For a while I have been keenly keeping an eye on the recent political turmoil engulfing the United States. A significant period of my political identity has been strongly linked with the Liberal left my faith on their beliefs and ideals but the 2016 November elections shifted my views and sparked a strong sense of skepticism and detailed analysis of my closest beliefs.
Since Donald J Trump’s victory in a bid for the White House, the liberals in the United States have been highly vocal and critical about their unfair defeat. According to them, Trump didn’t win the popular vote but was still somehow chosen at the 45th President of the US instead of Democratic nominee, Hillary R Clinton.
For Democrats and liberals, Trump is the personification of the mind-sets of the racist and discriminatory white supremacists of the US. Many have criticised him of spewing venomous and inflammatory words against immigrants, Muslims and transgendered people. And while the persistent recklessness of his will made him get out of Iran deal and move the embassy of Israel to Jerusalem sparking a new row of violent and fearful atmosphere in the controversial region of the middle east.
But how fair have been the liberal side of the spectrum?
Recently, the big news about Trump’s recent rant is trending towards his “animals” comment. In an interview with the Sheriff from the Fresno county, California, Trump was asked a question about MS-13 gang members (A band of people renowned for their heinous torture methods of killing and raping people) where he referred to these people as ‘animals’.
Shortly after that, many well-known people who identify themselves as liberals jumped on Twitter and other social media platforms to condemn this man’s remarks without understanding the context of it.
Many News portals such as the New York Times, Vox, CBS news, etc made their headlines as ‘Trump calls immigrants animals’ when the context was clearly different. Many even came in the defence of MS-13 saying that even they are humans and shouldn’t be treated as anything less than humans.
Trump’s remarks in the past might have surely been the catalyst for this but people jumping to conclusions so quickly without wanting to see the bigger picture, in order to create more paranoia and animosity between people of the Political and racial spectrum, is something democrats and liberals shouldn’t have done.
How insanely racially biased one has to be in order to come to the defence of rapists and murderers.
The liberals pride themselves on being educated and well-informed and then this happens that makes them equally ignorant as the ones that went on and supported Donald Trump.
It would be almost impossible for me to deny Trump’s racist remarks and his fan club of white supremacists, but for once, Anyone can defend him and rightly so and what’s worse; the liberal news networks gave Trump the winning card this time.
It almost makes you think whether or not, any in the political spectrum really cares for the rights of the people or are just really excellent in giving heart felt speeches about freedom and justice for all people.
The moment we stop fighting “for” each other, that’s the moment we lose our humanity.
Over 500 people dead in the last one week including 121 children. These innocent civilians fell victim to the mass murder due to bombardment by the government forces of their country. Yes they were the citizens of Syria, where the government, in its quest to crush the opposing rebel forces has forgotten to differentiate between civilians and the rebel outfits, sparing not even the innocents in the bloodbath that has become Syria’s identity. Over 393,000 people remain trapped in the area of Eastern Ghouta which Syrian forces backed by Russia have been pounding since last Sunday. The humanitarian crisis has been largely due to the government of Syria and its allies Iran and Russia. UN Security Council has been debating and is struggling on a ceasefire resolution, but Russia is not ready to back down without dealing a final blow to the rebel forces in Damascus and has been accused by western powers of stalling time. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has described the conditions in Syria as hell on earth. There couldn’t have been a more apt term to describe the country that’s almost on the verge of its destruction.
A Syrian refugee child cries at the Al Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria.
The Syrian Civil war has stretched on for more than six years now and the end seems to be nowhere in sight. Over 400,000 people have lost their lives and more than 5 million people have fled the country. But this article is not to discuss the background and the causes of the war; this is to discuss the world’s appalling silence and ignorance over the plight of Syria. People are so busy living in their comfortable delusional worlds where Syria is a far off mythical land where no matter how many more people keep dying every day, it’s going to have no effect on rest of the world. You probably think that what has happened to that country could never happen to your’ s or to put it more bluntly, you have no business paying attention to the fate of Syria. To you, Syria exists in a different universe, unworthy of your empathy or even your attention. The dying children, the pain of those innocent people means nothing to you, the violence doesn’t bother you, because their existence never did in the first place. But you see, the Syrians too probably never thought that this could happen to them, that the bloodshed would go long for this long.
