Syria via Dolorosa toward freedom', New Book by Azmi Bishara'

   A new book by the Veteran Arab thinker and Philosopher Dr. Azmi Bishara "Syria: Via Dolorosa toward freedom-an attempt at contemporary history" (687 pages), published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies.

The book is an important logical research paper to find out what is really going on in Syria and the regional area as well as to understand the interactions incident Syria, and its extension towards Iraq and Lebanon to the West, and perhaps even further, and to monitor trends in this revolution and to foretold the future.

Bishara is documenting the Syrian revolution since its rising.  he explore the social events and political life before March 2011 what were clearly the root causes of the explosion of protests in Syria, and interacted during driving, the basic elements of social, political, regional or communal, then the deadlock was broken about the bloody scene of today and the pain long trail towards freedom.

 Critics say the book is the deeper and more comprehensive book has published-so far-of the Syrian revolution, it combines the sociology and economics within the historical context besides coherent strategies and methodology of the social historical analysis.

 In this framework, the book does not publish any information unless it was sure of their validity, and does not interpret any incident unless around their roots and origins and dimensions, Critics added. Hence this book fills a void of knowledge and historically in terms of its literature on the revolution, and its uniqueness in reasoning, analysis and interpretation and inference and conclusion, which are essential in any in-depth and scientific writing.

 Between the armed and peaceful

 As dating Azmi Bishara of the revolution in its two stages: peaceful civilian and armed, and monitor strategic appearances by the Syrian regime to suppress the revolution by persistent and bloody violence, which has led to the generation of patterns of violence not familiar in Syria, and then elaborate on facts which occurred in major cities in Syria, how peaceful incidents began turning to militarism and the arms later.

 The book shows the responsibility of Bashar al-Assad regime of sliding revolution to armed struggle as a strategy, after the gun was limited to sporadic cases of self-defense or other. In this presentation, the author refutes the common argument that revolution is a revolution in rural, marginalized, and proves that she first started in the urban centers of the parties, and then spread to rural marginalized after. Perhaps read the remarkable social base on which the Baath party are deeper readings in this field of knowledge, the process of rurality and the resulting "economic liberalization", which, after the coup of this rule to the same mission, and stepped up, as a result, the "young wolves", and what the writer the metaphor "Al-Tashbeeh and al-Tashleeh"-robbery, mercenary acts- to the people.

 Bishara's book highlights 10 years of al-Assad 'monarchy', as the first signs of protests buds in this era, then moves to the sparks in Dara'a city quickly turning grow fonder, which remained peaceful in the beginning.

 The writer tried to flinch the facts and analysis in each city such as Dara'a, Hama, Aleppo, Damascus, Ar Raqqa, Deir Al-zour, Idlib and Homs. Bishara was analyzing the facts and disproving them if necessary, then addressing the Syrian regime and strategy study structure of political and media discourse, revealing the oppression and massacres, kidnapping and sectarian violence by jihadist lanes and dealing with armed violence to sliders phenomenon of warlords and the chaos of weapons, before the opposition's political dynamics and new actors (news bulletins) and international initiatives to solve the problem.

 Bishara says in his book the Assad regime to change or alter the people. There's big fear that the armed conflict will be ended by sectarian and communal settlement of all political contributions from communities without changing the Regime.

Therefore, he calls for the establishment of new Syria on the basis of democracy, all citizens of the country without abandoning the Arabic identity of the majority. It is in this field calls for settlement, but the settlement includes the departure order and survival of the State, because without such a settlement would turn the revolution to  sectarian and ethnic combat  what turn Syria into a failed State even with Assad defeat.

  Bishara, in July 2011 said that Syria's regime was teetering and would have to face the same fate as other Arab governments. Bishara opined that there was no real question of regime change in Syria, but rather "the type of regime change and the way in which it would take place".

The Syrian authorities were already working, according to Bishara, at splitting up the Syrian people through fomenting sectarian divisions in an effort to thwart popular unrest, alongside their violent suppression of the protests. Bishara also expressed the view that the Iraqi-Libyan scenario was equally unlikely in the Syrian case, for a number of reasons. The primary obstacle to this scenario is in the revolutionary movement itself: the Syrian people know only too well how such situations pan out, and they do not want to lend credence to the regime's charge that they are following an international conspiracy.

Bishara further expressed the view that change was necessary in the Arab reality, due to the nature of despotic regimes in the region, the political structure of the ruling elites, and the way in which the governments used military might to retain their grip on power. The Arab people, on the other hand, have simply lost the will to be subjected to that kind of rule under their repressive regimes. Bishara noted that there would have to be a difference between one Arab country and the next in the shape that these revolutions took.

Azmi Bishara is the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and a member of its Executive Board. A prominent researcher and writer, Bishara has published numerous books and academic papers in political thought, social theory, and philosophy, in addition to several literary works. He was Professor of Philosophy and History of Political Thought at Birzeit University, from 1986 to 1996. He also co-founded Muwatin, the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, and Mada al-Carmel, the Arab Center for Applied Social Research. Bishara was the principal founder of the National Democratic Assembly (Balad), a Palestinian-Arab party inside the Green Line, which supports democratic values irrespective of religious, ethnic or national identity. For four consecutive session, from 1996-2007, he represented his party as an elected member of parliament. In 2007, Bishara was persecuted for his political positions at the hands of the Israeli authorities, and currently resides in Qatar. He is the recipient of the Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2002 and the Global Exchange Human Rights Award in 2003.