Syria: A Popular Uprising? I hear this often from people that believe the Syrian conflict began as popular discontent with the government. But, what is a popular uprising? According to Wikipedia, a popular uprising is a Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection that is a refusal of obedience or order. That definition is pretty arbitrary if you ask me. I wasnt satisfied with this answer, so I continued to search through Google. I couldnt find anything more in depth, so I tried to look through old textbooks I kept for moments like this - still nothing. From what I could gather, there was no clear definition for popular uprising. Great. How could a term that is used in defense of violence against a sovereign government be used so loosely? The fact is that the media; western and Arab states; political activists; and scholars used this term because they could get away with it. Most people are not going to ask them to define this term that has become part of the U.S. vernacular when mentioning Syria. After all, the U.S. is the most guilty of all for their clear ambiguity geared to manipulate you into believing a false fact. It is really a play on words. When you hear the word democracy, you may automatically assume that it means open elections. However, Lebanon has democratic elections that are based on the sectarian hierarchy of their government - only Maronite Catholics can run for president. Therefore the term democracy is just an illusion; the definition is derived in your head. The same case can be made for the term popular uprising. The reason I bring this up is for two reasons :1) is it not antithetical to believe that Assad should step down if a few people demand it? I mean, in all sincerity, how is this a democratic way of removing Bashar from power? It is not democratic; it is paradoxical. 2) A popular uprising would not take place in a desolate province like Daraa. A large uprising would begin in Damascus or Aleppo. Not the province with the highest illiteracy rate in the country. Regardless, this wont change the mind of the nincompoops who deny reality. -Leith
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 05:35:13 +0000
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