You might think, why should you bother about it and anyway it is an international issue, so what difference would it make even if chose to bother? Let us discuss the first why. Firstly, we need to bother about Syria because of the most simple reason that we are human. If the sight of little Aylan Kurdi washed up on the shores of the sea didn’t shake your senses, if the sight of countless starving homeless scared Syrian children doesn’t wake you up from your slumber or if the thought of countless innocent people being killed like insects on daily basis doesn’t make a difference to you, then I don’t know what will. Why is it that a mass shooting in Chicago triggers protests throughout the world but no one even bats an eyelid over the news of thousands of lives being torn apart in Syria every single day. Have we stooped so low that even our empathy has become biased upon what sells and what not? Why is it that some lives get the sympathy of the entire world and the value of some lives is reduced to being cheaper than oil? Will you only take notice when Facebook makes it the new cool to upload your DP with the Syrian flag? Just remember, when the world let Iraq and Afghanistan bleed, Taliban happened. And now while the world is busy ignoring Syria, ISIS is happening. Proxy battlegrounds like the war torn Syria are the breeding ground of terrorists. Some people believe that Syria deserves it because the country gave birth to the deadliest terrorist outfits of recent times, ISIS. But have you spared a thought as to why people become terrorists? Because they were neglected, because nobody paid attention to them when they being exploited. When atrocities were being committed against them, nobody saved them. And that is what led them to get misguided and blindfolded in the farce of religious bigotry . Because these people see every day, their country being reduced to ashes, their culture, their heritage being brought to ruins, their children killed, their houses burnt, their women raped and still not a ray of justice. Their fault? Being born in a country caught in the vicious web of political unrest and violence. The cycle is same everywhere. Exploitation of the weak and poor for the gains of the rich and powerful. The weak take up arms first in defence, and then get misguided and forget to differentiate between their exploiters and the innocent. That is how every terrorist outfit comes into existence, by luring the downtrodden, by misguiding the people who have been wrong and denied justice into false promises of religious salvation. The developed nations leave no opportunity of exploiting and taking advantage of a weaker country with abundant resources.
Now the second question, what you as an individual can do? You could just start by being aware , raise your voice against the heinous cruelty and the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Talk, write, share, create and spread awareness. Opinions are like waves. They travel far and wide. A single person’s opinion might not matter to the world, but a country’s opinion sure does. And when the country is a contender for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, its opinion matters. Being a citizen of that country, you have the power to shape up the mentality of an entire nation, in your own little capacity.
The killing in Syria can be stopped. It is going on because what was an internal political matter of Syria has been blown into a proxy war among the world powers like USA and Russia and regional ones like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. These foreign interventions played the major role in promoting sectarianism between the Shia and Sunni communities of a predominantly secular Syria. The conflicts of the communities gave rise to the bloodiest episodes of violence of recent times. The world powers have long ago stopped thinking about the lives of Syrians and are now using the chaos for the fulfilment of their own interests in Syria. Why did these external powers intervene in the internal affairs of Syria? A well speculated theory suggests that all of this is for the control over the Natural Gas pipeline connecting the Middle East to Europe which is supposed to go through Syria. Russia, which uses its position as the supplier of a quarter of Europe’s natural gas as a political leverage , had its market in trouble due to this pipeline which would link Europe to the Middle East directly and straightaway reduce Europe’s dependency on Russia. Turkey came into the picture as it stands at crossroads of Asia & Europe and is an aspiring member of the European Union. Turkey is considered as the best option for facilitating the movement of gas supplies from Middle East to Europe. US and Turkey want to ensure free export of gas through suppliers in Middle East which is obviously not in the best interests of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Also, Iran’s interest lies in Shia bolstering and its involvement in the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah. So, all these powers are busy fuelling the war further for protection of their respective interests. They supply subsidized weapons, military advisors and monetary funding to the Syrian government forces and the rebel forces depending on who they support. If all of them stop funding the war, it would have stopped probably a long time ago.
