Gamal Nkrumah shares the concerns over President Al-Assad's policies gone haywire What happens when a clown goes crazy? He giggles in public and as a presidential buffoon, mumbles in a nationwide televised address supposed to reassure his people and informs them with a mischievous smile that foreign agents are fomenting trouble. The irony is that the clown in question was addressing Syria's intellectual elite as represented in the country's chief academics at the prestigious University of Damascus. He had previously played the same ungainly part, pontificating before the Syrian parliament. In recent years Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has given the impression that he is less concerned with what should be the core purpose of his government -- how to turn his country into a democratic, well-governed and modernising state -- than with how to silence all dissent. And, by all means necessary, his people revolt. Yet Al-Assad's intransigence and willingness to inflict atrocities on his subjects should not surprise us. After all, his father Hafez Al-Assad decimated the population of rebellious cities such as Hama when its inhabitants dared to challenge him. It runs, apparently, in the family. The London-based pan-Arab London-based Asharq Al-Awsat 's front page headline singled out Syria or rather the Al-Assad regime for retribution, noting that even traditional allies of Damascus such as Russia are distancing themselves from the Al-Assad regime. "Putin: We don't have special interests in Syria". The paper noted that the Western media detected signs of weakness in the Syrian leadership following President Al-Assad's nationwide address. However, what caught Asharq Al-Awsat 's attention was that Moscow has joined the international chorus of denouncing the Al-Assad regime. Asharq Al-Awsat reserved no less than six full pages in its Wednesday edition to the Syrian political impasse. In a provocative article entitled 'Are the Arabs ready for democracy?' Adel Al-Tareifi questioned the readiness of the Arab nations to embrace democracy. "The seriousness towards peaceful reform that characterises the democratic model is not found in the Arab world. What we find instead is that the militant Islamist political parties are investing and utilising the general climate of anger and frustration," Al-Tareifi warned. Tarek Al-Hamid, writing also in Asharq Al-Awsat, was more curious about the reasons behind the apparent optimism of the Syrian opposition. "The Syrian regime was hoping that its international standing will save the day. That unfortunately was not forthcoming... even the most ardent supporters of Al-Assad were very critical of the Syrian regime. What is particularly eye- catching is that the Russian leadership, and especially the Russian president, after warning initially against international intervention, has had a change of heart and is now advocating concerted global pressure to force the Syrian regime to democratise," noted Al-Hamid. Arab nations are bracing for the impact of regional turmoil. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is busy playing chess with the President of the World Chess Federation Kirsan Ilyunzhinov even as a Gaddafi regiment saves the strategic mountain stronghold of Nalut from the clutches of his adversaries and NATO bombs civilian targets in Tripoli by mistake. The shameless Libyan opposition begs Washington to intervene militarily on their behalf and Gaddafi prepares for his opening moves on the chessboard and chuckles. The Arab spring sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, has emerged as the main topic of discussion in many Arab papers. In an opinion piece in the London- based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat by Mohamed Shuman on the direction of the Arab uprising, and in an article entitled 'Tunisia and Egypt and the challenges of building a new state,' the Egyptian commentator and academic sounded somewhat cautious and pessimistic. "The national consensus that characterised the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions soon eroded with the disappearance from the political scene of ex-presidents Bin Ali and Mubarak... suddenly, contradictions and contrary priorities and conflicting agendas appeared that are likely to hinder the smooth transition to democracy. The construction of a new democratic system assumes that the aspirations of the masses be fulfilled and that the original aims and objectives of the revolution be adhered to," Shuman wrote. The political crisis in Syria also preoccupied many commentators in Al-Hayat. The Syrian writer Assaf Khazzam pointed out that the situation in Syria is unique and cannot be compared to any other Arab uprising. "After three months of the Syrian revolution, Syrians -- and I do not necessarily imply the Syrian regime -- continue to insist that their experience and the direction of their political reform is radically different to that in other Arab countries," Khazzam wrote in Al-Hayat. Another Syrian commentator discussed his country's political crisis from an entirely different perspective. In an outspoken and forthright criticism, Bashir Eissa, in 'Conscious revolutions or investment projects?' complained that it is no longer tenable to blame the Arab regimes for Arab cultural backwardness. "It does us as Arabs no good to simplify and trivialise such vitally important issues as such. The Arab regimes are merely a reflection of the general malaise of Arab societies and their cultural backwardness. In short we are faced with shallow societies and irresponsible weak states that are incapable of conducting their own national affairs, and therefore, they depend on outside assistance to resolve their problems," Eissa concluded on a rather despairing note. Last, but not least, the controversy surrounding Saudi Arabian women continues unabated. Whether it is the reluctance of the Saudi authorities to grant the Kingdom's women the right to drive or just to guarantee full citizen's rights is preoccupying the pundits and political commentators in Saudi Arabia. The irony is that men are leading the debate and there are very few women who are expressing their opinion on their own rights. Writing in the Saudi daily Okaz columnist Mohamed Bin Ali Al-Harfi in a thought-provoking article entitled 'Saudi women and the delusion of sexual standpoints' warns that "I know that there is a grave difference between the perspective of the Saudi society concerning some of the issues concerning women. There is the controversy about women driving, for instance. And, there is the controversy about Saudi women being permitted to play sports." "I would have wished that the protagonists concur on some credible compromises and that they would stop the vicious cycle of accusations and counter- accusations," Al-Harfi contended. Writing, also in Okaz, in defence of Saudi women's citizenship rights, Abdalla Omat Khayat reminded his readers that decades ago, "religious clerics, God rest their souls, objected to the use of the telephone as un- Islamic and even objected to the military wearing fatigues as un-Islamic."
