Syria: Blogging Day for Syria

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011.

Today marks the 100th day since the protest movement found its foothold in Syria. A 100 days later, more than 1,400 deaths, and three presidential speeches, the protest movement is still in full force. This Friday is being billed “friday of delegitimization”.

To mark this day bloggers from Syria and elsewhere started a blogging and Twitter campaign called “Blogging Day for Syria”. The campaign called on every blogger to post his article with the hashtag #Blog4Syria. Here are a selection of these.

Syrian blogger, Suriyeh, writes about her memories as a child in Syria, and about the children of today's revolution.

Those kids… Because of them, we are talking politics! Because of them, we are arguing and tearing each other apart in name-calling and accusations of treason. Because of them, we are engaging in a massive cathartic experience of opinion sharing and debate. Because of them, our world has lost the horizon of perfection and has fallen into greatness: greatness of fear and greatness of values. Because of them, we were forced out of our time-honored apathy. Bloody tags!

Palestinian activist and blogger, Abir Kopty, writes that no Palestinian will enjoy freedom if it comes on the expense of other people's. She continues:

الشعوب العربية أكثر وطنية من زعمائها، ففي تونس ومصر تعالت الهتافات لأجل فلسطين وصدحت الميادين ب “الشعب يريد تحرير فلسطين” وفي بنغازي رفع علم فلسطين في ساحة التحرير منذ اليوم الأول لتحريرها من القذافي، بماذا يختلف الشعب السوري؟ أليس هو ذات الشعب الذي علمه حزب البعث العروبة والوطنية في المدارس؟
The Arab people are more patriotic than their leaders. In Tunisia and Egypt the cries for Palestine, “The people want the liberation of Palestine”, echoed across public squares. In Benghazi, the Palestinian flag was raised the very first day after its liberation from al-Gadaffi. How are the Syrian people any different? Aren't they the same people who learned Arabism and patriotism by the Baath party and at schools?

Tunisian blogger, Sarah, also expresses her solidarity with the people of Syria:

Un président qui massacre son peuple parce qu'il a osé lui demander de partir, parce qu'il a osé lui réclamer sa liberté, c'est ce qui se passe en Syrie aujourd'hui et c'est ce qui se passe dans toute dictature. En Tunisie, on en sait quelque chose, et c'est pour cela, que nous tunisiens, sommes de tout coeur avec les syriens qui se battent chaque jour pour leur liberté et pour leur dignité. Et il l'auront un jour, ils paieront le prix fort mais ils l'auront. J'y crois.

A president who massacres his people because they dared to demand his departure, because they dared to demand their freedom, that is the situation today in Syria, and it is what takes place in every dictatorship. In Tunisia we know a bit about that, and that's why we Tunisians stand wholeheartedly in solidarity with the Syrian people in their ongoing fight for their freedom and dignity. And they'll achieve it one day: they'll pay a high price, but they will achieve it. That's what I believe.

Syrian blog, Muammarjiyeh, or the “builders” of Syria, writes:

ثورة تونس صعقتنا! ثورة مصر عطتنا أمل كبير، والمشاعر القومية اللي كان البعث مكرّهنا فيهن اكتشفنا أنّها فعلاً موجودة، وأنو النظام ما بدّو أنو فعلاً نتعاطف مع بعض كشعوب، بدّو نتشارك بغريزة القطيع بس. وكل قطيع على جنب الله يخليك!
The Tunisian revolution shocked us. The Egyptian revolution gave us great hopes. And we discovered the Arab nationalistic feelings that the Baath had forced us to abandon. We discovered that the regime didn't want us to sympathize with each other as people. They wanted us to share a common herd mentality, and only that. Each herd on its own.

Luma, a Syrian blogger based in London, also chose this day to share her feelings about the events in Syria.

Over the past three months, 3 different Syria(s) emerged, the Syria which you see in Al Jazeera, the Syria you see on Addunia TV and the real country that I visited earlier this month and spent most of my short time listening to people and what they had to say, the everyday occurrences and what they’ve been through in the past few months.

So which of the 3 Syria(s) is the real one? Who is demanding what and who is shooting at whom? Unfortunately, truth has been one of the early casualties of these events, followed by reason and the ability to talk across differences and because of that the future Syria was a Syria that does not exist in any form.

Blogger, Furious Syrian, chose to write a letter to his son, to be read in the distant future:

You will probably not remember this, but you were weeks old when I held you in my arms, walked the living room back and forth, tears rolling from my eyes like a young girl, chanting loudly: The people want to topple the regime.

This was the first day I called you with your Syrian name. This was the day when everything changed, and everything kept changing, and life as we know it will never be the same.

And finally, blogger, nuffsilence, dedicates a poem to “Syria and all Syrians under the #Blog4Syria campaign”.

O Syria

How do you feel
As you mourn the loss of your children
How do you plan to deal
With the colossal sadness
With the geriatric madness
Inflicted upon your men of power
The bickering of a household
and its long-neglected woes
The young feminine face
Of your beloved
Forehead furrowed in a question mark:
Why?
Why this late?

This post is part of our special coverage Syria Protests 2011.

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