Have you ever thought, a country that’s in flames, where does it get the money and resources to keep the war going on? The war is sponsored . Wars are always sponsored. Sponsored by the countries that claim to be the Messiah but in reality are the biggest sponsors of the genocide. It was Iraq in 2003 over oil. And now its Syria for natural gas. Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria. Which country is next?
The world needs to wake up to the pain of Syria. The UN needs to be stern and take measures for a political solution to the conflict. The refugees need to be rehabilitated and the people trapped and unable to flee Syria need to be rescued. In a way, all the countries that have cashed on the war by fuelling it owe the Syrians a safe future. And no, you can’t just blow up a country and ban its citizens from entering your own when they knock at your doorstep for help. If you are so concerned about protecting your country from terrorists, stop creating them. It is that simple.
So people, sit right back up and take notice of what’s happening around the world. Syria maybe far away, Myanmar is not. Don’t even be surprised if another ISIS rises out of the Rohingyas .The world has a lot to learn from the story of the destruction of Syria. How a protest against government oppression turned into widespread violence and how wrong tactics of brute force on the part of the Syrian government lead to the civil war. And the biggest lesson, that if a government invites foreign powers to intervene in its internal matters, they will plunder the country. If you let them in on the internal disputes of your country, if you stand divided as a nation on the basis of caste and religion, just remember , there are powers that are lurking just around the corner to cash in on the unrest.
The entire nation is lost in festive reveries. It’s a dark picture of morbid contrasts that people in one country are painting their lives in pretty colours and in another part of the world, people haven’t been able to celebrate a festival in years. How will they? When the cacophony of violence around them has taken over their hope for a normal life? Those people watch their family and friends die every day, their houses up in flames, their lives in shambles. To them, a day of relative peace and survival is no less than a festival. Yes, I am talking about Syria, the country which has not seen normalcy since years.
Syria began its descent into civil war in early 2011, when government security forces shot and killed protesters. But if President Bashar al-Assad thought a show of force would end the protests, he was wrong.
Here is a timeline of key events in the Syrian civil war.
The Beginning of the war:-
The Syrian civil war grew out of the widespread discontent among the people of Syria with the Syrian government led by President Bashar Al Assad. Long before the war began, people complained about the prevalent corruption, high unemployment, lack of political freedom and state repression that were a characteristic of the Assad government. In March 2011, the first uprising of prodemocracy demonstrations began to erupt in South Syria, the city of Deraa being the epicentre. These protests drew inspiration from the Arab Spring protests early in 2011. The government retaliated by using brute force to crush the protests. This triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad’s resignation. The government crackdown further intensified. In response, the opposition rebels took up arms, the reasons for which ranged from self- defence to the expulsion of the security forces from the local areas. The violence escalated in no time and Syria descended into civil war as numerous rebel groups were formed to fight the government forces over the country’s control.
The Rise of Jihadist Groups:-
The war would not have lasted this long if either the rebels or the government had managed to defeat the other and restore political stability in the country. But as the war stretched on further, it metamorphosized into an even dangerous form as Jihadist groups took advantage of the political unrest to seize large parts of the country. These groups emerged in the guise of government opposing forces but soon their real identity of extremist Islamic propaganda groups began to take shape. As if the people weren’t already suffering enough due to the violent struggle between the rebels and the government, they had to bear the brunt of the tortures of these Jihadist groups as they began expanding their territory of control. ISIS emerged as the deadliest of these groups and the atrocities committed by it against innocent civilians are no secret. Women, Children, journalists, no one was spared by them From murders to beheading to rapes to human trafficking to sex slavery, there’s not a single cruelty that ISIS has not subjected the people of Syria to.
Foreign Intervention in the war:-
At this point, regional and world powers began to intervene in the war including Russia, USA, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. All these countries claim that they are fighting the Islamic State but in reality, they provide military, financial and political support to the government or the rebels depending on whose sides their interests lie. So, the funding from these countries is the reason why the war has intensified and continued for so long. Each of these countries has intervened in the matter for the protection of their own interests. Syria has turned into a proxy battleground where these external powers are working as puppeteers to steer the course of the war into their own favour. For them, the war is just a machinery to strengthen their hold over the region. The external powers have fostered sectarianism in Syria which was mostly secular by pitching the Sunni majority against the Shia Alawite sect to which President Bashar Al Assad also belongs. What started as a revolution against state oppression now turned into a civil war fuelled with religious hatred. This led to both the community sides to commit atrocious crimes towards each other causing huge loss of life and property which further dimmed the hopes of a peaceful settlement.
