What do we want?

by Amina A., A Gay Girl in Damascus, May 9, 2011

The regime claims that they have no idea what we in the opposition want. I find that hard to believe … haven’t they been watching us, listening to our slogans, reading what we write? Do they have facebook? Seriously, it’s spelled out there: “The solution is simple: Stop shooting at demonstrators, allow peaceful demonstrations, remove all your photos and those of your father, release all political prisoners, allow political pluralism and free elections in six months.”

And for Asad? “You will be the pride of contemporary Syria if you can transform Syria from a dictatorship into a democracy. Syrians would be grateful for that, and it is possible to do”
But maybe they do not get it. Maybe it is too simple. Didn’t Emma herself claim in that awful Vogue article that they practice democracy inside the royal household?
Well maybe more specifics would help …

We want an end to dictatorship. We want free and fair elections. We want freedom.

We want the constitution changed: get rid of section 8 and the special status of the Baath Party. Abolish the National Progressive Front. Lift the bans on other parties and decriminalize all of them. Let them all organize openly and compete for votes and let the people decide … and all of them, no exceptions: Islamic parties, the Brotherhood, Kurdish parties, everyone – if a party wants to run on a platform of “Syrians for Israel”, let them fail at the ballot box!

Let us discuss how we can have the most democratic system for electing a parlament that actually governs; there are wonderful ideas that have worked in other countries that we can copy or improve upon …

Eliminate the way that the President is chosen; no more referenda with one choice but real, popular votes. And maybe, we might even elect Bashar …

And while we are at it, let us have a presidency that has no religious test; that the President is Syrian should be enough.

The people of Syria are one; we must be an undivided whole. Let us have an end to sectarianism … but not by fighting for dominance, not by arguing whether Ali or Muhammad or Maroun or Al Hakim or Kefa is the greatest but rather by saying that no single religious identity shall have prominence over any other, that all the religions will be equal and equally free … the state will not promote nor will it prohibit any view of God and will let the people worship as they see fit

And let us remove the icons and idols set up to this regime; take them down.
We want an end to repression; no more censorship of the press, no more restriction on what we read and we see and what we view. We are not children

We want an end to the use of force to suppress dissent; the right to protest and the right not to be afraid. We want an end to the imprisonment of people for speaking their minds. We want an end to torture and abuse. We want a society based on laws where no one is above the law and one law applies for all.

But above all we want freedom