Syrians Against Censored Syria

Reposted from Golaniya's Decentering Damascus.
Facebook is blocked in Syria, would I sound naïve if I said I didn’t see it coming? Why should I? How are the Syrians facebooking? Launching opposition campaigns? What's Facebook in Syria anyway? Active civil society? Syrian groups calling to overthrow the Syria regime? What's so dangerous about Syrian facebookers that they shouldn't be using it anymore? Or perhaps because the site is American so it should be blocked? Or maybe the Syrian officials have no idea what's Facebook except that it's an American and it's getting popular in Syria? All the above?

My theory? I think the Syrian officials don’t have a thorough idea how Syrians are facebooking, I think they did not block Facebook–the-site, but the unfamiliar reaction to this site, the unknown consequences of this reaction that might be very much, uncontrolled!

Even though I am not a big fan of this website but I along with some users learned how to use it to promote my projects. More than once I tried permanently to deactivate my account, but I always come back and always for a new different reason.

Ok so Ammar Abd El Hamid used to blog on Blogger, but he's not anymore god damn it! Youtube has opposition videos downloaded, opposition sites are opposition "no good" sites, Israel is the "enemy", but what's really the deal with Facebook? And how come Myspace, Hi5, Hi-Syria, and I don’t know what, aren’t blocked in Syria? Why just Facebook?

United Nations estimated the population in Syria year 2003 at 17,800,000. How many of those do we have on Facebook? It says that there are only 28,079 facebookers that affiliated to the "Syria" regional network. Of course there are many Syrian Facebookers who don’t affiliate with the Syrian regional network simply because they don’t live in Syria. So generally speaking those who affiliate to the Syrian network live in Syria at the moment. So out of millions we have only 28,079 Syrian Facebookers.

Compared to Syria, Lebanon which was estimated in 2003 by the United Nations at 3,653,000 has 150,966 facebooker users affiliated to its regional network.

Looks like Facebook isn’t popular in Syria as Hi5 or Hi-Syria , yet it is the first and only social website that was blocked in Syria. Again, why?

Let's take a look at the popular groups in Syria at its second day of the blockage:

أغلظ 100 شخصية في سوريا

الإعلان السوري .....إلى متى هذا الإنحطاط ؟؟؟

لمسة عشق على ارض دمشق

بحبك يا شام

أصابيع رجلين البنات عشقها الشباب _ Fingers feet

Anti-Shawi ~...Die Shawi Die!!!...~

Syrian Single Girls

لا لسجن سلطان الطرب

The Great Facebook Race – Syria

احلى النكت الحمصية

Very…dangerous I'd say! None of these groups are political or even close to demanding political or social change in Syria. So it must be not the majority's interests that concerns the Syrian officials but rather the minority's interests and activism in the site:

FREE ANWAR BUNNI

Freedom for Michel Kilo

Syrian Gays Rights

لا .. لحجب مواقع الانترنت في سوريا

For Civil Marriage in Syria


Facebook's events and groups are not just what's processing the Syrian people's awareness, but also its causes. For the past 40 years the Syrian officials are the only ones who can speak of Golan Heights, I once wanted to write my seminar and I asked for a map of Golan Heights but they told me I cannot for "security reasons". Ayman Haykal, a Syrian citizen and the father of the Syrian bloggers made an attempt to transfer the strictly formal representation of Golan Heights to people when he created the cause Free Golan. It's the people who make causes happen, not officials, and certainly not elected ones. Yaser Arafat died, but he wasn’t the cause, Palestine, Palestinians are, the Palestinian cause will always live as long as there are living Palestinians.

Another cause on Facebook is Saving Old Damascus, that is from Syrian Regime itself.

It is worth to note that a couple days ago Syrian Facebookers have launched a campaign to save a girl from a potential "honour" crime. Dania Sharif wrote the petition and addressed it to Syrian authorities to act and stop honour crimes in Syria. Not sure if this was the reason or not, but it could be.

These groups are not popular, not because their cases are not supported but their unpopularity stems from fear. Nevertheless, these political and unorthodox groups are not the reason of the blockage of the site, I think.

Who lives in Syria knows that it's the country of "nothing's going on" except to hang out in old Damascus' cafes, but recently there has been a cultural awakening; people are starting to organize their interests in concerts, galleries, conferences, plays, screenings…etc. and Facebook is facilitating the process which is very hard to do in an inactive militarily controlled society. There are no cultural institutions in Syria, no private independent NGOs, no civic institutions, who represent the populations except the government? Syrian Facebookers are trying now to represent themselves. Those who cannot be activists in a "real" Syria can be one in a virtual Syria. Facebook is becoming a tool to bring together these very individuals to promote their socially, religiously and politically prohibited thoughts. We are not talking about blocking of a social networking tool, we are talking about blocking an awareness networking tool, a chance to express, to finally speak and do something about it.

It's high time to demand our right to seek ALL and ANY information regardless of its source, we have the mind to decide for ourselves what we should/should not read or believe.

We have the right to organize ourselves and activate our numb citizenship. We want to be socially and politically active. We want to campaign for human rights, we want to be civilians instead of abstract "Syrians," instead of mere Muslims and Christians.

We want to engage in building our nation.

We don’t want to be permitted to act; we want to be voluntarily and spontaneously acting.

We want to be doers and actors.

We want Syria uncensored!