In late April 2004, a "Media Dialogue" symposium organized by the BBC World Service, under the auspices of the Syrian Information Ministry, was held at the Al-Sham Hotel in Damascus. Among the participants were Syrian journalists and intellectuals, some supporters of civil society. The symposium addressed the situation of the Syrian media.
Following the symposium, participant Mahdi Dakhlallah, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper of Syria's ruling Ba'th party, Al-Ba'th, published an article on May 4, 2004, accusing the supporters of the civil society movement in Syria of "romanticism, demagoguery and opportunism." [1]
Dakhlallah's article aroused great interest in Syria, particularly after rumors spread about a list of intellectuals and human rights supporters marked for arrest. Several weeks prior to the symposium, attorney Aktham Na'issa, chairman of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Syria, was arrested, and following the symposium, a number of journalists who had been in attendance were summoned for investigation. The following are excerpts from Dakhlallah's article:
'The Knights of Liberalism are Gliding in Absolute Vacuum'
"During the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, the Arab nationalists, the left, the progressives, and the revolutionaries went overboard with their piles of political and propagandist slogans and clichés, believing in their absolute righteousness, and thinking that, in this way, they were mobilizing the people for the sake of supreme goals. Sometimes the situation reached the point of romanticism, and in other instances, demagoguery – and neither of these served the goal in any way.
"In the past two decades, they and their speeches have landed on the harsh ground of reality, acknowledging that the picture is complicated and that there is another opinion that they must become familiar with and acknowledge and respect, by means of open dialogue, through which the common ground of the interlocutors is determined.
"On the other hand, we are seeing recently how propagandists of liberalism, old and new, are gliding in the skies of slogans, in empty space. They are exchanging reality for slogans, and existential human concern for empty expressions, using 'ready-made phrases' that they have learned by heart, unexamined and unchecked.
"The 'knights of liberalism' are gliding in absolute vacuum, far from the harsh ground of reality on which real people live, [people] with specific needs of development and real human rights. [Real people are] people of flesh and blood, with [personal] names, surnames, and specific livelihood circumstances, who know that they have basic rights to study, work, and [to get] water to irrigate their thirsty land. [These are] people who cannot in any way be replaced by the abstract person who has no existence except in generalizing, unrealistic thinking.
'The Propagandists of Liberalism End Up in the Service of Extremist [Islamist] Exclusivist Thought'
"As in every slogan mongering, the propagandists of liberalism frequently find themselves – if they are sincere and well intentioned – in a world of romanticism. [But] if they are ill intentioned or opportunistic, [they end up] in the service of harmful, extremist, exclusivist thought.
"Why [is this] opportunism? Because extremism and exclusivism are now being marketed as the spirit the age and of "civilization." Anyone who does not dance to this tune is considered to be outside present-day civilization. People and countries are divided, according to this thought, into two sides: black and white, good and evil, obedient and defector; using theological terms in cursing the 'defectors,' the 'lagging behind,' and the 'tyrants.' …
"Why [is this] opportunism? Because there are people among us who are attracted by the 'opportunity' [to benefit], and they hastened to seize it, so as to benefit from these present-day "treasures" – if not materially than at least ideologically.
"They are being used, against their homeland and against their families. If they succeed at their activity, it is a disaster. But if they do not, we will find that it is a worse disaster, as then they will have sold their 'wares' cheaply.
'The Syrian People Will Always be in Favor of Development and Democracy, and Against Deceptive Liberalism of Slogans'
'They [these propagandists for liberalism] are drunk with joy when they discover that the doors of clubs in many capitals [in the world] are being opened to them, and they are showered with invitations. They are happy that the civilized world has recently discovered their genius, without it occurring to them [to ask] why it is only now that these circles are taking interest in their genius.
"The enthusiasm of the listeners and the interest of the journalists make them feel that they are the only chosen ones, out of 20 million ignorant [Syrians] whom one of them termed – in the ears of foreign journalists – a bloc of cowards, [a bloc] to which his brothers, mother, father, wife, and sons all belong.
"Slogans upon slogans, words upon words… damage to people and society, and, on the other hand, great political benefit to those circles that seek to weaken the regional role of Syria and put it back into the small sealed bottle from which this [Syrian] people has made such efforts to escape, and is still increasing these efforts despite the difficulties and crises facing it.
"What is more important than anything else is that this [Syrian] people acknowledges the need to strengthen freedoms and to develop democracy that is based on a rise of extensive development that we urgently need.
"We should not forget that the world is witness to severe ideological conflict between the propagandists of democracy [i.e. the writer of the article and his colleagues] and the propagandists of liberalism, old and new. This [Syrian] people will always be on the side of development and democracy, and against the deceptive liberalism of slogans."
[1] Al-Ba'th (Syria), May 4, 2004.
