIA

…A COUNTRY RAVAGED BY CIVIL STRIFE AND MOSTLY EXTERNAL PROVOCATIONS AND INFILTRATION OF ELEMENTS FROM ITS FORMER ALLIES AND ALL-TIME ENEMIES.

The moon was almost full three days into the month of June, 2013, as we drove back from the City of Homs back to Damascus after observing the voting activities in some ten or so polling stations of the Syrian Presidential election.

Homs was a city vibrant with life, now it remained still, with a whole section of it completely devastated. It is perhaps the city with the largest Christian minority in Syria, but even their churches too had been attacked and destroyed.

In the office of a high government official we visited, there is the official portrait of President Bashar al-Assad and below it a bronze bust of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who was a close ally of America and had gone to visit the president at the White House.

Now his son and successor, had become a convenient enemy of the country, who can turn an ally into an enemy without feeling any guilt or remorse.

America does not have permanent allies except for the Zionist state and the United Kingdom and some other countries in Europe; the others are all potential enemies.

As our convoy of half a dozen vehicles all heavily armored sped along the lone desert road, and in almost total darkness, the only light I could see was from the moon hanging in the sky, whose light was too faint to cast any light on the ground.

There was light from the City of Damascus ahead which helped to brighten the sky…and seeing in my head the crowds of people coming out to show their support their incumbent president Bashar and dancing the dabke while shouting ‘Allah, Suria, Bashar al-Assad’.

And this was where we were all heading to, where not so long later there would be merriment and joy that lasted through the night, after the election results showed their president had been turned in for another seven years by a very large margin trouncing the two other candidates.

The problem is that the enemies of Syria and the Syrian people had no one who they could offer to replace Bashar, other than Miss Piggy or Mickey Mouse!  

But America is totally missing in the daily lives of the Syrians as much as in the people of the many other Arab countries now so it is useless to talk about Hollywood to them.

For centuries Syria and the other Arab countries had lived in peace but why only now that they are being destroyed and attacked by their enemies and also fellow Arabs especially Saudi Arabia?

The main problem is that the Arab leaders thought only of themselves and spent whatever time, money and energy on how to prolong their rule over their countries.

They did this at the expense of developing their countries and did not bother to promote unity of the Arabs in the region, using whatever means possible.

The only means that the political and hereditary leaders of the Arab countries had were themselves and the speeches they made and the personal appearances they could organize for their media.

This did not help much to promote Arab unity; it only helped trust them in the public eye.

They did not try to get the experts in the important fields to advise them on what better ways they could do to truly promote Arab unity and hence, World Muslim Unity.

They did not have experts in such fields who could study why America despite its land and population sizes with many who had come from all over the world speaking mostly in English, could be united.

They did not look at Hollywood as a propaganda center around which the country could depend to promote the unity of all Americans.

Of course there are still some discontents and disputes amongst themselves and with their political leaders especially the person living in the White House, but basically America can be said to be at peace with itself.

And this, the Arab political and intellectual leaders and experts have neglected to see. No wonder the now face the problems that they are facing now all of which are totally irrelevant and unnecessary, and could have been avoided if they had caused the creation of the New Islamic Cinema first mooted by someone in the First International Muslim Filmmakers’ Conference held in Tehran, Iran in February, 1994.

That was twenty-one years ago.

Even now none of the Arab and other Muslim leaders will not care for this cinema; they are experiencing the effects of not having that now, and still are not aware of why they are being attacked and displaced with some who are already assassinated such as Saddam Hussein and Muamar Ghadaffy.

Iran whose earlier Islamic leader and founder of their Islamic Republic, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini had decreed that having an Iranian Cinema was good for the country, but he did not get his experts in this field, to further extend and called for the establishment of the New Islamic Cinema.

If this they had done in the early years when they first established their New Iranian Cinema, then surely we would be having the cinema for all Arabs and Muslims by now.

No one can dispute that without the Iranian Cinema the Islamic Republic of Iran would have collapsed long ago.

But that is not likely to happen in a very, very long time.

Syria has been attacked from many sides, but the country has thus far managed to outwit those who are bent on destroying it and replacing the incumbent President Bashar al-Assad whose father was a close ally of America and the west and had been feted by the American president at the White House.

But after the Arab Spring, Part I, Bashar’s relationship with his country’s and father’s close allies turned for the worse. Suddenly, they found him to be not interesting and had to be replaced and with him becoming from hero to zero.

Which Arab and Muslim country will now take the mantle and propose the creation of the New Islamic Cinema? Syria, Iran, Malaysia?

Or do the Arab and Muslim leaders still want to allow their countries and own fate suffer?