Syria next?

This domino effect is crazy. I hope that violence is limited and the death toll stays low wherever it may be.

 

My brother is studying abroad in Damascus right now, I'll have to ask him about this. I'm visiting him there in March.

 

Socially/Politically speaking, good for them. Iran can't be happy seeing this, given how discontent its population has been.

I also hope that any violence or loss of life is minimal

 

In terms of precedent, Syria's response to protests could be more violent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_massacre

 

not sure they can handle Democracy.

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Damascus, 'Awrence, Damascus.

 

An interview with Assad from this morning's NPR:

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In today's information age, consequences will never be the same.

I used to wonder at what point Twitter and Facebook would start catalyzing major political upheavals in countries. I guess we're officially there now.

You know times have changed when the name of an obscure political primary candidate in Nigeria suddenly starts trending worldwide on Twitter. Once upon a time, it was easy for tyrants to control large swaths of population by suppressing dissent. Today, literally every person has a voice that can be heard throughout the world, regardless of where they are on the socio-political ladder as long as they can find a Blackberry or a little cybercafe terminal. One has to start wondering if it is possible that this thing snowballs beyond Arabia and what it would mean for the world's political and economic balance as we know it.

 

literally every person?

Spoiler

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Read to the end of the sentence, sir.

 

I just poked The Syrian Revolution 2011.

 

Well, American politics already has a twitter-sized intellectual buffer, so ... why not.

 

In other news, Sudan is about to split in two -- almost a given at this point.

 

This is such an awesome thing.

 

Forget it. Syria is a different country all-together.

 

I believe they coined the term "Hama Rules" which has been used forever now by political pundits to describe politics in the Arab world?

Still, I would not bet against the Syrian people. They are wonderful people, but they can also be quite feisty. But yeah, their military has a history of crushing descent in ways that would make Tienanmen square incident seem merciful.

 

So I just emailed my brother in Damascus the Facebook link in the OP. Needless to say, he wasn't very happy about me sending that link to him...because of the "government monitoring" of people's internet activity in Syria.

So the rest of our conversation over IM basically had to do with how awesome Syria, the Syrian government, and the Syrian people are. :grin:

 

Hama is probably one of the largest massacres the world has never heard of. The Syrians have been through some ****ty times.