From left: U.S. President, Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
President Assad’s victory is important for Russia in maintaining its interests in Syria. It launched air campaign in 2015 September to target terrorist groups but these strikes mainly hit the western powers backed rebel groups. 6 months later, Putin withdrew the campaign but intense air strikes continued until the siege of rebel help Aleppo that fell in December 2016.
Shia supporter Iran spends exorbitant sums of money every year to bolster the Shia dominated government. Iran provides military advisors, credit, oil transfer and subsidized weapons to the Syrian govt. Iran has even deployed combat troops in Syria. Syria is Iran’s closest Arab ally. It is also the main transit point for the Iranian weapons shipments to the Lebanese Shia Islamist Movement Hezbollah which also sends thousands of fighters to fight alongside the Syrian government forces.
US have carried out air strikes in Syria since 2014. US claims that it only provides assistant to moderate rebel groups as advanced weapons might fall into the hands of the terrorists. Turkey is another staunch supporter of the rebels. In 2016, Turkish troops drove the IS militants out of one of the last remaining stretches of the Syrian side of border. They forced the US to deploy troops to the Syrian Democratic Front controlled areas to prevent clashes.
The effect of the war:-
According to the UN, more than 400,000 people have been killed in the past 6 years. Five million people, most of them women and children have fled Syria. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey are struggling to cope up with the biggest refugee crisis in the recent history. About 10% refugees have sought shelter in Europe as the countries continue to argue over sharing the burden. About 6.3 million people are internally displaced in Syria. Around $ 3.4bn are estimated to be required to provide humanitarian assistance to the 11 million people inside Syria. More than half of the pre-war population of Syria i.e. 11 million people have been killed or have fled from the country. 85% of Syrians live in poverty with more than two thirds of the population in extreme poverty. 1.75 million Children are out of school. More than 7 million people are food insecure amid rising prices and food shortages. People continue to die as a result of incessant bombings, gunning and chemical attacks carried out by the warring forces.
Why have the peace attempts failed?
Neither side has been able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other. The International community was led to the conclusion that only a political solution could end the conflict. The UN Security Council had called for the 2012 Geneva Communique. Peace talks in 2014 broke down after 2 rounds due to Syrian govt’s refusal to discuss opposition demands. A year later, US and Russia persuaded representatives of the two sides to attend talks in 2016 to discuss a peace plan including ceasefire and elections. But the plans again collapsed. After the fall of Aleppo, the first face to face meeting of rebels and government officials took place in 2017 hosted by Kazakhstan, Turkey and Russia. Several UN mediated talks have followed since then yielding little success.
Present Scenario:-
With the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian government has the four biggest Syrian cities under its control. But large parts of the country are still held by other armed groups. And although IS militants have suffered extensive losses, they still hold large parts of central and northern Syria. The end to the war is still nowhere in sight. Air strikes by Russia and U.S. continue as hundreds of civilians die every day. To call it a civil war seems wrong on so many levels now, because the war is not among the people, it’s on the people, by the government. The humanitarian crisis in Syria has reached an all-time low with UN Secretary General calling it ‘hell on Earth’.
Narcissist, Misogynist, hot-headed, obnoxious and on top of all a Billionaire, sound familiar? Yes, I am talking about the 45th President of The United States of America, Donald John Trump.
Since announcing his candidacy for President- and then actually bagging the job thanks to the US election results 2016. we’ve been exposed to a steady slew of ridiculousness from the businessman-turned-TV personality-turned-Leader Of The Free World. An endless list of controversial statements from the man himself caught my attention.I have no idea where to start. If a black man wishes to become the President of the United States of America he need to have a degree from University of Columbia, needs to be an editor of the Harvard law review and then the president of the Harvard Law Review, a research assistant to a constitutional scholar, an associate at a law firm, a US senator. But if a white man wants to be the president of The USA he needs to be rich and white.
