Syria is in a league of its own as far as the Arab Spring is concerned. Every attempt to resolve the country's democracy crisis has so far failed dismally. The chill wind from Syria can already be felt in a number of Arab capitals. The unexpectedly sunny Arab Spring in the early months of 2011 provided many pundits with a glimpse of what Arab democracy could be. A more stable, less autocratic and better-governed Arab world is in the making. Sadly, it may be a while before Syria catches up with other Arab countries. The Syrian government's mouthpiece Al-Baath newspaper focussed on a sensible fiscal plan that would supposedly couple stimulus with long-term economic reforms to entitlement spending and taxes. The paper's headline highlighted the re-tabulating loans granted in legislative decree number three for 2012 stipulating for licensed tourism and housing projects. Defaulters are exempted from paying their financial obligations, full overdue and non-payable fines and ensuring collateral. The capacity of the debtors or their guarantors and warrantors sift through the financial data and to pay in installments. The entire exercise appears intended to placate the intrepid investors who still wish to invest in the Syria of Bashar Al-Assad. Papers like Al-Baath and Al-Thawra relegated any analysis of the Syrian uprising to the inside pages or ignored them altogether. In sharp contrast, papers such as the London-based Pan-Arab Al-Hayat and Asharq Al-Awsat lauded the activities of clandestine groups such as the Syrian National Council (SNC), headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey. The role played by the Arab League monitors in Syria received much criticism. The various commentators in the Pan-Arab print media expressed conflicting explanations for the failure of the Arab League Mission to Syria. The headline of the Asharq Al-Awsat's front-page headline quoted the Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi as saying that: "We used to urge the protection of the Palestinians; now we call for the protection of the Syrian people." The paper also highlighted the admission of Al-Arabi that snipers were responsible for the killing, maiming and injuring of dozens of Syrian protesters and pro-democracy activists. "We would like to see an immediate end to all forms of violence," he added. Not to be outdone, Al-Hayat's front-page banner derided Al-Arabi for not knowing who exactly is shooting the Syrian people. In a most entertaining albeit somewhat cynical piece in Al-Hayat, Egyptian columnist and former head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the People's Assembly Mustafa El-Feki lamented the "metamorphosing of the Arab Spring into the Autumn of Fury, or rather the transformation of the Arab Autumn into the Spring of Fury". "Nobody would have imagined a year ago that 2011 would hold such surprises that radically transformed the region. Developments are moving at an incredibly fast pace. Some pundits even cynically remarked that any future Arab summit would be for the first time one of making new acquaintances rather than the more familiar interaction between heads of state or business as usual," wrote El-Feki. Hossam Enany in Al-Hayat was highly critical of the Syrian regime and sympathetic to the SNC and other Syrian opposition forces. "For the Syrian opposition to unite is a good thing. For the Syrian opposition to break into rival factions is undesirable�ê� It is lamentable that the fractionalisation of the forces of the Syrian opposition and the growing animosity between the various factions of the Syrian opposition retards the revolution." So far as anyone knows, where exactly the Syrian revolution is heading is an enigma. Perhaps it is not heading anywhere and will come to an abrupt standstill, or worse a meaningless stalemate. Will Turkey and Iran pitch in? Their respective proxies are already busy at work. For those who do not know, regional rivalries may be one of the main reasons why the Syrian revolution is slowing down. In an amusing take on the events in Syria, Saudi columnist Mohamed Al-Rumeihi compares Syria and North Korea in Asharq Al-Awsat. "Why did familial succession occur successfully and smoothly in the Korean case but not in Syria? Was not this particular issue one of the main motivators behind the eruption of the Arab Spring?" The writer underscores the differences between Korea and Syria in the pre-eminence of the People's Republic of China, Pyongyang's chief ally and a one-party Communist state. Moreover, unlike North Korea a country that is a homogenous nation, Syria is rife with ethnic, religious and ideological divisions. Heterogeneity has torn Syria apart. "The more the struggle intensifies in Syria the more internal divisions are accentuated," notes Al-Rumeihi. Perhaps that explains why tackling the excesses of patronage politics in Pyongyang differ somewhat from those in Damascus and other Arab capitals with the notable exception perhaps of Khartoum. Arab pundits on the whole were equally perturbed to see Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir flaunt his authoritarianism at home and abroad. The Sudanese newspaper Al-Raay Al-Aam highlighted Al-Bashir's imminent visit to South Kordofan, a hotly contested region of the country bordering newly independent South Sudan. In South Kordofan, like in Darfur and Blue Nile, the indigenous non-Arab peoples are trying desperately to participate meaningfully in the decision-making process. Like the South Sudanese they have long been marginalised from mainstream politics. The pro-government papers in Sudan alluded to the Israeli threat to Arab interests in Sudan. "We are on the brink of war with Sudan," the South Sudanese Foreign Minister Nhial Deng Nhial was quoted as saying in Al-Raay Al-Aam. Meanwhile the paper noted that Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti warned that Sudan was under attack by Israel with the latter using proxies. "We were victims of an Israeli conspiracy and we told the Arabs so, and the Arabs did not believe us," Karti was quoted as saying.
