Aqrab is a village near Hama in Syria ( please see maps). Three days ago it witnessed a heart-breaking massacre, terrible in its impact and its execution. The cult of death has taken over in Syria. It has become too easy, too acceptable and too common as a way out. The people of Syria need help. They need an ethical humane world to stand by them and with them, pointing the way out compassionately and sympathetically They have seen so much death that they have forgotten that there is life out there and children laughing in the sun. The Syrians need you, good people of the world, decent people of the world. Take them into your hearts and forget that they belong to another culture and different religions. The entire world did have beginnings in Syria which witnessed the dawn of civilization. Sometimes people need to be saved from themselves, not by war but by peace and love.
The Massacre of Aqrab
The Massacre of Aqrab left me as it must have left you in a state of complete detachment of reality. My mind suddenly stopped, paralyzed by a horror like no horror I encountered before. What can make men turn against their flesh and blood, against their women and children and blow them up shooting the survivors at point blank before committing suicide themselves? Two things emerge here: The desperation of the men who lived by the sword like the Shabiha, or their utter conviction that if they surrender to the armed opposition, they will be butchered, their women raped and children slaughtered. This can only show their state of mind before the massacre they staged: absolute loss of faith in their enemies and the utter erosion of trust in the other. The men who committed this massacre and mass suicide judged the situation from waht they might do themselves in a similar situation. Perhaps they have shown no mercy so they were expecting no mercy. The second chapter of the tragedy was the execution of their own women and children so they might not bring shame on them if they were captures. This is the heart of darkness, the moment time stood still in that forgotten ordinary village. The men wielded a right they did not have in that they considered their women and children as their property, as their chattel and material possessions, as their cattle over which they could yield the power of life and death. All that is primitive, tribal and primeval was present at that moment, but all that was civilized, legal, human and reasonable sank into the murkiness of self destruction and the darkness of primordial slush.
The Massacre of Aqrab left me as it must have left you in a state of complete detachment of reality. My mind suddenly stopped, paralyzed by a horror like no horror I encountered before. What can make men turn against their flesh and blood, against their women and children and blow them up shooting the survivors at point blank before committing suicide themselves? Two things emerge here: The desperation of the men who lived by the sword like the Shabiha, or their utter conviction that if they surrender to the armed opposition, they will be butchered, their women raped and children slaughtered. This can only show their state of mind before the massacre they staged: absolute loss of faith in their enemies and the utter erosion of trust in the other. The men who committed this massacre and mass suicide judged the situation from waht they might do themselves in a similar situation. Perhaps they have shown no mercy so they were expecting no mercy. The second chapter of the tragedy was the execution of their own women and children so they might not bring shame on them if they were captures. This is the heart of darkness, the moment time stood still in that forgotten ordinary village. The men wielded a right they did not have in that they considered their women and children as their property, as their chattel and material possessions, as their cattle over which they could yield the power of life and death. All that is primitive, tribal and primeval was present at that moment, but all that was civilized, legal, human and reasonable sank into the murkiness of self destruction and the darkness of primordial slush.
Alisar iram
alisariram 