In answer to this comment from anniebannie

“Joshua has never claimed to be a Revolutionary.”

Dear Annie, Absolutely not! In fact he is the opposite of Father Paulo. Father Paulo is a humanitarian, and a first class Syrian ambassador- who wants justice, dignity and freedom for all Syrians. He sees Syrians as one people, as we see each other. Paulo is pro-revolution, and he is a revolutionist. I fully agree with your premise.

“… by focusing on the fear and uncertainty of the Christians they interview, they give the impression that only Christians are afraid of a changed Syria – or rather that they are the only ones who have something to fear in a post-Assad Syria. Christians are treated as separate from the rest of Syrian society, as if revolution has not affected the lives of other Syrians.
…
There is also often an underlying assumption that Christians in Syria are ‘special’ and thus should be singled out for focused reports, because their suffering or plight is different or more acute than that of other Syrians. One of the worst examples of this is a USA Today article in May 2012, which tells us that “the uprising has hurt Christians’ standard of living. Foreign visitors are nowhere to be seen in the Christian neighborhood of Bab Touma in central Damascus.” This seems to imply that only Christians are being impoverished by the revolution, or rather their impoverishment is somehow different or more significant than that of other Syrians, … Another careless remark (In the Washington Post) is: “many Christians simply do not want to upset their way of living in a country where their fate will always be decided by Muslims.” This is sloppy, biased journalism at its worst. It portrays Christians as living in a bubble, disconnected and blind to the adverse situation of their fellow Syrians.”
Doreen Khoury

.. anyone,anyone, whether he is elakhdar or elahmar, citizen or non-citizen, subjective or bias…who wants to taint this popular Syrian Revolution of ours will be dismissed as “racist or orientalist”.

In his latest post, he cuts and paste from Aron Lund’s paper, Syrian Jihadism, and refers to it as excellent?

“The Syrian civil war is a sectarian conflict – among other things. It is also a conflict along socio-economic and urban-rural lines, a classic countryside jacquerie against an exploitative central government, albeit internally divided by the country’s religious divisions, which cut across other patterns of identity and loyalty. Then there is a political dimension to the struggle, with Bashar el-Assad’s loyalists battling to preserve the current power structure against demands for democratization and economic redistribution. And, last but not least, the conflict has transformed into a proxy war for influence among several regional and international powers, adding another layer of complexity. “

Dear Annie “vocabulary” matters a great deal. The right terms used to describe any subject has to be sound -language/terminology…THE WEST BANK (INCLUDING JERUSALEM) IS OCCUPIED, NOT “DISPUTED”. The term “disputed” started by CNN, now widely used.

In Syria, a Popular Revolution is unfolding. It is not A CIVIL WAR, nor A SECTARIAN CONFLICT, or CRISIS or DISPUTE…we have activists, revolutionaries, freedom fighters…who dared to ask for their rights after so many years of humiliation and oppression.

“In the abstract, of course, peaceful resistance is morally preferable to fighting, but we are not free to pick and choose as we like. This is reality, a reality that has forced countless Syrians to defend themselves against a regime that generated violence and hatred as part of its very nature and not, as one bloated Syrian minister recently claimed, ‘out of necessity’ or in response to ‘popular demand’.” Yassin al-Haj Saleh

Lund’s description of the hyenas,whether loyalists battling to preserve status quo or regional and international powers who are worried from the Arab Awakening does not concern revolutionaries an iota. Syrians are paying dearly to live in dignity, they are not concerned with regional or international powers, with orientalists or racists and their spews. Their revolution is not an ideological one. The Arab Awakening in Syria started the moment they chanted الموت و لا المذله It is not going to be easy, it will not stop. The misuse of language specially by professors-and not lay people- is alarming.

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