Syria:
on “The Road to Damascus”
My
heart bleeds,
just as
my tear-soaked eyes, and
anguish-filled-mouth
keep
asking:
why
Syria-the Levant-
the
rising land
in
rubbles and ruins?
Why
Damascus-
the City
of Jasmine of
shrubs
and vines,
now
turn to vineyard
of
locoweed and poison ivy?
Aleppo-the
bridge between
past
and present civilization-
why now
a theater of war?
Syria-the
Ebla Kingdom of
four
millennial ago,
Syria-the
center of ancient
civilization-
a
geographical location
that
has given
so much
to mankind.
The
bedrock and
confluence
of cultures,
a
continuously inhabited
geographical
location;
an
actor and a victim under
seventeen
different dominant
powers-from
Phoenicians
to
French and United Nations
in
modern times.
Syria-why
the rumbles and
tumults
in you?
Syria-the
land of Seleucids,
in
you-Damascus resides-
in you
is Antioch-
the
birth place of Christianity.
Syria-in
you-Umayyad-
ruled
and reigned,
Syria-the
once called
“East
of Europe.”
Syria-where
are your
former
glorious lights?
Syria-what
happen to your
fountains-where
you dispense
knowledge
and understand
to
enlighten the world?
Sad to
say, you have
become
a slaughter house-
that
spill innocent blood,
a land
where biological weapons
turn
toys, offer as gifts to her
citizens.
Instead
of light-
darkness-you
give,
instead
of clear day sky-
billow-we
see always,
instead
of twinkling-night sky-
mushroom
clouds from
conventional
weapons
darken
the night more.
Instead
of joyful cries and laughter
on
streets, at schools, in offices,
homes,
and entire land;
painful
cries and elegies-
people
are reciting.
Daily,
people are turned to
strangers
in the only land
they
know;
daily,
people become
destitute-not
by
natural
cause or fault of theirs,
but
through greed and
lust
for power by a few.
Daily,
thousands are
dying
without end in sight,
daily,
children orphaned,
women
turned widows.
A Forgotten
Past by Forgetful
Elite and
Leaders:
Syria-a
country with long
historical
journey,
now
forgotten by its own-
for
selfish interest;
began
as Ebla Kingdom
millennial
ago, but conquered by
Sargon
of Akkad-
later
trampled by Canaanites,
Egyptians,
Hittites, Assyrians,
Chaldeans,
or Babylonians.
Subdued
by Media and Persia-
tyrannized
by Alexander the Great,
subjugated
by Seleucids for centuries;
tasted
Roman iron rule-
after
64 B.C.E humiliating
defeat
by Pompey.
Middle
Ages-a period of
ten
centuries recreated-
Middle
East with a new religion-
Islam;
from
Umayyad through Abbasid,
to
Mamluks, and Ottoman,
Syria
undergone varied
socio-political
transformation.
With
the fall of Ottoman-
a new
Syria through Sykes-Picot
or Asia
Minor Agreement created-
a Syria
under French through-
United
Nations mandate.
From
independence in
1946 to
1970-
a
quarter of century-
Syria
faced upheavals-
very
un-usual in history.
Even as
part of the union-
United
Arab Republic,
no
peace in the land,
neither
was Ba’ath Party’s
political
therapy healed
Syrian’s
festering gangrene.
Post
1970 Hafez al-Assad
might
have stabilized Syria,
but
created more problems
than
solutions;
the
Alawi Sect ascendancy,
suppression
of opposition,
self-perpetuation
through
autocracy-
became
future time bomb-
that
will certainly detonate
someday;
now the
day is HERE.
Today,
Syria is a shadow of
former
self –
a
failed state in hands of
various
interests that
carved
out fiefdoms
from
once thriving state.
Interestingly,
Arab Spring
had
given SYRIA a new name:
Safeguard
Your Rights
(inalienable)
In face
(of) Assaults.
As
Syrians home and abroad
keep
thinking about the land-
the
land they love so much-
all men
and women of goodwill
should
shout in unison:
SHED
BLOOD NO MORE,
LEAVE
SYRIA ALONE AND
LET
SYRIA BE.
Silas Ola Abayomi
0 Comments