Who is Donald trump?
A guy who hates women but has himself been married 3 times till date, a man of his word I guess. Unsurprisingly, given his opinions on beautiful women, Donald seemed to enjoy his sideline as president of the Miss World enterprise (which is basically like being president of the United States, right?) an organization that put teenage girls in heels and bikinis and then had them jump around on stage. So how did he go from gauche billionaire to potentially having his finger on the red button? Well, he’d been talking about politics for years, first suggesting that he might run for election in 1988, and suggesting it regularly until 2012. In 2013 he spent an estimated $1 million dollars on research into becoming President. But it wasn’t until June 2015 that Trump called a press conference at the Trump Tower in New York and announced his intention to run for President of the United States, whilst the whole of the rest of the world collectively shook their heads.
I’ve been following him since the time he announced his run for the President, The first and a very controversial statement given by him was about the second amendment and Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump said that Hillary Clinton wanted to “essentially abolish the Second Amendment” because of her support for gun control. General Michael Hayden, who is the former head of the CIA, stated that “If someone else had said that outside the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him.”
And his comments which sometimes incited people for violence started coming up. One of them being the comment on Captain Humayun Khan, a U.S soldier who was killed in Iraq in 2004 by a suicide bomber and later was awarded a bronze star medal and a purple hat. Khizr Khan spoke about his son and criticized Trump for his Muslim ban proposals, asking if Trump had ever read the U.S constitution, and offering to give him a copy. He stated that Trump had “sacrificed nothing and no one.” Trump responded to the criticism on Twitter, stating that Khizr Khan “viciously attacked me” and tweeting: “This story is not about Mr. Khan, who is all over the place doing interviews, but rather RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM and the U.S. Get smart!” Later, Trump released a written statement saying “Captain Humayun Khan was a hero to our country and we should honor all who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country safe”, adding “While I feel deeply for the loss of his son, Mr. Khan, who has never met me, has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution (which is false), and say many other inaccurate things.”
Trump frequently praised Russia’s Vladimir Putin, calling him a strong leader, “unlike what we have in this country, a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond, “and wondered if “he will become my new best friend.” He continued to praise Putin throughout the campaign, comparing him favorably to Obama, hailing Russia as an ally in fighting ISIS, and downplaying any suggestion that Russia had behaved aggressively in the world. He also dismissed the assertion by U.S. intelligence officials that Russia is responsible for the computer hacking of Democratic party organizations and individuals. Trump called for closer relations with Russia and has surrounded himself with a team of advisers who have had financial ties to Russia. No wonder why Russia has been accused of hacking and tampering the US elections in favor of Trump but as there are no proofs of this it would be wrong to accuse someone.
The list of his controversies is very long and rather interesting this is just the start. You can get a vague idea of how good a man he is with this comment” it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.” I hope America is ready for what is coming.
January 20, 2009, a day which is remembered as one of the phenomenal frontiers in the history of America. Yes, Barack Obama was welcomed as the 44th President of The United States Of America with open arms. The very persistent fact that America elected its first Non-White President shows how America feels for unity and diversity.
As U.S.A 2016 elections are nearing, it makes not only the Americans, but also his admirers realise that what a mesmerising and magnetic personality he is. A man like him is a pioneer who was always there as an inspiring figure.
One of the best things about Obama which I personally like is the way he connected with whomsoever he came across. The way he connected with the youth was so eclectic that he never had a one-way perspective about how he made way for neutral solutions. His ideology of progress as a nation was magnanimous and revering.
On an official note, Obama in his first term as a president focussed on global financial crisis, to reform health care, extension of Bush tax cuts and the end of a major USmilitary presence inIraq. As of his Second term, he took steps to combat climate change and signing an executive orders to a major international climate agreement.
From an Indian perspective, since Obama as the President, he has maintained great and healthy relations with India. The way it has been scrutinised and maintained just proves one of his ideologies of ‘All for one and one for all.’
On January 20th 2017, Barack Obama is going to bow down and bid adieu to the most cherished and enthralled 7 years of his life. I can’t give the benefit of the doubt that any other man (or woman) like him will create a turn-out for America as he did.
