All signs point at a diplomatic, financial and even military creamy injection for the”Syrian Coalition” in Marrakech on 12.12.2012. Although the Moroccan government has welcomed various components of the opposition previously, it did not have the moral courage to invite the parties that have not joined the Doha Coalition. Already, more than one Western official has often warned us of the consequences of insisting on self-withdrawal and marginalisation by taking a negative attitude towards joining the Coalition under the conditions set out in Doha, although a senior Western official did not refrain from saying, “At least take a supportive position without affiliation, as so and so did.”
The Doha session was not a model of democratic dialogue as much as it formed a conspiratorial kitchen for sharing goods and trades. For some, the priority was personal attendance at the Conference, whereas for others it is the parties’ percentage of seats … but the interests of the homeland did not reach the height of an Adidas-style business deal buried by a Friday sermon. So we consider what happened in Doha is a positive step in terms of unifying the parties that belong to the school of living off the revolution, not living for the revolution. But we saw the care taken by the Western-Gulf in making The revolution, The nation, The opposition and The people in a serious attempt to repeal the prospects of a civil democratic victory in the country. It was to deal a heavy blow to the democratic and rational consolidation prospects of the various opposition parties. The gunmen were divided, and the businessmen were split; and a severe blow was directed at the trust within personal or party relationships that has been building out of a common history of struggle for more than twenty years in some cases. How ironic that Daraa province which shouted the launch of dignity and freedom gets one seat.
The dialogue in Doha as it turned out, despite the wedding-style media that is necessary for such occasions, was small in its cleverness, and small in its perceptions. To be loyal and to be someone else’s man overrides being tender and belonging, and solidifies a precedence of relying on external support rather than on the support of the people; the acceptance of others’ conditions for trivial returns. The process of buying consciences was more important than values, and Qatar and the West re-produced the practices of the Assad regime of thirty years despite their differences: the first rode the horse of the “progressives” and the second rode the horse of the “conservatives”, both self-styled leaders of the revolution and the State and society. To go back to the maxims of al-Ashtar al-Nukhaai of naming Governors after the death of Caliph Uthman bin Afan: So why did we kill the Sheikh??
Contempt arrived with “international public administration of the revolution” in absenting the leadership of the Syrian Doha Coalition from the unifying of the armed factions, which was attended to by delegates from Doha and Riyadh, Paris, London and Washington, in the absence of representatives of what was presented as the political leadership and the sovereign of all that is Syrian military or civilian.
When we talk to them about such practices which kill confidence in democracy, they say brazenly: “This is the demand of the people we meet; they ask us to solve intractable problems”. So we try from time to time to remind those who blame us for our country’s sons, who pay them cash because of the circumstances of private banking in the country, or put guards on the doors of their homes to make them feel as though they are VIPs in word and deed, or give them European passports without citizenship, or reincarnate with white skin over their brown skin so that their “virtue ” is not equivalent to a drop of blood of a child that fell before it knew the ballot box. The fall of innocent victims has doubled because of their silence about the complicity of Turkey with extremists crossing the Turkish border to Syria, which make blood and demolition a common denominator between the military holders of power, and the powerful strangers.
The Moroccan government will not pay one Dirham from the taxes of the people. There is an elaborate division of labour: there are those who pay and others who organize, and there are those who plan and there are those who represent the Syrian people, and finally there are voters in Marrakech to be considered as the sole legitimate representative. In fact, large events need to be distinct scenes. Mrs. Hillary Clinton will attend this ceremony, probably in her last appearance as U.S. Secretary of State, to hold the title of the Bishop who christens after the birth.
For a long time we asked the French we met: Why not quote examples of the French Revolution or the French resistance when you’re talking with us about Syria? Why do you want us to metamorphosise to become a Libyan copy? Why do you support the “Syrian servants”(Les syriens de service) while with their servants they are strengthening the sides of parties furthest from secularism? Why did you not take any action as a preclusion and preventative measure on Jabhat al-Nusra, although there are French citizens in direct contact with them? Why do you want to lift the arms sales ban to Syria when you know that there is surplus in the arms and militants? Do you think that what has been destroyed is not enough yet?
Of course, our contacts are whispering in our absence that this kind of speech serves dictatorship and contributes to the prolongation of the regime’s life and rumours that we release about the existence of “Shariya courts” is our attempt to intimidate minorities and secular people, at the same time as these extremist groups are actually under control and will be eliminated in a timely manner. They forget that the only element under control is the “Syrian servants”. Jihadists proved to be more adept at alliances and antagonisms than Western diplomats.

Still, playing with the fate of the revolution process and the Syrian people continues, one day talking about chemicals, and another day talking about the fall of Damascus, from one moment to the next. It seems that the delay in forming a Coalition Government resulting from Cairo (for the Syrian opposition) and Geneva (the international group) was not only because of the conflicts about seats, but was also awaiting a special event to make people forget that this proposal was French and was not Syrian. Although Westerners have pushed for the formation of a structure in Doha “to stop the dynamic jihad in Syria”, perhaps today they are reinforcing this dynamic to confront a wide civilian democratic pole which will be recognized by Syrian citizens, which belongs to centrism and moderation for more than five thousand years, the basically demands being democratic freedoms and social justice, and equality in a sovereign State of law.

Prior to the start of the civil social movement in Syria, we said that the fall of Pharaoh Mubarak will give the most important push for Syrian youth to mobilise. Today, however, the great Egyptian people stand in the face of concentrated power which is in the hand of President Morsi, and find a Syrian citizen who buried dictatorship in the heart and mind and reality opening an eye with a quick pledge of allegiance given one day to a political Council here, or a military junta there, confronting a new undemocratic, sectarian and denominational delinquency that boosted the option of authoritarian violence and entered Syria in the tunnel of devastating civil war.

Whenever the violence escalated, the smell of death escalated too, and the democratic project was pushed back. If the utopian means to prevent dictatorship and to prevent the darkening of the future survive, this is the task of a daily struggle and not just a dream in front of you or beside you. It cannot be a revolutionary position to regain the initiative without life regaining its position as the first reason for creation or existence, and the human to regain his stature as the finest conscious value in this existence.

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– Published in Arabic Alquds alarabi, Assafir and al Hiwar al Mutamaden 9-10/12/2012.